One brainstorming session = one outstanding program! Several years ago, a group of leaders in the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP) Foundation were tossing around ideas that might encourage residents to choose family medicine. Given the TAFP Foundation’s successful history providing scholarships to medical students, the Scholarship Task Force decided to focus its new initiative on residents.

That initiative – the Texas Family Medicine Scholars Program – has been named the AAFP Foundation’s 2022 Outstanding Program of the Year. The program takes a three-year approach, with scholars selected in the spring of their first year of residency in Texas. The scholars receive $10,000 over three years, along with travel funding to attend relevant TAFP and AAFP events. They also select a mentor, work on a project to demonstrate their leadership skills, and do a presentation on their project to peers.

“Our Foundation focuses on students, residents, and research,” says Linda Siy, MD, President of the TAFP Foundation. “We’re very thrilled about this honor; it really does validate what we’re doing here.”

Siy says the TAFP Foundation considers the resident scholarships as a way to “make a real investment in someone we could see as a future TAFP President or Physician of the Year.”

While it’s too soon to tell if that goal is realized, the TAFP Foundation is already delighted with the positive response to the program, the caliber and quality of scholarship nominees, and the strength and potential of the first selected scholars: Tyler King, DO, and Kendra Williams, MD.

“I think this program will benefit family medicine – our specialty and our patients – regardless of where that resident ends up in practice,” says Siy. “By virtue of selecting a Texas resident, we hope they continue to stay and practice in Texas.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the Texas Family Medicine Scholars program, or you’re thinking about establishing a similar program, you’ll find details here.