Submitted by Sarah Fessler, MD
RIAFP President.

RIAFP President's letter October 2009

Hello from the last day of the AAFP Congress of Delegates! This is a remarkable time for healthcare and for primary care. For the last 3 days Dr. David Ashley, Dr. Dariusz Kostrzewa and I have been representing you at the AAFP Congress of Delegates in Boston. For those of you who may not be aware, the "COD" is the annual business meeting of the AAFP at which representatives from all states and territories get a chance to help set goal for the coming year for the AAFP leadership. We also vote in new board members and a President elect of the academy for the coming year.

Of course there was a lot about healthcare reform and corporate sponsorship of the AAFP (see the recent notice from the AAFP about its sponsorship with Coca-cola). We discussed and debated our stand on various issue that effect every family doctor in the US, and about where we feel it is important to take a stand or not on political and social issues. Our leadership took the opportunity to talk with all of us on issues that are vital to family medicine and reported back to us on how the debate over healthcare reform is stacking up for family docs and primary docs in general. It was an intense and fruitful 3 days, and I am pleased to report the following:

Our AAFP leaders have made sure that we are dining at the table of healthcare reform and that we have not "become the meal". While we were in session yesterday we learned that the Senate Finance Committee voted to pass the Baucus Bill which is considered the key to working head on real healthcare reform. There are plenty of discussions and fights ahead, but we now know that we will be part of the equation.

Our AAFP Congress reaffirmed, at many instances, the AAFP's stance that all Americans should have access to healthcare.

The AAFP is moving further away from the heavy pharmaceutical corporate support that had become a tradition as we asked them to. The down side? - A new partnership with Coca-Cola on educating the public on healthy eating. Before you fall off your chair on this one consider that the AAFP will not be endorsing any Coke products and maintain complete editorial oversight of the messages that are aired to the public. Also, this partnership is for one year only, so if you log onto "familydoctor.org" and do not like what you see, be sure to let the national chapter know, or just let us know and we will pass it along. (CLICK HERE for continued President's letter)