Harvard-affiliated faculty, providers, residents and students committed to promoting primary care at Harvard held a brainstorming session for the community on Dec. 10. During the meeting, on the HMS Quad, attendees shared dozens of ideas on three topics related to primary care—education, clinical innovation and research.
Organized and run by a grassroots coalition, the session was supported and attended by members of the Primary Care Advisory Group, which Jeffrey Flier, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, convened last fall. Flier asked the group to review the structure, leadership and ongoing funding support of the School’s primary care programs and to identify opportunities to strengthen and enhance them.
The meeting was divided into three 25-minute segments, each devoted to a single topic, followed by closing comments and observations. Moderators kept the nearly 100 attendees engaged and on task.
Over the course of the evening, the attendees articulated a range of innovative ideas, from establishing a primary care concentration within the MD program to including social justice in Harvard Medical School’s mission. Suggestions also included forgiving the debt of MD students who pursue primary care careers, increasing research funding for students exploring health policy questions, publicizing primary care research and creating a website that features primary care faculty members.
The moderators encouraged everyone to continue sharing their ideas after the meeting. Primary Care Advisory Group co-chairs David Bates, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Russell Phillips, HMS professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, invite community members to submit suggestions to pcag@hms.harvard.edu. The Primary Care Advisory Group’s progress will be chronicled on a new website.
