Family Medicine Chair’s Welcome
Greetings from Central Illinois
This department believes everyone deserves a physician who can care for the whole person. That idea drives our work every day. Our faculty nurtures talent — in students, residents and in each other — to prepare the next generation of physicians to understand and serve the whole person. It’s our job to impart the values of family medicine to every learner we get the opportunity to meet.
Whole person care widens our perspective as family physicians. We see beyond the exam room to consider the social conditions that impact patient health the most. This larger view makes family physicians distinctly qualified to reach out and care for underserved and at-risk populations, and work to solve underlying problems plaguing the current health care system.
Whole person care doesn’t just apply to how we treat patients. Heading link
We care about whole learners and whole physicians, too.
Allow me to share a lesson from my own life:
When I first became a faculty member, despite being a confident physician, I found teaching to be challenging. As I focused on developing my teaching skills, I compartmentalized who I was. I ignored my experiences as a clinician in order to focus on teaching. This was a mistake. My experiences and my viewpoints enhance my teaching; for residents, students, patients, and myself. I had forgotten the importance of bringing me, my whole person and my own uniqueness, to the table.
This is a department that values and celebrates the whole you. Heading link
We welcome diversity in people and points of view. We encourage learners to embrace and use their experiences as they grow, while remaining open to new attitudes and new ways of thinking. Our focus on whole person care means we pay attention to our own health as physicians. Our faculty is actively addressing career burnout and disillusionment through prevention strategies that build resiliency and awareness. In this department, by connecting as much as people as physicians, we create meaningful relationships that extend past education to lifelong professional support and even friendship.
Each resident physician and student who interacts with our department is on their own personal path of development. It is a privilege to share the joys of family medicine with them and to support them as they evolve. We will continue working to bring energetic and talented physicians into this specialty that we love and create a strong pipeline for the future of family medicine — one whole person at a time.
Sincerely,
Kelvin E. Wynn, MD
Chair, Department of Family and Community Medicine
Associate Professor of Clinical Family Medicine
Thomas and Ellen Foster Endowed Chair in Family and Community Medicine