Family Practice System Will Get a Checkup

University to host medical students, faculty for four-day regional conference

With health care reform in the national spotlight, family medicine specialists from throughout the Northeast will gather here Thursday through Sunday to discuss ideas for redesigning the nation’s health care system.

Pitt’s Department of Family Medicine will cohost a four-day interactive conference for medical students, residents, family practice faculty, and physicians.

The 2007 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Northeast Regional Conference, titled “Intelligent Re-Design: Changing Health Care for a Changing World,” will serve a 13-state region that stretches from Ohio to Maine and through Washington, D.C., Maryland, and West Virginia.
The meeting provides a forum for participants to share information about educational, clinical, policy, and research issues affecting primary health care.

More than 200 presentations will address an array of issues, including health care reform, end-of-life and palliative care, integrating mental health and primary care services, creating a culture of quality improvement in family medicine residency programs, medical homes for people with intellectual and other cognitive disabilities, and primary care and global health in the developing world.

Charles W. Mackett III, executive vice chair of Pitt’s Department of Family Medicine, is chairing the 2007 host committee for the STFM conference. Conference attendees, Mackett said, “will see how family physicians are exerting leadership roles in health care reform, the integration of mental and behavioral health into primary care, and the promotion of medical student interest in the patient-centered delivery of primary care health services.”

The conference is supported by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and other members of the Family Medicine Education Consortium, a nonprofit corporation that encourages and supports the collaboration between family medicine residency programs and departments of family medicine.

For more information or to register for the conference, visit www.fmec.net.