2024 Conference Highlights
Get a feel for FUTURE with a look back at National Conference ’24.
This Event is Beyond Special
We know everyone says that about their event, but the energy the next generation of health care leaders brings to Kansas City is infectious. Keep scrolling for a taste of the on-site excitement.
Be Part of the FUTURE
In an era marked by rapid advancements in technology and health care, the timely adoption of artificial intelligence in medical education is essential for maintaining the quality and sustainability of health care systems worldwide. This workshop delved into innovative AI-driven strategies, their impact on medical education and the path forward for ensuring that health care professionals are not only well prepared, but at the fore of technological advancements in health care delivery.
Learning objectives explored:
- Define key concepts related to artificial intelligence in the context of medical education.
- Compare and contrast traditional medical education methods with AI-enhanced approaches and highlight the advantages and limitations of each.
- Design a hypothetical AI-driven module or tool for medical education.
- Evaluate and critique existing AI-powered medical education platforms and tools.
Related AAFP content: Administrative Simplification
The basics of personal finance and how to invest are skills that are not often taught. Learn how to open investment accounts, start investing and build a foundation to start accumulating wealth.
Learning objectives explored:
- Understand how financial literacy is key to wellness.
- Learn about investment basics, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds and index funds, and how to invest in ways that will maximize profits and minimize risk.
- Walk away with an investment plan to build wealth for you and your family.
Related AAFP content: Managing Your Career
Family physicians have a clarion call to prevent, treat and reverse disease. Evidence-based lifestyle medicine is increasingly acknowledged as an invaluable and sustainable means to achieve health. Attendees learned about a plant-forward way of living that will satisfy the culinary palates of people from all over the world; accommodate dietary restrictions, allergies and preferences; and promote overall health.
Learning objectives explored:
- Gain a better understanding of the evidence supporting a whole-foods, plant-forward diet.
- Learn time-saving grocery and meal-planning methods for personal application and to share with patients.
- Experience a freshly prepared, nutritious snack and receive recipes for personal preparation.
Related AAFP content: Lifestyle Medicine
Dr. Nwando Olayiwola’s Main Stage traced her career across an impressive atlas of family medicine’s many available destinations and made a convincing case for future physicians to embrace the possible. She offered students and residents powerful advice on shaping their careers, highlighting how rewarding family medicine’s many pathways can be.
Alex Sheen is the founder of because I said I would, a social movement and nonprofit dedicated to bettering humanity through promises made and kept. Sparked by the loss of his father, Alex and his organization send “promise cards” to anyone anywhere in the world at no cost.
Unravel the confusion, bust the myths, and reveal the truth about what it means to be a family physician. Learn how to answer tough questions about family medicine for yourself and others. This workshop built attendees' confidence and understanding of the specialty and helped them become champions for family medicine when talking with peers, family and colleagues.
Learning objectives explored:
- Accurately define family medicine and understand the future of family medicine in a rapidly changing health care and technological landscape.
- Describe the scope of practice of a family physician.
- Identify practice styles and settings for family physicians.
- Explain why family medicine is integral to the future of health care.
Related AAFP content: Choose More. Choose Family Medicine.
With constant changes in the residency application process, medical students are subject to well-intended yet sometimes misguided coaching in preparation for the Electronic Residency Application Service® (ERAS®) and National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). This can be particularly true for international medical graduates and others who have backgrounds underrepresented in medicine.
Learning objectives explored:
- Describe how skills learned through life challenges prepare you to become a better physician.
- Identify areas in the ERAS® application where you can demonstrate resiliency in your life experiences.
- Exemplify how to positively incorporate life-challenging experiences within the residency application process.
- Recognize the potential for triggers when telling your story and when to seek support.
Related AAFP content: Applying to Residency Programs
The act of balancing your work and personal life can feel like walking a perpetual tightrope, one that you’ll likely navigate your entire life. This workshop highlighted how the specialty of family medicine supports healthy work-life harmony.
Learning objectives explored:
- Examine both male and female challenges to achieving work-life harmony.
- Understand challenges associated with work-life harmony during and after residency.
- Learn about barriers to work-life harmony in nontraditional and single-parent residents and identify tools to address them.
Related AAFP content: Managing Your Career
Our team worked hard throughout the event to document important experiences. Read about the impact our sessions, speakers, and other on-site opportunities had on attendees.
North Carolina’s nearly two dozen family medicine residency programs should be well acquainted with Colleen Yang because the third-year medical student has already been to National Conference twice. Yang returned to Kansas City as the Region 5 (Southeastern U.S.) coordinator of the AAFP’s FMIG network. “I networked with family physicians and found that the FMIG activities really fit me and my personality,” said Yang.
The two talks, each witty and emotionally direct and each touching on family, service and leadership, illustrated in complementary ways the power of choice. Taken together at the 50th anniversary of this gathering, they offered students and residents powerful advice on shaping their careers, and a look at how varied and rewarding family medicine’s pathways can be.
Stacy Bartlett, MD, didn’t need board games like Monopoly or The Game of Life to learn about money as a kid. She was playing—and learning—with real money. After bombarding her parents with questions about money and finance, her father gave Bartlett her first stock and encouraged her to follow their hometown hamburger chain’s progress in the newspaper. Now, she’s a certified financial education instructor.
Before becoming the National Conference Student Chair, Allison Zamora, MPH, was an attendee in awe of her predecessor. “I was impressed by the level of knowledge [2022’s student chair, Morgan Weiler, MD] had about the processes and how she was able to facilitate everything that was going on,” said Zamora. Exactly one year later, it was Zamora’s turn to take the reins.
Alison Johnston doesn’t know where she will train as a family medicine resident, but her long-term career plan is clear. “I’m looking for a residency program that will train me and give me the confidence that I can take over my mom’s practice when she retires and give me the skillset to do all the things my mom does for our community,” said Johnston, a fourth-year Penn State College of Medicine student.
The 50 projects featured in the National Conference ’24 posters are pushing health care forward.
Sensitivity and Specificity of Waist-to-Height Ratio in Screening for Type 2 Diabetes Among Asian Americans
Alexandria Ahlm
Social Isolation As a Social Determinant of Health and Its Impact on Mortality in Community-Dwelling Adults With Cancer
Sandipkumar Chaudhari, MD, Prabhnoor Saraya, MD, and Shubhangi Gupta, MD
