President Obama discusses family medicine – and he gets it

Speaking at a town hall meeting on health care in Raleigh, N.C., yesterday, President Obama was asked by the wife of a family physician what he would do to address the hardships of family physicians and entice more students to enter the specialty. He replied by emphasizing the value of family medicine and primary care, and had this to say:

"When we pass health reform and more people have access to the system, it is going to be vital that we increase the number of primary care physicians. The best way for us to do it is two-fold. One is to change how we reimburse ... so that the incomes of primary care physicians are more comparable with specialists. The second thing is to provide scholarships and financial incentives for young medical students who are willing to go into primary care."

View a short video clip here or the entire video here. (The above quote appears at the 36:40 mark.)

Posted at 10:52AM Jul 30, 2009 by Brandi White  |  Comments[0]