2017 Resident Delegate Report

Tauqueer Qazi, MD - University of Illinois College of Medicine - Peoria Family Medicine Residency, PGY-2

This was my first time attending the AAFP National Conference for Family Medicine Residents and Students and it was an amazing experience of fun an interactivity. I had the opportunity to meet family medicine residents and students from all over the country who share the same passion.

The National Conference is filled with three days of interacting with hundreds of motivated family medicine residents and students and it was very easy catching on to the fun! The AAFP allows residents and students to voice their opinions to reform national policy through resolutions on issue of concern at the national conference. Caucuses allow for residents and students to exchange ideas to shape these resolutions and even allow for multiple people from different states to become co-authors for these resolutions. Some of these topics were pertinent to expanding education in women’s health during residency training, more involvement of international students at the state and national level, as well as attracting future family medicine physicians into our specialty who are well-rounded people.

Reference committees allow any resident member to offer insights in support or against a resolution through parliamentary procedure. I submitted a resolution for strengthening physician-to-physician hand-offs and I also testified in support of a resolution co-authored by IAFP’s resident president, Kristina Dakis, MD, regarding uterine evacuation training. Every participant was friendly and welcoming to engage in insightful conversation. As a resident delegate, I was allowed the opportunity to vote for the next class of qualified candidates for the many leadership roles elected at the Resident Congress. Every nominee provided a speech with a personal touch and it was great hearing from them why they chose family medicine as their specialty and what change they would like to see. Throughout all of this, I met hundreds of amazing students at the residency exposition as they networked and visited booths set up by family medicine residency programs from every state, including the 21 programs from Illinois!

Kansas City was a great host to all of the people that attended this year’s conference. I am very grateful for the opportunity to network with so many future family medicine physicians and to be exposed to the leadership opportunities that the AAFP has to offer. This event reminded me why I choose family medicine. I look forward to attending the 2018 AAFP National Conference!