Family Medicine as Social Justice

Presented by PJ Parmar, MD, Ardas Family Medicine
STFM Annual Conference 2024 Opening General Session | Sunday, May 5, 2024

Many family medicine providers enter the field with significant idealism, and over the course of their career, they get jaded and burned out. For some this happens by the end of their training. This is not the outcome we want. Historically we have been known as community leaders in social justice. Returning our focus to social justice can provide motivation and variety to keep us engaged. To get there, we will need to shift the culture of our practices. This can happen by taking accountability for our privileges, understanding the barriers our patients face, and considering how we can use our training to shift our privileges to those with less. There are tools of patient flow which we can use to improve our encounters and reduce barriers, but the tools also include those which are not just medical. The goal is not just health equity, where we focus on all patients, but health justice, where we focus on the more disadvantaged.

Learning Objectives: At the end of the session each participant should...

• Identify 3 elements of your current practice that are causing barriers to underserved medicine.
• Brainstorm ideas for reducing those barriers
• Identify one ideal that you had, when going into medicine, which you have not pursued as much as you have wanted. Consider what you can do to return to that ideal.

Presentation Slides

Copyright © Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, 2024

PJ Parmar, MD:
PJ Parmar is a family doctor for refugees, asylees, y los sin papeles in the Denver area. He started and runs Mango House, which has primary care medical, dental, and pharmacy services, and dozens of refugee tenants including restaurants, stores, offices, youth programs, and religious gatherings. His endeavors are intentionally not nonprofit. He has been covered by media dozens of times for his medical work, refugee Scout Troops, social justice efforts, and refugee restaurants, including by CNN, People, and the documentary movie Mango House. He has spoken widely on primary care underserved medicine, including in his TED Talk. He attended the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the nearby St. Anthony Family Medicine residency, and occasionally precepts trainees from both. He is father to a wonderful 9 year old boy named Alex.