By José Avalos, MD 
Ready or not…2014 is here! As we start down the path set forth by the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “Obamacare,” I find myself having a variety of emotions. On the one hand, I am excited at the possibility of moving ever so closer to universal coverage in our country, but I am also concerned about the plight of the millions of undocumented persons (and those who care for them) who are left out of this endeavor.
I am happy that, for the first time, some members of my family will actually have health insurance and will finally be able to access our extraordinary system of care, but I am not sure if said system is prepared to handle the influx of patients seeking these services.
In these times of so much uncertainty, there is one thing that I know for sure: I have never been happier to be a Family Physician. I know that no matter what happens in the marketplace, my skill set will remain in high demand for years to come.
Having been involved in our academy since my days as a medical student at UCLA, I have had the privilege and honor to be guided by some of the most inspiring minds in our field. Mentors like Drs. Jimmy Hara (Kaiser Sunset), Hector Flores (White Memorial), Denise Sur (UCLA Santa Monica), and our own immediate past president Dan Castro (Harbor-UCLA) were instrumental at getting me to this point in my life where I feel happy and confident with my career choice and feel ready to help guide the next generation of young family physicians into satisfying practices as well as positions of leadership in our academy and society.
To this end, I would like to focus our academy’s efforts this year on developing our pipeline from medical school into family medicine residencies and from these residencies into positions of leadership.
Last year, our academy chose to invest more money in sending our local medical students and residents to the then CAFP Congress of Delegates (the policy making venue for CAFP) held every March in Sacramento. This year, the conference has been renamed the All Member Advocacy Meeting to highlight the openness of it to all members, and LAAFP has chosen to invest even more resources in getting students and residents to come see what organized family medicine is all about.
As a direct result, you might have noticed our academy’s newsletter having an increased number of articles written by student and residents. As these students come to spend more time with family physicians, I know many will come to the realization that while we might vent and moan about all the difficulties we have to routinely face, most of us thankfully are actually quite satisfied with our decisions to become family physicians.
While I do want to focus on building for the future of our field I also am aware that we cannot overlook the service we provide to our current academy members, literally the lifeblood of our organization.
For our current members, I want to focus on highlighting the value that LAAFP, CAFP, and AAFP membership provides. First, I would like to do this by providing some more dedicated CME-granting general meetings. Secondly, I would like to expand the meetings that appeal to those of us with families and children where we could enjoy some time both networking with one another as well as enjoying our limited personal time. Lastly, I would like to invite members who would like to become more active but aren’t quite sure how to let us know.
As we enter this year on uncertainty, I am confident that our role as primary care physicians will be more and more in demand. The more we can show our future providers that a career in family medicine will not only be lucrative, but rewarding, we can all feel a little more sure our field will ride out the waves of change to come.
