Proceedings of the 25th National Conference: Introductory Remarks (Clasen)

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

This session immediately follows: Proceedings of the 25th National Conference: a Welcome to San Francisco

We gratefully acknowledge the sponsorship of the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine (Dayton, Ohio) for funding the transcription and editing of this section of the Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth National Conference:

Mark E. Clasen, MD, Ph.D., Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio. [Dr Clasen is a Senior Fellow of the National Conferences on Primary Health Care Access.]: Thank you, Doctoro Fredrick.

Good morning everyone. It’s nice to see many, many dear friends. 25 years of the National Conferences. How time flies!

The National Conference theme is “What to Expect”.  I think we can expect a bitter national election in 2016.

I’ve had a long conversation with my Wright State colleague, Doctor Cynthia Olsen, as to how are we going to care for the people that are now coming into our healthcare facilities.

Ohio has potentially 534,000 Medicaid enrollees that might be eligible, and we are only about 70 family physicians short in Southwest Ohio. For that reason, we can’t meet the increased need with our current staffing. We have to revamp the health delivery system.

The time for the physician to see a sore throat or a bad back or a urinary tract infection, is over. It’s not cost effective for us to see folks for these simpler diagnoses. We can’t do it. We’re going to need a team.

The delivery system is going to change and we will be talking about how to finance that change. We know that from the Second National Conference at Beaver Creek, Colorado (Later, I’m going to wear a T-shirt that I bought in Beaver Creek.)

At the Second National Conference in Beaver Creek, Doctor Gayle Stephens talked about “the ill-tempered, big red bull who eats and eats and never gets full”.

The bull, of course, is a metaphor. You can’t pet it. It’s not affectionate. It’s not really living. The bull is the medical-industry complex.

Right now, the bull devour 20 percent of America’s gross domestic product, and, it’s no secret that the bull wants all of it.

The curriculum in the medical schools has to change in a number of ways and there’s many of us that are medical educators in here. I do a lot of medical school accreditation work and I notice that these days that new medical schools are springing up all over. In fact, Doctor Allan Wilke is here representing the new Western Michigan University medical school in Kalamazoo.

I just did the accreditation visit for Central Michigan University with their medical school that they want have as a Wright State loo- alike. I did two new physician assistantprograms last year for accreditation, and PA programs are also springing up all over.

The, so anyway, I see that there’s this move to have different providers on the team coming on. I saw the match was a touch better, We’ll let our next two presenters comment on that.

Before beginning the morning’s first plenary session, I will ask William Burnett, the coordinator of the National Conferences on Primary Health Care Access, to recognize the new Fellows and Senior Fellows of the National Conferences.

William H. Burnett, Coastal Research Group. Mr Burnett is a Senior Fellow of the National Conferences on Primary Health Care Access: Thank you very much, Mark.

I want to announce that we have two new fellows of the Coastal Research Group’s National Consortium on Community-Based Medical Education (the underlying theme of these National Conferences).

The two new fellows, who have participated in five or more of these conferences are Elizabeth Kimball of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Chicago; and Dr. Thomas Nelson, who now is at the Advocate Health System in the metropolitan Chicago area.

We want to acknowledge the death of one of our Senior Fellows, Dr. Mitchell Kasovac, that occurred just last week.

We will have a session memorializing Doctor Kasovac at the next conference at the Hyatt Regency, Orange County April 13-15 of next year.

I would like to present a plaque to our new Senior Fellow for this year, Dr. Norman Kahn of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies in Chicago. All of the Senior Fellows have participated in 10 or more of the conferences and have made major presentations during that time. Here you are Norm.

Norman Kahn, MD, Council of Medical Specialty Societies, Chicago [Dr Kahn is now a Senior Fellow of the National Conferences on Primary Health Care Access]: 

Thanks Bill. Well it’s a rite of passage.

This session is followed by: Proceedings of the 25th National Conference; April 14, 2014 (First Plenary Session, Kahn)