J Am Board Fam Med
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Although solo and small practices are a vital part of primary care, the proportion of family physicians reporting working in practices with 5 or fewer providers declined from 15% to 11% for solo and 37% to 34% for small (2 to 5 providers) practices from 2014 to 2018. These decreasing trends are concerning, mainly when a low proportion of family physicians have solo practices in rural locations given the access to care challenges in these underserved populations.
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In 2020, as a 24-year-old MD PhD student studying cardiovascular population health, I suffered a non-ST elevated myocardial infarction while playing basketball. It was confirmed the cause was familial hypercholesterolemia leading to 95%+ occlusions of both the left anterior descending and left circumflex arteries. The following reflective essay describes my experience as a patient grappling with his own mortality and how those experiences have shaped how I now view my purpose as a future physician. The purpose of this essay is to encourage all physicians and physicians in training to practice reflection and to allow themselves to fully experience the pain and suffering of the patients for whom they care, even amidst times of personal uncertainty.
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The objective of this study was to assess the 11-year mortality risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization in community-dwelling adults aged 40 to 85 years. ⋯ MRSA colonization in middle-aged and older adults in the community is associated with a significantly increased mortality risk. Considering that this effect was in the community and not in hospitalized patients, this finding of increased mortality risk is especially troubling.
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Preventing and ending homelessness for women veterans, a priority of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), can be aided by identifying factors that increase their risk for housing instability. ⋯ These risk factors and their effect on women veterans' housing instability can be mitigated by new and increased supportive interventions, targeted to those at highest risk.
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Even before social distancing disrupted normative expectations and prompted an immediate shift to remote doctor/patient interactions, technology companies-Amazon, Apple, and Google-were preparing to disrupt medical care through the innovative use of technology. This article presents a possible scenario for how technology, in the near future, will completely up-end primary care practice. ⋯ In addition, family physicians bring wisdom, making decisions in the liminal state between patient and physician, the resulting product of the human connection but also the ability to manage complexity using the best evidence. The ability to do both gives family medicine physician the skills to leverage but also control the coming big data.