International Advocacy Takes Center Stage in JABFM

The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM) recently published a special supplemental issue revisiting “The Essential Role of Primary Health Care for Health Security and Securing Health Conference,” held in Washington, DC, in July 2023.

The Center for Professionalism & Value in Health Care’s (CPV’s) Founding Executive Director Dr. Bob Phillips explained why the new publication is a vital foundation for family physicians to regroup and look forward.

“This [publication] gives us an opportunity to talk about what’s happened since the conference, where we are still stuck, and where we have moved ahead,” said Dr. Phillips, noting that the audience for the publication is not just physicians but also federal agencies within the U.S.

“I hope, by engaging with this content, the federal agency community can hear about the value of family medicine, examine our proposals, and learn what other countries are doing,” Dr. Phillips said.

The JABFM issue collects all five “white paper” research documents available to conference attendees in 2023, along with a feature article reflecting on the conference’s outcomes. Together, these essays offer solutions for physicians to better advocate for legislation that affects family medicine and examine best medical practices seen in other countries.

As a co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Standing Committee on Primary Care, Dr. Lauren Hughes and her colleagues advise federal agencies on policy change to improve primary care payment, workforce, and digital health. The Standing Committee has recently weighed in on the 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and the “Pay PCPs Act of 2024.”

“Within family medicine, there are committed leaders who will certainly use the white papers to inform lawmakers about what primary care does on an international level, what we’re doing in the U.S., and where there are gaps,” she explained. For physicians who have a window to speak to lawmakers, the new JABFM issue could be an important tool, but one that takes finesse to use properly.

“To use the white papers requires a dialogue with the right people. It requires translation of the content to really drill down to the key nuggets of information that lawmakers need to hear,” Dr. Hughes continued, before offering advice to physicians who want to advocate for the specialty.

“There are a lot of opportunities for learning how to be a better advocate, a better storyteller. When you’re having these conversations with lawmakers, think about how we can really sustain their attention on the issues of concern. How can we communicate clearly and make lawmakers understand ‘Why does it matter to me?’”

The conversations taking place among American physicians, lawmakers, and international physicians have led to unique partnerships and opportunities worldwide. Dr. Viviana Martinez-Bianchi is the president-elect for the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) and has become a central figure in the growing international family medicine community.

“We need to continue to explain who we are as family doctors, why the work we do is so important, and we need to do it on the global stage for regions who are still developing family medicine,” Dr. Martinez-Bianchi said.

“I really love that both CPV and ABFM are taking an international role, because they can be excellent in mentoring younger or less developed organizations on how to achieve the comprehensive nature of family medicine through training, certification, and best practices.”

The leadership of both organizations have begun to represent family medicine globally in interesting ways. These avenues are varied but include the aforementioned participation by Dr. Hughes on NASEM’s Standing Committee on Primary Care, involvement in a successful 2024 primary care conference in Brazil, and collaborating with HHS on The Initiative to Strengthen Primary Health Care, which began in 2021.

Physicians interested in affecting public support of primary care may find the recently published Family Medicine Factbook useful for its information about the specialty as it stands today. Opportunities for advocacy often begin in our own communities and later affect national policy.

Read the issue now to learn more about recent advocacy efforts and where the specialty can go from here.

Aaron Burch serves as Editorial Content Manager for the American Board of Family Medicine. He has been writing professionally in the health care field since 2014.