Resident Congress Agenda Features Social Justice Issues
Burnout Prevention, Payment Parity Also Addressed
Aug. 2, 2023, News Staff — Delegates attending the 2023 National Congress of Family Medicine Residents last week demonstrated the passion for patient care that makes family medicine unique when they adopted resolutions aimed at safeguarding public health and ensuring that all people have access to timely and appropriate medical care.
AAFP resident members weighed in on these and other clinical and practice issues as they gathered for this year’s National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students, July 27-29 in Kansas City, Mo. During the event, held in conjunction with the National Congress of Student Members, delegates to each congress also elected peers to serve in various leadership roles.
The conference drew more than 6,700 registrants. In all, 4,815 residents, 1,453 students and more than 500 physicians, chapter executives and staff, presenters, vendors, AAFP staff and others attended. If you’d like to become involved, this is a perfect time to learn more about elected positions and other leadership opportunities.
Getting the Work Done
Specific actions taken by this year’s resident congress are discussed in the sections below, so feel free to skip ahead!
For those who would like a process reminder, however, it may be helpful to review how all of this works. You can learn more about the resident and student congresses and how their work fits into the Academy’s overall governance process online, but here’s a short description:
Constituent chapters send one resident and one student delegate to participate in their respective congresses, where they develop resolutions seeking specific action by the AAFP (e.g., influence policy, request investigation or implementation of a program, address other issues of concern). Participants in each congress debate the merits of those resolutions during on-site reference committee hearings and vote on their disposition during full business sessions.
Residents and students serving on their respective congress’s reference committees are tasked with
- listening to all viewpoints expressed during committee hearings;
- meeting in executive session to decide based on that testimony and their own knowledge whether to recommend that delegates adopt the original measure or a substitute, not adopt it, or reaffirm it as current policy; and
- reaching consensus and developing a consent calendar to present to the full business session for action.
Congress participants may extract items from the consent calendar for further consideration and separate action.
Although any student or resident Academy member who’s registered to attend National Conference can testify in reference committee hearings and vote on resolutions during the business sessions, only delegates can elect candidates for office during the meeting. This year, 62 residents participated as delegates or alternate delegates, and the total of student delegates and alternates was 73.
Resolutions that have been adopted by each congress are forwarded to the Board of Directors and assigned to appropriate AAFP commissions. Any resolution that has been directly forwarded to the AAFP Congress of Delegates will be reviewed first by the Commission on Membership and Member Services.
Final reports from the reference committees showing how delegates acted on each measure can be viewed online.
Story Highlights
Supporting Evidence-based Science and Social Justice
In testimony offered during a July 28 reference committee hearing, one resolution’s author cited concerns raised by recent litigation contesting the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and questioning the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s preventive services requirements. According to the reference committee report, the outcomes of those cases “call into question the court’s ability to make sound judicial decisions based on science and evidence-based policies.” Delegates agreed with the committee’s recommendation and adopted a measure asking the AAFP to develop a policy statement supporting the integration of scientific evidence, input from subject matter experts, and proven public health practices into federal regulations in accordance with federal code.
Testifying before the same reference committee, the author of another resolution delegates adopted drew on his personal knowledge of health care inequities incarcerated patients experience in a bid to ensure these individuals receive timely and appropriate medical care. In the measure, he called for the AAFP to support legislation that would remove the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy that precludes Medicaid reimbursement for preventive and chronic disease services delivered to these patients. The resolution also asked the AAFP to develop materials to enable state chapters to advocate that their state “transition from privatized medical care within carceral facilities to non-profit, academic or governmental organizations.”
Taking Care of Business
A third resolution noted that since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson, the number of patients seeking vasectomies has risen. The committee report stated the resolution’s author “expressed concerns that such reproductive health care was not covered by insurance companies, which creates barriers to care for many patients.” Additionally, the measure sought to ensure that family physicians are paid the same as urologists and surgical specialists for such services. Delegates agreed, adopting a substitute resolution calling for the AAFP to “advocate for and support its members in seeking parity and payment similar to surgical specialties for outpatient contraceptive procedures such as vasectomies.”
Regarding the effects of climate change, a resolution addressed in another reference committee hearing took aim at a gap in the AAFP’s current policy, “Environmental Health and Climate Change.” Specifically, the measure contended, although information on how climate change impacts overall health exists, there has been only limited focus on how health care can impact climate change. Testimony offered was universally supportive and “called attention to the responsibility of family medicine physicians to advocate for more comprehensive education on climate change, as family physicians will be caring for patients living with the effects of climate change.” The resolution delegates adopted asked the Academy to include that perspective in a position paper currently being developed that specifically outlines the family medicine perspective on climate change and environmental health.
Lastly, in keeping with the Academy’s ongoing efforts to promote administrative simplification and prevent burnout, residents strongly supported a resolution asking the AAFP to formally recognize asynchronous patient care duties as an integral component of the comprehensive patient care medical residents provide. The final measure delegates adopted also advocated that time spent on such duties be counted toward resident duty hour totals.