Georgia, along with family medicine residency programs from twenty-five additional states, set up decorative booths at the Kansas City Convention Center July 28th-30th to attract medical student candidates to Georgia to attend residency in our state.  Current residents from our programs were there to offer information and share their passion for family medicine with medical students, who were excited and energetic about family medicine and the future.  The steady stream of medical students visiting the Georgia programs was non-stop for three days, and our programs engaged with hundreds of prospective applicants where our programs united to create a strong presence to the students.

In addition, we had a full delegation representing us in both the resident and student categories.  Drs. Daniel Gordon from the Memorial Health Program in Savannah and Chetan Patel from the Columbus Family Medicine Residency Program, two of our resident Board members, were our delegate and alternate respectively, and Joey Krakowiak and Tim Hutton, two of our student Board members, served as our student delegate and alternate.

Our resident delegates reported that the total conference attendance was 4,565-a record high composed of 1,210 Residents and 1,349 Students, and that out of 66 resolutions submitted, another record high, 46 were adopted.

SPECIAL NEWS: Chetan Patel, MD was elected as 1 of the 2 National Resident Alternate Delegates to the AAFP Congress of Delegates for 2016-2017!  Congratulations to Dr. Patel, who is pictured here with AAFP Board member Dr. Jack Chou from California and Dr. Gerry Tolbert, NCCL Convener. The main stage sessions during the conference were inspirational and challenging. They enjoyed hearing from the panel of doctors who discussed various issues that impact family medicine, including how increasing the number of primary care doctors and utilizing them well would help solve our nationwide healthcare spending problem. They were challenged by Dr. Jeffrey Brenner about innovative ways to think about our healthcare system. He shared convincing data about the benefits of healthcare hotspotting through his work with the Camden Coalition.

Our student delegates, Joey Krakowiak and Tim Hutton, reported that they appreciated the opportunity to represent the Georgia Academy at the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students Congress of Delegates last week.  It was their first time attending and were thrilled to meet so many like-minded people who are excited and passionate about Family Medicine and striving to provide the best care for their patients.

And they even got a chance to meet and talk with Dr. Wanda Filer, the president of the AAFP, as pictured here.