Pub. 2 2018 Issue 1

One Good Look at the Vast Scope of Family Medicine, and I Was Hooked Here I am behind my son, Kevin Munger, M.D., who, just like me, em- braced family medicine when he saw the whole picture of how our spe- cialty works to improve the lives of patients. A strange thing happened on my son’s path to be- coming an orthopedic surgeon. During Kevin’s final year of medical school, he decided to do a second family medicine rotation. His first had been unremarkable, and he had no intention of following in my footsteps. Here I am behind my son, Kevin Munger, M.D., who, just like me, embraced family medicine when he saw the whole picture of how our specialty works to improve the lives of patients. But during his second rotation, he was paired with a precep- tor who practiced full-scope family medicine, and he saw what actually was possible. It was the best experience of his training to that point, and he’s now a third-year family medi- cine resident. Oddly, I had a similar experience some 30 years earlier. I knew I was going to be an ER physician from the moment I entered medical school. There wasn’t any question. I was so certain of my path that I spent every other weekend working as an orderly in a local hospital. It was valuable exposure to health care, and I was learning things my peers weren’t. But it also was there that my career path turned. The hospi- tal had several physicians who moonlighted in the emergen- cy department, including some family medicine residents who made a life-changing impression on me. These doc- tors were the smartest, friendliest and most compassionate physicians I had encountered. They cared about me as a person. And because they knew I was a medical student, they often included me in their discussions and showed me what they were doing. “Michael, come look at this case,” was something I heard fre- quently. It helped me immeasurably, and it was fun. But what really got my attention was the fact that these fam- ily physicians knew a lot about everything. It seemed there was nothing they couldn’t handle -- trauma, critical illnesses, orthopedics. You name it. For a young medical student, it was impressive and powerful. Of course, the other physicians were good at their jobs, too, but their approaches were far different. When confronted By Michael Munger, M.D., president of the AAFP www.UtahAFP.org | 8