Doctors James Puffer, Macaran Baird, Neal Palafox to Present Named Lectures at 21st National Conference in Kaua'i

Last Updated on April 16, 2022 by Lee Burnett, DO, FAAFP

As part of the “Consequences of Strategic Interventions” sub-theme of the Twenty-First National Conference on Primary Health Care Access, two named lectures will address specific strategic interventions that have been in place for four decades.

Consequences of Strategic Intervention: Creating a Board for the Periodic Recertification of Family Physicians

The Twentieth G. Gayle Stephens Lecture will be presented by Doctor James C. Puffer, the President and Chief Executive Office of the American Board of Family Medicine, that recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. One of the major workforce innovations of the 1960s, a new physician specialty board with requirements for periodic re-certification was created for doctors who wished to practice as comprehensively trained family physicians.

After Dr Puffer’s lecture, a panel will discuss the twenty Stephens lectures. (For additional information, see: 15 Stephens Lectures Celebrated at 16th National Conference.)

Consequences of Strategic Intervention: The Case of the University of Minnesota’s Rural Physician Associate Program

Doctor Macaran Baird, Professor and Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota, will present the Seventeenth Charles E. Odegaaard Lecture. The subject of his presentation will be the Rural Physician Associate Program, a clerkship that matches third year medical students with rural doctors.

With nearly four decades of experience with this strategic initiative, it has proven to be an effective means of replenishing the rural physician workforce. Dr Baird will present evaluative and outcomes data for a 38 year period. (For further discussion of the “Rural Strategic Initiatives” theme at the Twenty-first National Conference, see: The Consequences of Strategic Intervention: Providing Health Care for Rural America.)

Consequences of Health Disparities within the Nation and its Territories

Doctor Neal Palafox, Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Hawai’i will present the Sixteenth J. Jerry Rodos Lecture, on the health disparities of Pacific Islanders. This is the third major presentation by Dr Palafox to the National Conferences.

An expert on Pacific Islander health, Dr Palafox travels widely in the American trust territories, including islands used for nuclear testing in the postwar years.

He has his documented the health difficulties of significant portions of the population of islands whose health care is an obligation of the federal government.