2017 Farley Frey Awards

From left: DFMCH Chair Valerie Gilchrist, MD, Farley lecturer Nick Turkal, MD, and John Frey, MD

On September 13, 2017, the UW Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH) welcomed Nick Turkal, MD, as its 2017 Eugene Farley Visiting Professor.

Dr. Turkal is the president and chief executive officer of Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is also a family physician, a former residency program director at the Aurora St. Luke’s family medicine residency program and a clinical adjunct professor at the DFMCH.

He began his presentation, “Beyond the Walls of Traditional Care: How Innovation, New Care Models and Community Collaborations Are Changing the Way We Work,” with a recollection of how Eugene Farley, MD, and his wife Linda Farley, MD, influenced him early in his career.

Dr. Turkal was a young faculty member establishing family medicine education in Milwaukee, with partnerships from UW, when Dr. Farley was DFMCH chair. “Gene was very generous with his time, advice, support and presence,” Dr. Turkal reflected. “The very best gift that he gave me was the gift of vision: the ability to think differently about medicine and health care and what family medicine could mean for populations in Milwaukee.”

“That’s how I’d like to honor the Farleys: for giving us all vision,” he continued. “Their impact is going on now and will go on for generations.”

Watch 2017 Eugene Farley Visiting Professor Presentation

Trends Beyond Traditional Care

Dr. Turkal then shared examples of trends in health care that signify new ways of working and caring for patients. They include:

  • Less emphasis on bricks-and-mortar facilities and more emphasis on patient access and interaction;
  • Shifting from “sick care” to wellness and prevention; from caregivers to health champions; from passive patients to active consumers; and from volume of care to value of care;
  • Embracing diversity and inclusion, and being able to meet patients where they are;
  • How technology, such as electronic health records and telehealth, can prevent error and increase critical access;
  • Innovative approaches to helping patients most in need get established with a primary-care provider and reduce emergency department visits; and
  • Collaborating with local organizations to meet the community’s highest needs.

“We have an opportunity as family doctors to be conveners,” he concluded. “We shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of convening the right people in a room together, stimulating conversation and changing the way care is delivered.”

Photo Slideshow

DFMCH Chair Valerie Gilchrist, MD, Farley lecturer Nick Turkal, MD, and John Frey, MD
« of 8 »

Frey Writing Award Winners

The DFMCH also presented this year’s John Frey Writing Award winners. The Frey Writing Awards were established in 2010 to honor John Frey, III, MD, past chair of the DFMCH, and to recognize and encourage individual creative writing.

Prose:

  • Getting Drunk on Kefir and Other Ridiculous Ideas (Cassandra Sundaram)
  • Picture Book Bandhs (Maureen Landsverk)
  • Review: The Image of Blacks (Susan Golz)

Poetry:

  • History and physical (Jonathan Temte, MD, PhD)
  • Hospital Haircut (Elizabeth Perry, MD)
  • II Corinthians 9:12 (Ildi Martonffy, MD)

View all of this year’s submissions: 2017 Frey Booklet (PDF)

Published: September 2017