Good afternoon!

            I have missed over these very trying two and a half years sharing our struggles, our individual demonstrations of bravery, boldness, and relentlessness, especially against this global pandemic. 

         Today, I’d like to ask you all to think about what it actually means to be brave.

         I believe that every person who chooses to be a Family Physician is someone extraordinarily brave. The specialty of Family Medicine requires us to treat everyone at any time in any venue for any problem. No other specialty has this as its charge.

         So what is your origin story, that moment of early bravery that formed your foundation? Is it the first time you rode a bicycle without training wheels? Or maybe the day you got on a school bus to go to kindergarten? Maybe it’s seeing someone else doing something brave?

         On April 29, 1975, while Saigon fell, hundreds of Vietnamese and Americans climbed the stairs to the US Consulate roof. They were fighting to escape a city crumbling around them as the North Vietnamese military quickly surrounded and laid siege to the city. Some made it out, but, unfortunately, many were left behind.

I’m sure you are familiar with the moment as we’ve all seen the images and heard the stories, but for me the memory of that last bastion of brave men and women struggling to maintain their freedom will forever be engrained in my head. On that day, I was 4 years old, and on that day, my father, a US Navy Officer, was there in that very city.

          And on that morning, he bravely fought to help my mother, a Vietnam war refugee, get more of our family out before tyranny took the remains of my mother’s home country.

          I watched that day, knowing my father was somewhere in that crowd, risking his life to help people he had never met. Thankfully, he was able to climb those stairs and board that crowded helicopter and jump on that ship deck, and come home to us and hold me in his arms.

Bravery, to me, means facing the challenges and fear that must be overcome to accomplish the right thing. It underlines everything I do for I believe that if we are to face a challenge with our individual or collective strength and lead it, we must first wade into that challenge and live it.

            Therefore, as we pursue the policy of healthcare as a human right, we must be strong enough for a protracted battle, utilize every tool and ally we have, and now perhaps more than any other time in the history of our profession, take bold actions that exude bravery in the face of extreme adversity.

            Now we have been facing that adversity for many decades now. However, not only should these challenges not scare us away, but I see THIS moment as a generational opportunity to get to the next level of foundational Primary Care. It won’t be easy, but I know for a fact that positive change rarely comes without a fight.

            And when it comes time to fight, being bold means going toe to toe with other powerful entities who don’t understand just how important a family physician is to a patient. We must force them to understand! We must get them to focus on OUR guiding principles—our independence and the right and ability of people to get the healthcare they need, unimpeded. It’ll require a level of boldness that some may not be comfortable with.

          But I will assert that each one of you here IS bold. There was something more, something extra, that got you here. You wanted to do more than murmur in the back of the room. You wanted to walk right up to one of THOSE microphones and defend or assert that what you believe in is the right thing for us to do.

         Over the many years I’ve stood in this Congress, I have fought for the issues I felt were important to me, to my patients, the Arizona Academy, and every other constituency I’ve represented at the national level. Whether the battle was over gun control, international medical graduate training, refugee health care, government intrusion, administrative burden or any other hot button issues, I’ve stood at those microphones and raised my voice, advocating and defending, just like you.   

         And I get knocked down. But I get up again. You ain’t ever going to keep me down. We should not be afraid of being challenged. In fact it’s by debating and collaborating in this Congress that we find those innovative solutions to the problems we and our patients face. And when we relentlessly pursue those policies, we make healthcare better. I have found in addition to being brave and bold that being relentless is one of the most important qualities of a successful advocate.

            I firmly believe that Family Medicine is the solution to healthcare’s greatest issues. Access to high quality, comprehensive personal care, responsive to a person’s healthcare needs when and where they need it is exactly what our system needs, and we are the ones to provide it.

            I have dedicated my life, my own personal mission, to providing the kind of care that I want to receive as a patient. I want to live in the system we create, not the one that is forced on us. Wouldn’t it be nice?

         So, I started my practice to provide the compassionate care that the system I had worked under refused to allow happen for poor and undocumented people.

             I have grown that practice into a multi-branch, rural and urban, medical-behavioral, integrated and embedded clinic, worked up the Arizona AFP and AAFP leadership ladders, pivoted, adapted, shifted and grew as the world of healthcare changed around all of us.

         That has given me the opportunity in well over 200 media and government appearances just since 2020 to highlight the Family Physician and the role of primary care.         

            As hard as I’ve fought for the things that were important to me, I will fight even harder for the things that are important to you in the decisions of our Congress and the future of our Academy. 

            Because we are brave.

            We are bold. 

            We are relentless.

            And we will not be ignored.

            We are your Family Physicians.

            I ask for your vote as President elect for our great organization.

            Thank you.