We need your help to continue the good work of
Family Medicine in Haiti! 

Please consider making a donation after watching the following video and hearing first hand from our Delegates.

 

Donate today to support Family Medicine Cares International.

President's Desk: Jason Marker, MD, FAAFP

Thanks for checking out our latest blog post!  If you arrived here from the President’s Update email, thanks for that last click that led you here.  If you arrived by another means, we’re glad you’re here to get an update on the AAFP Foundation’s activities and encourage you to check us out on: website, Twitter, and Facebook.

What a winter!  While many philanthropic organizations are hibernating for the winter after the flurry of year-end activities that are typical of fundraising organizations, the Foundation revs into high-gear in January and February.

Mid-January is the so-called “Working Party” meeting.  This year held in Phoenix, it is a meeting of the 8 organizations that make up the “family” of Family Medicine. This year we had a very productive AAFP Foundation Officer’s Strategy Session to make sure we were all on the same page and working toward a clear common goal. We also participated in the broader conversation about the direction of Family Medicine as a specialty to make sure all of the organizations have a shared vision and are avoiding duplication of work.

At the end of the month was the annual Corporate Roundtable meeting.  Held in Clearwater, FL it brings together top leaders of the Foundation, AAFP and our many corporate partners from the medical industry for a 2-day exchange of ideas designed to keep us fresh with the latest updates in our respective areas.  This exchange allows us to work toward common goals.  It was a powerful two days that will help drive decisions for all the attendees in the future.  We truly appreciate our corporate partners  and continue to say thank you the past support.  For any corporate partners reading this, if you have additional feedback about anything you find on our website that you want more information about, please reach out to us.  We want your voice to be heard.

Family Medicine Cares has been a Signature Program of the Foundation for several years.  FMC USA is a grant program supporting free medical clinics around the country.  We treat every grant like it’s the first one we’ve done and we are so proud of the work being done by family docs around America.  In early February, Foundation Treasurer, Dr. Brent Smith visited our latest clinic in Meridian, Mississippi. 

The new organization Family Medicine for America’s Health is up and rolling.  A $22 million promise to America that we are committed to as a specialty.  I have the pleasure of serving with this group.  In fact, AAFP Foundation Past-President Dr. Jane Weida is on the Board of Directors.  As part of this initiative there is a national communications strategy which includes a unified strategic plan with specific action steps for revolutionizing the delivery of health care in the U.S. 

  

Finally, a word about Haiti.  At the end of February I was supposed to be giving a lecture to Haitian medical students about the value of primary care, but I wasn't there.  Why not?  Due to political unrest in Haiti, there has been an escalation of violence, demonstrations, road blockades and kidnappings in and around Port au Prince (our home base and leaping off point or everything we do in Haiti).  In high-level meetings between the Foundation staff leadership and the leadership of our in-country partner Heart to Heart International it was determined that our safety while in Haiti at that time could not be assured to everyone’s satisfaction.  The trip is currently postponed as we follow the events on the ground.  We are already making plans to reschedule when and if we can .  We are also considering our options for our ongoing faculty development commitment to their Family Medicine residency training programs.  We remain hopeful this will be a temporary pause in our work and that we can get back to it as soon as possible.  Thanks to all of you for your ongoing commitment to our Family Medicine Cares International initiative in Haiti.

Well, I think that’s all for now.  I will talk more in my next edition about plans for our Family Medicine Leads Emerging Leader Institute in the summer, about our upcoming Board meeting in May, and about ongoing changes in the field of Family Medicine.  I’m SURE the next blog post I write will happen without snow on the ground…I hope. 

Jason Marker, MD, MPA, FAAFP

President, AAFP Foundation

Just the Beginning in Haiti

The AAFP Foundation's first Family Medicine Cares International Delegation recently returned from a week long trip to Haiti.  The group was hosted by in-country partner Heart to Heart International and the Delegation was divided into three teams: Patient Care, Service & Medical Education.

The Medical Education team held two symposiums across Haiti to provide specialized continuing education for Haitian doctors and healthcare providers. Their topic focused on cardiovascular disease.

One of those locations was in the historic city of Cap Haitien, on the country’s north coast. The symposium in Cap Haitien was documented by a journalist from the French-language Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s oldest and largest daily newspaper.


Click the screengrab to the left to see the original article and to read it in French.
Or look below to read the article translated directly into English.

FOR A SURVEY OF THE LEVEL OF HEALTH IN HAITI
Le Nouvelliste | Publié le : 2013-02-06
by: Daphney Valsaint Malandre

Cap Haitien, Haiti — While the final preparations for organizing the carnival takes place in a city of Cap-Haïtien boosted, a group of Haitian and foreign doctors met at the training center of the Justinian Hospital for a symposium Monday, February 4, 2013 .

This activity falls within the framework of a project resulting from the agreement between Dr. Andre Vulcain, the “Project Haiti”, the American Academy of Family Physicians and Heart to Heart International. This project aims primarily to raise the level of health in Haiti while focusing on family medicine. Dr. Andre Vulcain, Haitian doctor, trained in Haiti but who have a specialization in family medicine at the University of Miami, working for the “Haiti Project”, a project of the School of Medicine of the University of Miami that supports Justinian Hospital for nearly 12 years.

Dr. Vulcan returns to Cap-Haitien regularly to provide support for training family physicians can take care of most health problems that may be present in a population. The “Haiti Project” has also helped the hospital develop a service family physicians and to develop a program of support for PV / HIV and a physical rehabilitation program. Their main goal is to assist existing entities and help them to build their capacity. To do this, they are backed by the American Academy of Family Physicians and the NGO Heart to Heart International.

The mission of the American Academy of Family Physicians in Haiti spans three phases. The organization of the Cap-Haitien symposium on cardiovascular disease in partnership with Dr Vulcan is the first. A second symposium will be held in Port-au-Prince Thursday, February 7. Meanwhile, a part of the team providing care to the needy in the area of Leogane while another is actively working in clinics and orphanages in neighborhoods like Bel Air.

Haiti has not been the first country to benefit from the assistance of these practitioners from the United States. These have indeed worked in many other underdeveloped countries. Heart to Heart International, a nongovernmental organization based in the United States, meanwhile, already working in Haiti for five years. The organization has shown, among others, has enough on Haitian soil immediately after the earthquake of 12 January 2010. At that time, there was talk of bringing first aid and provide necessary equipment. This time around, she wants to launch a new program that has already been proven in several Soviet countries for twenty years.

Heart to Heart International has already set up a permanent office in Haiti and several clinics in areas such as Leogane, Bel-Air and the south-east. A staff of about forty Haitians supported by foreign doctors ensure the proper functioning of these clinics. The organization is not only combined with other entities such as the American Academy of Family Physicians, but also with the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) to help Haitian doctors to become specialists in family medicine and increase the level of education of nurses.

These symposia which is attended by representatives of the American Academy of Family Physicians and Heart to Heart International and Dr. Andre Vulcain are in fact the beginnings of a project should extend the long term.