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 Steve Griffith, M.D., and Todd Shaffer, M.D., teach as well as practice the values of family medicine at Truman Medical Center Lakewood. |
The Family Physician:
Health Care for the Ages Step into the waiting room at the Bess Truman Family Medical Center at Truman Medical Center (TMC) Lakewood on any given day, and you might see a newborn baby with symptoms of “colic,” a teenager needing a sports physical for high school, a middle-aged man complaining of chronic heartburn or an elderly woman with a persistent cough: patients representing every stage of life and the spectrum of health care needs. That is the domain of the family medicine physician. The men and women treating those patients at the Family Care Center represent the next generation of primary care physicians. They are members of the UMKC Community and Family Medicine Residency program. From prenatal care to geriatrics and everything in between, they occupy an important position on the front line of health care. “
That commitment is founded on the strong relationship between the UMKC School of Medicine and TMC Lakewood, which is one of only a few teaching hospitals in the country dedicated to training family medicine physicians. The residents are taught by family physicians with the appropriate support of consulting specialists and allied health care providers. “In fact, the residency program comprises the majority of the physician staff at the hospital,” Griffith said. “UMKC and Lakewood have a unique, symbiotic relationship. We make each other strong.” That relationship began in 1980 with the founding of the program and the acceptance of the program’s first residents. “ There were four residents in the program that first year,” said Todd Shaffer, M.D., M.B.A., director of the residency program. “Today, we’ve grown to 38 residents and added fellowships in geriatrics, surgical obstetrics and sports medicine.” Considering current and projected physician shortages, particularly in the area of primary care, Griffith and Shaffer agree that the number of medical students entering family medicine residencies needs to grow. “ The specialty of family medicine will provide the majority of future primary care physicians,” Griffith said. “To meet projected needs, statistics suggest that we should be producing 5,000 family medicine specialists annually nationwide. Currently, we (as a nation) are maybe producing half of that.” Do the math Fewer medical school graduates going into family medicine. Family medicine physicians retiring. An aging baby boomer population. “It adds up to an impending health care crisis in this country,” Shaffer said. “Shortages in primary care physicians are here now, and they are going to get worse.” Indeed, a 2008 University of Missouri-Columbia study suggested that the U.S. could face a shortage of up to 44,000 family physicians and general internists in less than 20 years. “As more and more medical school graduates continue to opt for other, more focused specialties, what we wind up with down the road is a glut of specialists, for example, but no one who can treat a strep throat,” Griffith said. “Family medicine physicians can address more than 90 percent of the problems patients have. And, if further consultation is needed, they can help guide the patient through the maze of specialists and be an advocate and adviser for what is the best treatment for the individual patient.” What’s the answer? “The most obvious challenge is in attracting more medical school graduates to family medicine residencies,” Shaffer said. “And that is no small challenge when medical school graduates know they can make twice or three times the money if they sub-specialize.” But there are benefits and rewards to pursuing a career in family practice that cannot be assigned a dollar value, he noted. “Family medicine is the number one recruited specialty right now,” Shaffer said. “Physicians completing their family medicine residencies can pretty much write their own tickets as to where they want to practice. There are opportunities everywhere.” The ultimate reward, Griffith added, speaks to the very heart of the doctor-patient relationship and why, for many, the choice to pursue a career in medicine is more a “calling” than a pursuit. “Because of the growing primary care shortage, more and more patients are seeing specialists for things that a family medicine physician should be treating,” he said. “Patients want to develop a relationship with their doctor. They are more comfortable with a doctor they feel like they know and who knows them. They want a doctor who will hold their hand, so to speak.” |
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