Infrastructure ACOFP: OUR CONTINUING HISTORY 49 Osteopathic medical students have played an important part in ACOFP’s history. Sometimes they became leaders in reactivating student societies. Such was the case of a student from Pennsylvania, Alice J. Zal, DO, FACOFP, who was instrumental in reactivating the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) Student Society. Because of her sincere interest in the reactivation process, Dr. Zal was appointed the first president of the PCOM Student Society. Since 1987, the PCOM Student Society has been active — all because one student cared enough to become a leader in student activities. To ensure that students have a constant voice in ACOFP, a student governor sits as a full voting member of the Board of Governors and is appointed to student committees. In 2022, the ACOFP Student Association became a voting delegation at the ACOFP Congress of Delegates. The organization has since expanded to nearly 60 student societies, each led by an executive leadership team consisting of a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and faculty advisor, with many societies have additional leadership roles. The National Student Executive Board, elected annually during the ACOFP convention, oversees the Student Association, and four student-run committees provide additional volunteer opportunities, allowing ACOFP to cultivate leaders and advance family medicine. A NEW HOME GETS A NEW NAME It has been pointed out previously in this history that ACOFP’s founders were foresighted in many efforts related to ACOFP’s founding. One specific example of their foresight was to register the right to exclusively use “general practice” in the organization’s name. With the trend toward delivering better reimbursement for specialists who were certified, it was not long before general practitioners in both the allopathic and osteopathic professions were working toward the goal of certification. The general practitioners in the allopathic profession were no different from our founders, as they too wished to start a specialty college. In 1969, allopathic general practitioners explored names that would include “general practice,” but ACOFP had registered that right. This may have been one reason why the larger group formulated the name “family practice” to designate its specialty. The group began calling this new specialty “family practice” and those who practiced in that specialty “family physicians.” It was a sweet victory for ACOFP to have the exclusive rights to the designation of GP, and it would last for the next 23 years. Many times, the smaller group of a profession can be swept into the wake of the larger body and be drawn along with it. The ACOFP leaders enjoyed a separate and distinct name as well as a distinct and independent style of practice It was a sweet victory for ACOFP to have the exclusive rights to the designation of GP, and it would last for the next 23 years.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2NjI=