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“Yearnings of a Grateful Physician-Patient.”
October 2026
JABFM
Larry Green, MD, Epperson Zorn Chair and Distinguished Professor of Family Medicine at CU Anschutz is author of a new commentary titled “Yearnings of a Grateful Physician-Patient,” published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM).
In this commentary, Dr. Green emphasized how Family Medicine is uniquely positioned to lead efforts toward a more connected, person-centered healthcare system. When asked how the article helps benefit patients, he pointed to his own experience navigating the healthcare system as a patient, including what he describes as largely transactional care. Through his reflections, he outlined alternatives and opportunities for Family Medicine to serve as a collaborative partner alongside patients, healthcare professionals, and communities in building a more humane and satisfying healthcare system.
From the article:
“Our current approach to health care is too fragmented, transactional, and expensive. It lacks the benefits of integration afforded by robust primary care and warm, longitudinal relationships between patients and personal physicians. There is an urgent need for Family Medicine and other health professionals to overcome territorial protectionism and actually work together, with patients and other willing partners, to bring about what we all value in health care and establish what we each can contribute to help individuals and communities be healthier. This moment calls for establishing a 'community of solution,' the people who need to work together to achieve shared goals. As a grateful patient and aspiring physician, I am confident that my specialty, Family Medicine, can form or join a 'community of solution' right now. If so, at least some of my yearnings can be achieved and Family Medicine’s next era can be its best ever, benefitting not a few but millions of people.”
Read more of this article.
