SPCPF

December 2002

Dear Colleagues:

I find myself thinking often, as many of us do, about the challenges we continue to have as we try to address health issues of the underinsured and uninsured, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health services, patient safety, rural health disparities, access to care, bioterrorism and public health preparedness, and others. Our annual meeting in September provided a wonderful opportunity to hear from stimulating presenters about many of these issues and to think about how we can, as an organization and as individuals, participate in advancing primary care policy, education, and research. Thank you again to the presenters and to Bruce Goldberg, MD for facilitating a productive strategic planning session.

As we move forward in advancing our strategic initiatives, our upcoming Society newsletter will be a critical resource for sharing information. I urge members to send short articles, updates on personal or primary care happenings, or general announcements to us by January 31. Digital photos are also welcome. I welcome hearing from any of you with information that you would like to share with the other Fellows.

The role of class representatives is also important to keeping the Fellows connected and in sharing information. I would like to thank Perry Pugno, MD, 2000 class rep, for making a special effort in successfully updating information for all his classmates. I urge all of you to keep in touch with your class rep or the national office so we can maintain your most current information.

Having moved to Washington DC in the past month, I am now making appointments to strengthen the SPCPF's relationships with individuals and organizations sharing our goals. Lynn Wegman, director of the HRSA Division of State, Community, and Public Health, Bureau of Health Professions, and I met to discuss involvement of Society members as faculty for the 2003 fellowship class. We also discussed increasing possibilities for networking with past fellows and the upcoming class of 2003. To facilitate the latter, we are scheduling the SPCPF annual meeting on June 5 – 6, 2003 in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the final session of the 2003 Fellowship. I welcome suggestions for main presenters and invite you to think about responding to the call for abstracts that will be available on the SPCPF Web site by the end of the month (www.primarycaresociety.org). Additional details about the annual meeting will be forthcoming, but I urge you now to save the dates and plan to join us in DC.

As a point of information concerning primary care, I would like to refer you to the IOM Web site to review one of their latest reports entitled Fostering Rapid Advances in Health Care: Learning from System Demonstrations. The report recommends the need for 40 demonstration projects for exemplary primary care practices. If you know of similar reports or initiatives of interest to Fellows, please pass this information on to us so we can share it through the newsletter or Web site.

I know that we each work at our individual levels to promote primary care, and I urge you to enhance your commitment at the broader level through participation in the SPCPF. We need for Fellows to maintain Active Status in the organization to support our activities. As well, we need for nominating organizations and other groups or individuals interested in primary care to join us as Associate and Sustaining members. Thank you to the 9 organizations that contributed sponsorship for the annual meeting. Together, we can affect primary care policy, education, and research at multi levels to enhance quality health care.

As we are nearing the end of 2002, I am more convinced than ever that Society members need to be at the table contributing ideas and in the field sharing our expertise. Thank you for your ongoing support of primary care and the SPCPF.

Sincerely,

Kirsten Thomsen, PA-C
President

Affecting primary care policy, education, research, and service
at the local, state, national, and international levels.