Q&A: R. Shawn Martin, EVP and CEO, for the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)

RamaOnHealthcare April 13, 2024

Strengthen the Family Physician Workforce to Support the Communities They Serve

Today, RamaOnHealthcare meets with Shawn Martin, the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, for the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The AAFP is a medical specialty organization representing 130,000 family physicians, residents, and medical students nationwide.

R. Shawn Martin, EVP & CEO, AAFP

RamaOnHealthcare (ROH): Welcome to RamaOnHealthcare! Tell us what you have been doing and how it is impacting healthcare.

Shawn Martin (SM): I work with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Board of Directors on the mission, strategy, and vision for the AAFP. I also make sure the family medicine perspective is represented in other organizations, including medical, public, and private sectors.

Today, the AAFP represents 130,000 family physicians, residents, and medical students. We provide advocacy, education, patient, and practice resources to our members across the country. The AAFP was founded in 1947 to promote and maintain high-quality standards for family medicine, an offshoot of the classical general practitioner. Today it is headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. The organization is built on decades of proven representation, leadership, and advocacy. We support our members and the specialty with high standards and dynamic opportunities.

ROH: Why is primary care so critical in the U.S.? Why is it important that we invest in it?

SM: Let me start off by saying that everyone should have a family physician who knows and understands their health history.

Family physicians care for patients throughout their entire lifespan—from newborns to seniors. They are important partners and advocates in care—whether it’s preventive care, new health problems, chronic conditions, or referring patients to other health professionals.

But what I really want to convey is that at the cornerstone of family medicine is the close patient-physician relationship. Family physicians are intimately familiar with their patients’ medical history through regular checkups. They provide a safe space for patients to talk about sensitive topics such as reproductive health, alcohol and drug use, and mental health. A family physician is trained to provide optimal medical care by looking at the whole person, rather than just focusing on one organ system.

It’s important to invest in primary care for so many reasons, but I’ll start with the short answer: primary care – and family medicine, in particular – is vital to good health.

The longer answer is that investing in primary care can improve health outcomes, reduce expenses, and make the country healthier. We know that regular visits with a primary care physician can reduce complications of chronic conditions and can lessen health care costs. In fact, studies show that states with higher ratios of primary care physicians have better health outcomes, lower rates for mortality from heart disease, cancer or stroke, lower infant mortality and healthier birth weights and better self-reported health. Isn’t that something we can all get behind?

What’s also important to recognize is that often, family physicians are the sole physicians providing care in their communities, especially in rural or underserved areas, and can adapt their care to fit the unique needs of these communities. Family physicians are also likely to be the first point of contact for patients navigating the health care system. As a result, they’re in a unique and important position to help mitigate health inequity, address mental health, and affect positive change for the populations they serve.

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the organization I lead, represents 130,000 physicians, residents, and medical students nationwide. We are the largest medical society devoted solely to primary care. Our work is multi-faceted and vast, but our mission is simple: to help family physicians and the communities they serve.

ROH: What are the biggest challenges facing family medicine?

SM: We are experiencing a time where the health care landscape is changing rapidly. With that in mind, we need family physicians as local, state, and national leaders who are willing to do the hard but exciting work of improving our health care system for all.

When I think of what that looks like, I like to break it down into three major buckets: addressing the primary care workforce shortage, ensuring family physicians are adequately reimbursed and have access to the tools and resources they need to provide comprehensive care, and alleviating administrative burdens so physicians can spend more time taking care of patients.

Family physicians provide high-quality, comprehensive care to their patients, but the current payment system is preventing equitable access to primary care. The bottom line is that broader reform is needed to appropriately compensate physicians for the work they do and protect Medicare beneficiaries’ access to primary care in their own communities. We can also take steps to increase investment in primary care through the advancement of innovative payment and delivery models, including value-based payment that supports the delivery of patient-centered primary care.

I also know that the availability of primary care physicians is an important component of access. A robust family medicine workforce is critical to ensure patients everywhere have appropriate, effective, and accessible care for generations to come. This is especially true in small rural communities and underserved communities.

I’m also concerned about the high rates of professional burnout among physicians in the U.S.—this is particularly important because family physicians suffer from higher rates of burnout than physicians in most other specialties. Research shows that administrative paperwork takes time away from patient care. During the office day, physicians spend nearly half their time on EHR and desk work and only 27 percent of their time in direct clinical care with patients. The AAFP is actively working to provide family physicians with resources and policy solutions to reduce administrative burdens.

ROH: April is Minority Health Month. How can family physicians address health inequities in their communities?

SM: One of the AAFP’s core goals is to ensure everybody can access health care from their family physician. Because family physicians are deeply intertwined with their communities, they are in a unique position to help patients and their entire families address social, economic, and environmental factors that can impede access to care. This can include lack of healthy and nutritious foods, access to reliable transportation, internet coverage, education level, and financial need.

I recall one AAFP member told me how he was treating a patient for chronic back pain. He eventually found out it was because his patient was unhoused and sleeping in their car. As a family physician embedded in the community, he was able to connect his patient to resources that could help.

The AAFP is helping our members address these barriers to care with several tools and resources. One of my favorite ones to talk about is the Neighborhood Navigator, which is AAFP’s easy-to-use online search engine that helps patients find supportive social services in their area. It’s available to both patients and physicians in 107 languages and lists more than 40,000 social services by zip code.

Another area that family physicians work to address is our country’s maternal health crisis, which disproportionately impacts Black birthing people. We were lucky to have Olympic champion, Allyson Felix, as a keynote speaker at AAFP’s Family Medicine Experience conference last fall. Allyson reiterated how Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than their white peers—a trend we cannot allow to continue. It was also a reminder that physicians, patients, and policymakers can work together to end the maternal mortality crisis.

At the AAFP, we’re calling attention to the fourth trimester, or the first 12 weeks after delivery. It’s a critical time for physicians to assess physical and mental health, perform any necessary screenings, and work with care teams to ensure new birthing people are receiving high quality care.

ROH: What is your advice to students looking to go into family medicine?

SM: I’d say to join us! I’ve seen firsthand how the next generation of Family Physicians are absolute trailblazers—they are entering health care at a time of rapid change and will lead the way to revitalize Primary Care. We had a historic Match this March and welcomed the largest class of Family Physicians ever. And from my conversations with AAFP’s members, they’ve told me how it has never been a better time to be a Family Physician.

We have better vaccines and therapeutics than ever before. We have more tools to address hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. In other words, physicians can do more for their patients than they ever could. So, we need more people who can do a little bit of everything and who have compassion and strong relationships with their families. That’s what Family Physicians do; they take care of patients across their lifespan.

ROH: Please tell us a bit about yourself.

SM: Before joining the AAFP senior management team, I served as director of government relations and health policy and socioeconomic affairs at the American Osteopathic Association. I was deputy director of government relations and director of congressional affairs. In 2002, I was Director of Government Relations and Health Policy and served on the National Assurance Coalition.

I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration and marketing from Phillips University and a Master of Health Care Delivery Science from Dartmouth College.

Please find more information here:

https://www.aafp.org/about/meet-our-leadership/aafp-emt/martin.html

https://www.aafp.org/home.html