President's Message 

Greetings, NAPCRG Members! 

I am delighted to serve as NAPCRG president in the year ahead and happy to welcome several "firsts'' during my term, all of which share a central aim: to drive synergy across family medicine and primary care broadly. Having served as an educator, clinician, academic leader, and researcher, I am passionate about celebrating primary care research and bringing greater visibility to it. Many of us did not set out to do primary care research. We found our way to it with an interest in complex questions and the kind support of mentors who shared their knowledge and steps to learn research techniques. Together, however different our experiences, our shared passion is research and our professional home, NAPCRG. We are a multinational organization and have local differences, but in the end, we share a common goal. Therefore, while I speak about US-centric action items, I intend to consider the concepts for all of our members. At a recent meeting of the Family Medicine Leadership Consortium, a US-based group, I was inspired by several important initiatives and themes: 

1. Integration of Primary Care and Public Health: As researchers, we appreciate the evidence linking primary care and public health. Unfortunately, the United States lags many other industrialized nations embracing and funding this core relationship. AAFP makes a case for a more robust system here https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/integration-primary-care.html As primary care researchers, our work is vital to providing the evidence that informs policy and breaks down health disparities. Partners can help with policy and advocacy. Our role is to make our work visible, communicate it and disseminate it in meaningful ways to researchers, physicians in practice, community members, and policy decision-makers. We will seek collaborations and partnerships within and outside North America to make our work known. I encourage you to contact Julie Sutter if you seek to partner with NAPCRG as you write grants funded by governmental agencies, businesses, and community-based organizations. We aim to be part of many solutions to promote healthy environments.
   
2. Residency Training: In the United States, family medicine training is under significant review through a standard-setting body called the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Reviews like this infrequently occur every ten years or so. The revisions are intended to ensure that family medicine physicians are well trained for the future. Program requirements are intended to be evidence-based and will allow for significant change, considering new possibilities for practice over the next two or three decades. The components under discussion include the definition of the family physician for board certification and licensure, clinical competencies, curriculum organization and residency structure (3 vs. 4 yr), and impact assessment of the training changes on the health of the population the residency serves. Even though this is a specific initiative in the United States, what makes this revision process noteworthy for primary care researchers across the globe, is the emphasis on community-focused population health. We know the importance of integrating patient and community representatives in our work, and I am pleased that this is a foundational competency in the proposed training requirements. 

NAPCRG will provide recommendations on the revisions, such as a curriculum that embraces training in research methods, including the social determinants of health and incorporating diverse patient voices in family medicine practice priorities and programs. Lifelong adaptive learning necessitates an understanding of evidence-based research. 

• • All family medicine residency graduates must, at a minimum, and regardless of employment status, have the competency to contribute their patient experiences to shared data resources such as a reimbursement consortium or a research network. 
  • All family medicine-trained physicians must interpret data for practice improvement.

Strategic Plan & Diversity Statement: The NAPCRG Board, with input from committees, developed a new strategic plan and approved it last fall. They adopted a revised diversity statement, too.The plan will help shape NAPCRG direction for several years, and the Board will monitor its progress and refine it over time. View the statement and strategic plan on our website.

One goal in the strategic plan addresses workforce and career pathways: "Elevate the presence and visibility of primary care research as a vital career commitment across the spectrum of academic and clinical primary care disciplines." How? One way is to develop strategies to encourage medical students, residents, and graduate trainees to consider research careers in family medicine and primary care. We can do that by reaching out to our primary care departments and asking for time to discuss opportunities with medical students during their clerkships or at Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG) meetings. This outreach is integral to the nurturing and mentoring fundamental to NAPCRG's values. NAPCRG has already created a short video on primary care research that Ed Bujold shared during his plenary at our Annual Meeting last November. 

Ed, our NAPCRG staff, and the Membership Committee will explore how best to use this video in a broader presentation to every medical school, especially those with NAPCRG members!. If you want to participate or have a program contact to share, don't hesitate to get in touch with Leyla Haddad (lhaddad@napcrg.org).

Anniversary Celebration: NAPCRG will celebrate its 50th anniversary at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, in November this year. Be sure to mark your calendars for November 18-22. We have been fortunate to convene a meeting that draws attendees worldwide. Building bridges with those outside North America is vital to collaborations and building knowledge within primary care. We cannot work in isolation; we can do more together than separately. 

I appreciate your continued commitment to NAPCRG. Please reach out to Executive Director Julie Sutter (jsutter@napcrg.org) or me should you wish to share encouragement, concerns, or suggestions about the plan.

Kind regards,

Diane Harper, MD, MPH, MS

Newly installed as NAPCRG's president late last year, Diane Harper, MD, MPH, MS, brings diverse interests and perspectives across the translational spectrum of research. She is one of the few scientists in the nation's entire CTSA portfolio who has succeeded at spanning the entire translational continuum from T0 through T4 research, impacting bench to bedside to community internationally. For her sentinel work with HPV vaccines, including protocol development, clinical trial implementation, data analysis, and publications, Prevention Magazine honored her as one of the ten most influential women in the United States. Dr. Harper is a quadruple threat in the academic world (education, research, clinical care, administration). She received the Excellence in Education Award, family medicine's highest teaching award from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, and the Curtis Hames Research Award, the highest national research award for family medicine research. She has over 32,000 citations, with her top four papers cited over 2000 times each. Her work has been pivotal to cervical cancer prevention and screening changes over the past 30 years, bringing the perspective of primary care, public health, epidemiology, health behaviors, and the woman herself to the table. She is currently a Professor at the University of Michigan.