In this Texas poster competition, the big winner is family medicine

For more than 20 years, the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP) has held an annual research poster competition open to student, resident and physician members.

Each year, the contest attracts new people; but as awareness has increased, so have expenses. Fortunately, the AAFP Foundation’s Family Medicine Chapter Alliance (FMCA) Grant Awards program provided TAFP with supplemental funding in 2025.

The FMCA awards annual grants of up to $7,000 exclusively to AAFP Chapters and Foundations to support select member outreach, public health and student/resident projects.

Samantha White, Digital Media & Communications Manager for TAFP, said recent poster topics ranged from vaping and efficacy of semaglutide to social determinants of health, health care literacy, and more.

Student and physician winners receive plaques; residents also get cash prizes, with the top resident receiving travel funding to present their poster at a national research conference. For all, the competition provides an opportunity to network and receive direct feedback on their research.

“Whether or not they win the competition, they’re welcome to present it at our biggest annual conference,” White said. Entrants are encouraged to stand with and discuss their work, which is featured in the CME program.

“For a lot of students, it's a first touchpoint for family medicine and for us as an organization,” White said, adding that physicians also enjoy showing their work at the conference.

“We don't have a lot of members who are doing research, especially outside of an academic setting, so I think it's exciting for them that their colleagues get to see what they've been doing,” she said.

White said the poster competition has been equally beneficial to TAFP, which is “always looking for ways to engage with medical students and family medicine residents, as they are the future of the specialty.”

For members looking for other ways to get involved, they can join TAFP’s Council on Health of the Public, which sponsors the competition, reviews all submissions and selects the winners. The experience often motivates members to embark on their own research projects.

From a broader perspective, the contest exposes medical students to the scope of family medicine — another reason to choose it for their specialty.

TAFP has received several FMCA grants for this project over the years, which has offset the cost of cash prizes and bulletin board rentals for their conference. Thanks to feedback from FMCA, White and her team also added a post-event survey, which helped them streamline contest operations.

White believes projects like the poster competition demonstrate in a tangible way that research is valuable to the specialty.

“I think it shows a lot that we're willing to back it with money,” she said. “We don’t just want to be the voice of family medicine. We’re here to actually support you in what you are doing in your office or clinic.”

Grant applications are open annually from January 1 to February 28.