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Is there any value of retaining this after residency training is complete?
AAFP membership
- Thread starter futuredrdo
- Start date
D
deleted87716
Yes.
www.aafp.org
Become a Member
Become a member of the AAFP and gain exclusive access to member resources and benefits designed to advance your career as a family physician.
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I personally rank AAFP right up there with my Up2Date subscription. However AAFP is more outpatient geared, and thus many hospitalists may not find AAFP very relevant to them. I am outpatient only and I still read them religiously 2 years out of residency.
Membership also does make it easy tracking CME to ensure you have enough including live hours.
One downside with it, its costly. My 2nd year into attendinghood and the price for everything AAFP was above $800. My job does provide 3 memberships per year while employed and thus this membership didn't cost me anything.
In conclusion, I'd pay for it if did cost me. I enjoy learning from the articles, is different from learning from Up2Date. I also enjoy the CME Quizzes in each issue and the free quizzes on the website, as well as the ease of tracking CME. I believe you can search for CME events on website as well. Overall, I get a lot of use out of it.
If you decide not to pay for it but want another Journal to read from, I also find "The Journal of Family Practice" of good use as well when I have extra time to read some from a 2nd journal. I have normally been able to get subscribed for free through emailing them online.
Hope this helped, some may not find it as useful as I do. And no, I don't get reimbursed for spreading the good word to others in regards to AAFP lol....
Happy new year.
Membership also does make it easy tracking CME to ensure you have enough including live hours.
One downside with it, its costly. My 2nd year into attendinghood and the price for everything AAFP was above $800. My job does provide 3 memberships per year while employed and thus this membership didn't cost me anything.
In conclusion, I'd pay for it if did cost me. I enjoy learning from the articles, is different from learning from Up2Date. I also enjoy the CME Quizzes in each issue and the free quizzes on the website, as well as the ease of tracking CME. I believe you can search for CME events on website as well. Overall, I get a lot of use out of it.
If you decide not to pay for it but want another Journal to read from, I also find "The Journal of Family Practice" of good use as well when I have extra time to read some from a 2nd journal. I have normally been able to get subscribed for free through emailing them online.
Hope this helped, some may not find it as useful as I do. And no, I don't get reimbursed for spreading the good word to others in regards to AAFP lol....
Happy new year.
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Also I feel like the AAFP is a large organization that throws its weight around for the right reasons. Some may say I'm naive, but I feel like they actually try to educate and advocate for FM docs. Given there are so many FM physicians, that's quite a valuable thing.
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Agreed. I don't agree with every single thing they advocate for, but I do the majority of the time.
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They’ve are worth it! They’ve also done quite a few “live” cme this year during covid so I was able to get the requirements I need to renew my state license this year for free without having to leave my house.
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No, you don't have to be an AAFP member. AAFP has a lot of CME activities and educational materials, but you can find all of that elsewhere for cheaper. I never renewed my AAFP subscription after residency, and I'm doing just fine. I'm ABFM certified, and that's all you need. ABFM has lots of certification activities that count for your CME. Anything else you do, you just fill out their form and get it recorded.
You are in no way obligated to use or record CME through AAFP. They have nothing to do with your board certification and are a completely separate business entity, and quite an expensive one at that. In my opinion, you are paying mostly to fund their extensive state and national member groups and their CME activities, which is fine, but so far I've found that I can get just as good or better CME elsewhere. I have nothing specifically against them and they do advocacy for family docs, etc...but the price is just too high for me as a young physician with a family to support in a lot of debt. I only have so much CME money to throw around each year, and an AAFP membership would mean giving up other opportunities for local, homegrown CME in my community.
You are in no way obligated to use or record CME through AAFP. They have nothing to do with your board certification and are a completely separate business entity, and quite an expensive one at that. In my opinion, you are paying mostly to fund their extensive state and national member groups and their CME activities, which is fine, but so far I've found that I can get just as good or better CME elsewhere. I have nothing specifically against them and they do advocacy for family docs, etc...but the price is just too high for me as a young physician with a family to support in a lot of debt. I only have so much CME money to throw around each year, and an AAFP membership would mean giving up other opportunities for local, homegrown CME in my community.
