STFM leads family medicine into the NIH advocacy arena.

摘要

One morning in the fall of 2005, I was following my traditional routine of listening to National Public Radio as 1 drove to work. I was surprised to hear a story about the passion of Representative Joe Barton (R-Tex 6th), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for drafting a piece of legislation that would reauthorize the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While I knew that it had been more than 10 years since Congress had re-crafted the NIH through a reau-thorization, I did not know that legislation was pending that could alter the direction of the NIH for the next decade or longer.When 1 arrived at the office, i called Hope Wittenberg, MA, the Academic Family Medicine Advocacy Alliance lobbyist, to determine what policies family medicine had in place that could be shared with Congressman Barton and his staff regarding the role of family medicine in NIH. I should not have been surprised when Hope told me that family medicine had no policy and that we had never been a part of this debate.