Family Medicine Legacy Society
Ensuring the Good Work Continues: Rachelle Brilliant, DO, FAAFP
Who do I want to leave my money to that I can trust to do what I want them to do?
A family medicine physician in Troy, New York, Rachelle Brilliant, DO, FAAFP, recently asked herself this while updating her will. After reviewing her finances and ensuring her loved ones’ needs would be taken care of, Brilliant realized she could also ensure the work she supported would continue beyond her lifespan.
She decided to bequeath a portion of her assets to the AAFP Foundation and became a member of its Family Medicine Legacy Society. What’s unique about Brilliant’s commitment is her age. In her mid-40s, she’s younger than most donors who include the AAFP Foundation in their estate planning.
Throughout her career, Brilliant has donated to a range of philanthropic organizations, from Jewish Federation to reproductive rights and environmental groups. She’s also gifted modest amounts to AAFP Foundation over the years.
It was her trust in the Foundation’s leadership and priorities that motivated her, at this stage of her life, to significantly increase her support by investing in the future of family medicine through a legacy gift.
Ironically, family medicine wasn’t always her calling. Brilliant confesses that when she didn’t match for a residency in her first choice, emergency medicine, she grabbed for her only option at the time, a family medicine residency in Albany, New York. The only provision — she was asked to keep an open mind.
By the end of her three-year residency, Brilliant wondered how she ever could have considered a different specialty. She’d fallen completely in love with family medicine.
“I love having the relationship with my patients and the continuity. I love knowing the entire family,” she said.
While in medical school, Brilliant had participated in lobbying events in Washington, DC. It was exciting and eye-opening, and motivated her to stay involved in advocacy for family medicine physicians.
She’s served on a commission for the AAFP as well as the New York State Academy of Family Physicians, of which she’s currently president. In 2022, while attending the AAFP’s Congress of Delegates, she was invited by a colleague to an AAFP Foundation dinner.
“I realized all the things that they were doing, and I was very impressed with how they ran things,” she said.
One of the reasons Brilliant chose the Foundation when redoing her will was she didn’t have to worry about what the Foundation was going to do in the future. She knew that in the decades ahead, the AAFP Foundation would still be working on behalf of family physicians, just as she would.
Learn more about the
Family Medicine Legacy Society
or reach out to Mike Armstrong your
Family Medicine Legacy League representative,
to discuss your interest.