An Interview with your new President, Shannon Connolly, MD

Q: Why family medicine for you? Who were the role models who inspired you to go into family medicine?

I took a very circuitous route to becoming a family doctor. After college I worked as a medical assistant and later a clinic supervisor in an abortion clinic that had been the site of a shooting where several people had been injured and killed, years before I arrived. Many of my coworkers had survived that event and continued to work in that clinic because they believed so strongly in reproductive justice and the importance of the work that they did. I was very inspired by the commitment that they had to the community. Over time, one of the family doctors there became a mentor and encouraged me to go to medical school because he could see that I loved working with patients as much as I loved the science of medicine. At the time it seemed like a crazy idea because I thought I had already found my career. Nonetheless, he convinced me to take the plunge and go back to school. As a second-year med student, I was fairly sure that I would go into family medicine because it seemed to be a field that was grounded in social justice. I wanted to be the kind of doctor that thought not only about how to fix people who were sick, but also about why people got sick and what role our society played in creating those conditions. I also loved sexual and reproductive health care and thought that family medicine would allow me to combine all these interests. I planned to do a rotation with a family doctor named George Tiller who had a family planning clinic in Kansas, so I could see what that might look like in practice. However, that rotation never came to pass. Shortly before I was going to start, Dr Tiller was murdered by an antiabortion extremist while he attended church. I was devastated. I think that that event tipped me into family medicine because I wanted to honor Dr Tiller by following his example.

Q: What piqued your interest in becoming active with your county and state AFP chapters?

When I was a med student, one of my faculty members invited me along to go to what was then called the National Conference of Special Constituencies (NCSC), now called the National Conference of Constituency Leaders (NCCL) at the AAFP. I was just a med student and, on that trip, I met some family medicine “greats” —Jay Lee, Michelle Quiogue, Shelly Rodrigues, and Susan Hogeland. They were so warm and welcoming and encouraging that I just knew I had found “my people.” From there, I went to every CAFP event I could.

Q: Is now the best time ever to be a family physician, in your estimation?

Now is both the best and most important time to be a family physician! We have so much good work to do, and I believe right now we are in a moment in time where change is more possible than it ever has been before. The pandemic has incontrovertibly changed the way our society thinks about medicine and public health. The Black Lives Matter movement has the kind of momentum we have not seen since the Civil Rights era. The house of medicine is examining how it has reified historical injustices and people are finally paying attention. It is the perfect constellation of events. We must seize this opportunity and use it for the good of our patients. I cannot imagine a more important or rewarding job right now than that of the family physician.

Q: What are the most important challenges confronting CAFP?

Well, we have a few! As an organization that exists to support family doctors and their patients, our challenges are the challenges of our members. We have a perversely incentivized health care system where doctors are undervalued and frequently treated as interchangeable commodities, rather than

healers. The cost of medical education has reached a level that is unsustainable, and yet residencies are underfunded. The pandemic has demonstrated that decades of underinvestment in public health has caused the system to fail when it was needed most. We are fighting a culture war of misinformation and distrust in science alongside a national reckoning about racism. I am just getting started! There is no shortage of challenges to work on.

Q: What has been the best part of being an officer in CAFP so far?

Easily the opportunity to get to know so many other family physicians. I am always amazed by all the different ways in which family doctors show up and make a difference in their communities. Getting to know other doctors and the work they are doing inspires me to be more aspirational in the work that I do.

Q: How do you maintain what former President Jay Lee calls “the joy” of family medicine?

It is easy to find joy in family medicine when I am doing the work of family medicine. My patients are my joy—I love them, I love the honor of being able to participate in and witness their lives, I love their stories and their struggles. They are so generous and kind to me. A patient of mine with a rapidly progressive neurological condition recently presented me with a scarf that she had knitted for me. It was the last knitting project that she was able to complete

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continued from previous page before she lost all her fine motor coordination, and she chose to give this precious thing to me. How can I not be humbled by that? Connections with other humans like that are restorative. I think the key is being able to focus on the work of family medicine. There are so many competing time sinks in our lives—a lot of which are created by a health care system that is not designed to prioritize actual health care. Maintaining my joy is often about fiercely protecting my ability to spend time taking care of patients.

Q: How do you maintain work-life balance?

I like to think of the rule of thirds. A third of my energy is for work, a third of my energy is for family and friends, and a third of energy of is for the community. I try to stick to that, with varying degrees of success! I find that I am happiest when I am busiest, and I try to stay busy with things that add value to my life or the world. Sometimes I don’t get to the laundry, but I’m ok with that!

Q: What do you see as the best ways CAFP can help its members maintain the joy?

I believe the antidote to burnout in medicine is advocacy, and the CAFP creates easy pathways for getting involved with advocacy. It sounds counterintuitive to say that if you are having trouble finding your joy, you need to do more, but I would argue that whatever is burning you out will feel even worse if you’re not doing anything to change it. Through advocacy, you can fix the problems that are your pain points, and make a difference on a system, not just an individual level. There is nothing more empowering and rewarding than seeing change happening because of the work you have done.

Q: Where will family medicine be in 10 years and what role will CAFP have played in it?

I believe that the CAFP has the potential to be a national thought leader for the field of family medicine, and my vision is that in ten years, the CAFP will be known as the change agent that made family medicine synonymous with health equity.

Q: What is your message to the next generation of family physicians – what will sustain them?

Find your North Star early and keep your eye on it! Then remember that part of the job of a family physician is being an advocate for your patients and community. The walls of your clinics and hospitals do not represent the boundaries of your work. Your work can and should extend far beyond and believing that will keep you motivated to continue fighting for what is right.

Q: Finally, what is one fun thing that CAFP members should know about you?

I love animals—big animals, small animals, furry, scaly, feathered, I love them all. If I had not become a doctor, I would have become a vet. I am always happy to meet your pets!

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MOUNTAIN HOME, ARKANSAS

(870) 508-1010 | www.baxterregional.org physicianrecruitment@baxterregional.org