BEYOND FLEXNER ALLIANCE
  • Home
  • About Us
    • History of BFA
    • Vision and Mission
    • Board of Directors
    • BFA Team
    • Remembering Fitz
  • Our Initiatives
    • Health Workforce Diversity Initiative
    • Social Mission Metrics Initiative
    • BFA Allies
    • Student Assembly >
      • Social Mission Scholarship
    • Health Justice Fellowship
  • Events
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2022
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2021 (Virtual)
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2018
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2016
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2015
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2012
    • Macy Awards
  • Newsroom
    • Annual Report
    • News and Media
    • Newsletters
    • Webinars
    • Videos
  • Resources
    • Social Mission Resources
    • Structural Racism Resources
  • Contact Us

NEWS AND MEDIA

Increasing the Number of Medical Students Choosing Family Medicine or Primary Care

10/24/2017

5 Comments

 

Author

Dr. Joshua Freeman is a family physician, health policy researcher, social justice activist, and writer. He publishes a widely-read blog, “Medicine and Social Justice”, and in 2015 published a book, Health, Medicine and Justice: Designing a fair and equitable healthcare system (Copernicus Healthcare press).

Picture
In his JAMA “Viewpoint” article, “Social Mission in Health Professions Education: Beyond Flexner”(1), Fitzhugh Mullan argues that medical schools should be committed to their social mission, which is “…about making health not only better but fairer—more just, reliable, and universal”. This means commitment to reducing health disparities, increasing access to healthcare in both rural and urban underserved communities, and increasing diversity within the health professions. He cites some medical schools as having made significant advances, including Morehouse, Mercer, Florida International University, and the AT Still Mesa Campus. But he also talks about “mainstreaming”, the need for consciousness about, and more important implementation of, social mission in all medical schools.

I believe that the most important measures of a health professions school’s social mission are its outputs, the criteria used by Mullan and colleagues in their seminal 2010 article (2): Are its graduates diverse? Do they practice more in underserved areas? Are they in primary care specialties? Studies show that a well-functioning health system needs at least 40-50% of physicians in primary care; the US is well below 30% and decreasing.

Read More
5 Comments

    Categories

    All
    BFA Blog
    BFA Community
    BFA Leadership
    BFA Statement
    COVID-19
    Dentistry
    Education
    Government
    Health Equity
    Letters
    Medical-Legal Partnerships
    News
    Primary Care
    Racism
    Social Determinants Of Health
    Social Mission
    Updates

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017

Connect with us!

info@beyondflexner.org

Picture
Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About Us
    • History of BFA
    • Vision and Mission
    • Board of Directors
    • BFA Team
    • Remembering Fitz
  • Our Initiatives
    • Health Workforce Diversity Initiative
    • Social Mission Metrics Initiative
    • BFA Allies
    • Student Assembly >
      • Social Mission Scholarship
    • Health Justice Fellowship
  • Events
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2022
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2021 (Virtual)
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2018
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2016
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2015
    • Beyond Flexner Conference 2012
    • Macy Awards
  • Newsroom
    • Annual Report
    • News and Media
    • Newsletters
    • Webinars
    • Videos
  • Resources
    • Social Mission Resources
    • Structural Racism Resources
  • Contact Us