Doctors, patients and medicine benefit when family physicians serve as mentors

Family physicians who offer training and advice to medical students have a chance to lead more doctors into primary care.

Physician mentorship was “a cornerstone” in the career of Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP, the new president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

Meanwhile, women physicians have taken on more leadership roles in medicine, and the time is right to expand opportunities for underrepresented groups of doctors. Flu season also is approaching and family physicians must advocate for vaccines against influenza and other ailments.

Brull discussed her career, the state of leadership in medicine, and why family doctors need to remind patients that the annual vaccines can protect them and their loved ones when flu spreads.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Medical Economics: Since you became president, AAFP, published an article emphasizing the importance of mentorship in the careers of physicians. Can you discuss your own experience with mentorship and explain why is that so vital for young doctors?

Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP: I think that I am the president of the AAFP because of the great mentors that I had, and maybe that encapsulates a lot of my passion and heart for this. I have had many mentors over the course of my career. I have stolen freely from all of them. I always say I'm a chameleon, and I take the best of what they have and incorporate it into who I am. I also have had the privilege of working with – I can't even count the number of med students and residents that came through my clinic when I practiced in Plainville (Kansas), some of whom joined me in practice as my partners. And I think that that concept of people who want to have a career in medicine, seeing someone who loves what they do, who does it with joy, who applies the criteria of performance improvement to all of the work they do, is so critical as we move forward. I always say we have these four strategic pillars I just talked about, we also have three core competencies. One of them is advocacy, making sure that the voice of family physicians is heard. The second is connection, and that's where I'm really going to lean into that mentor, which is family physicians, humans do better when they are connected to each other. And so the idea that we can connect family physicians as mentors to and for each other is really attractive. And then the third thing is education, which also plays into that mentorship space, because many times the mentorships we have are people who are teaching us how to do our job better.

Related: Family medicine has key role in health of the nation, AAFP president says

Medical Economics: Since you became president, AAFP also published an article about Cynthia Chen-Joea, DO, MPH, CPH, FAAFP, a new member of the board of directors, and Marie-Elizabeth Ramas, MD, FAAFP, who previously served on the board as a female physician and leader. Can you discuss the role of women doctors in leadership positions in medicine?

Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP: They might approach the conversation more broadly than just women in medicine. I think that fortunately, at the AAFP, we have seen that women are beginning to be represented in a good way. More than 50% of medical school graduates these days are female, and we are seeing more and more women in leadership positions. The AAFP has all for decades invested in ensuring that the voices of those who are underrepresented in leadership in the Academy, and by that I mean all levels, whether it's state leadership, whether it's on commissions, on the board, the president of AAFP, all of those spaces – we have invested in ensuring that voices that are not equally heard in those spaces have a way to be heard. There's a wonderful conference called the National Conference of Constituency Leaders that brings together constituencies of new physicians who traditionally don't have as much time in their day to join leadership activities, women, international, medical graduates, BIPOC or minority, and LGBTQ+. And we bring together these constituencies very intentionally for them to write and recommend policy through a congress of delegates to the AAFP, and their ideas are heard there. It's also a leadership growth conference, and if you were to survey the number of people who are on the board of the AAFP right now that participated in that conference at some point in their career, I would raise my hand, and so would a lot of other people. I think that women is one area where AAFP has increased our representation to a much better level. I also think we have some places where we haven't figured out how to do that as well, although we're seeing an increase as people are represented at this conference.

Related: AAFP starting large-scale project to examine AI technology in family practice

Medical Economics: We're well into autumn and flu season is going to be on us before you know it. What should family doctors know about predictions for this year's flu season, and what should they advise their patients about vaccines for flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)?

Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP: I have spent a lot of energy through this late summer and early fall, talking about vaccines and immunizations. We have seen so many predictions when it comes to COVID-19, some of them are sort of accurate, and a lot of them were just wrong. And that's OK, it's a novel virus, and we're learning things. So regardless of whether we predict this is a bad flu season or a good flu season, family doctors are this amazing space where you can come into your family doctor with knee pain and walk out with your flu shot and your COVID shot and your knee pain taken care of. And I think that's the role that family medicine plays, thinking comprehensively, thinking preventively. All of us would advise that you get both vaccines as soon as they are able to. Even if you yourself are less worried about your own health if you were to get one of those illnesses, most of us have a loved one that we are thinking about who might not do as well if they got the illness, and so surrounding them with a cocoon of vaccinated people is a gift that you can give to your family and those you love.