ACOFP Blog
For Family, By Family—ACOFP Blog
Establishing with a PCP and maintaining regular follow up appointments will always be an important component of taking control of your health, but this year—more than ever—it is imperative for patients to find their health home.
Advocacy can take place in any form as long as the goal of promoting change in the system can be achieved. What’s most important is to start taking active steps towards advocacy. By engaging in more advocacy, current and future physicians will be able to make a positive impact on patient health and wellness.
The coronavirus will not go away immediately. Therefore, preventive medicine needs to adapt. Physicians and all health professionals need to consider the benefits of physical activity for their personal health, and for the health of the public. During our COVID-19 existence, exercise is not only good for maintaining physical health, but it is a critical component of maintaining mental fitness.
I look forward to the day when the number of female leaders at our medical schools and in our professional organizations will be too numerous to count and will no longer be a statistic to track—when our communities are represented by women equally in the legislature, when C-suites are filled with women and when all people, regardless of gender or race, are treated equitably based on skills and ability to contribute.
Osteopathic medicine has faced countless threats over nearly 150 years of existence. To ensure osteopathic family medicine remains a viable profession for decades and centuries to come, ACOFP members must come together as a community to encourage residents and medical students to pursue osteopathic certification through AOBFP.
I have only heard about the history of DOs fighting to maintain independent licensing in the state of California or being able to gain rounding privileges at traditional allopathic hospitals. I have never been denied the ability to provide holistic care to a patient because I have DO after my name instead of MD. That is why seeing such misinformation about our profession being spread through Twitter, Facebook and mainstream media seems both surreal and archaic at the same time.
Taking the AOBFP board certification supports and maintains distinction of the osteopathic profession. By supporting the AOBFP, we are endorsing advocacy for and protection of the distinct elements of the osteopathic profession. With taking the OMT practical in addition to the written exam, one will be “safe” from the possibility that OMT reimbursement in the future will be only to those who are board certified in the practice.
When the American Osteopathic Board of Family Medicine announced the groundbreaking Early Entry Initial Certification (EEIC) pathway, I knew this was the direction I wanted to go.
Pursuing the now optional OMT portion of the board certification was an easy choice for me. I want my patients to know that beyond being trained in osteopathic medicine, I have gone through the process of having my skills reviewed and approved by a larger body—like any other board exam.