Opening Primary Care Week With a Bang -

- FMIG's first event was held on Monday!

"Can I Afford to Do Primary Care: A Workshop on the Economics of a Career in this Specialty"
with Dr. John Wiecha, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs

Students were able to see just how well a new family med doc could live after graduation. Cost of living (food, even alcohol), housing prices (in Boston or Denver), compensation (residency and beyond), loan repayments (10 or 25-year plans), spousal income, retirement savings and children were all included in the calculations.

Perhaps more importantly, a few options for debt repayment/forgiveness were outlined including the National Health Service Corps and the newer Non-Profit Loan Forgiveness (NPLF) plan.

Thank you to all the first and second-year BUSM students who came out to this important info session - watch for more sessions hosted by Dr. Wiecha in the future.

"What is Family Medicine?"

Good question. Come out to FMIG's next event September 14th to find out!

We'll have our speakers and panelists address this and other important issues such as:
-"what is this FMIG you speak of?"
-"how do CCHERS, FaMeS, and Family Med Scholars differ?"
-"can I get some free pizza for lunch?" (yes!)

When: Tuesday September 14th, 11 am - 12 pm
Where: R-115
What: presentation/panel discusssion/Q+A/lunch

Contact Info from the Lunch Panel

Thanks so much for coming to FMIG's "What is Family Medicine Panel?" this past Tuesday! We had a great turnout and were really happy to see a mix of both years. To those of you who weren't able to make it but wanted to, please keep your eyes open for upcoming FMIG events.

Also, we received some great questions about Family Medicine from your feedback evaluations. We will write a whole separate post to answer as many as we can, so keep visiting the blog!

Here are the email addresses of our panelists from Tuesday who all agreed that they would be happy to respond to questions you might have:

• Dr. Markuns (International Health interests)- Jeffrey.Markuns@bmc.org
• Dr. Green (Sports Medicine interests)- Alysia.Green@bmc.org
• Dr. O'Brien (Ob-Gyn/Rural health interests)- michlynn@bu.edu or Michelle.OBrien@bmc.org
• Anthony Lim (BUSM IV) - alim@bu.edu
• Christopher Simons (BUSM IV)- simonsch@bu.edu

Finally, for those of you who approached Dr. Markuns after the panel and were interested in possible international health opportunities, he has kindly provided the following contact:

LeBoHA program
Libby Cunningham is the Program Coordinator (ecunning@bu.edu)
Dr.Markuns also mentioned that students should feel free to contact him directly with further questions.

Reminder about AAFP

Remember, as students we get FREE membership to the American Academy of Family Physicians, which includes a FREE subscription to the American Family Physician Journal, a great resource even before our clerkships. Sign up for membership online!

FM Scholars program

Dear FMIG members,

Marcel suggested I post here to be sure you all know about our Family Medicine Scholars program. You can learn about it at:

http://www.bu.edu/familymed/medstudenteducation/scholars.html

We currently have 4 active scholars, and more joining shortly. If you are interested in learning more about this program, which is unique to our department, please contact me. My email is: John.Wiecha@bmc.org

John Wiecha, MD, MPH

Director of eLearning / Director of Predoctoral Education
Department of Family Medicine, Boston U. School of Medicine
eLearning website: www.bu.edu/familymed/distance/index.htm
Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching%209/21/132/23