Hooked on Primary Care with Matthew Adkins, DO

Hope is what pulled me in to family medicine.

Since my adolescence, I was made acutely aware of the different and seemingly separate worlds many people live in. Not everyone has safe, supportive environments. Not everyone has access to equitable care. Many are marginalized. Many are chronically stressed, living in fear and without the necessary support. But more is possible. Hope. I never had a clear vision of being a family medicine physician when I was younger, but following that desire to create a world with more equitable and safe spaces led me to family medicine before I even knew why, and I’m so grateful it did.

Primary care allows us to meet people in their most authentic and often vulnerable states. In what other specialty do we get to forge connections with other humans that go much deeper than episodic interactions? I think that’s why so many of us who wrote a variation of “I want to make a difference” in our medical school essays (and meant it) end up in primary care. In family medicine, no phase of life or problem is out of our scope. Birth and death, joy and heartbreak, health and disease, celebration and grief — and everything in between. The breadth and depth of family medicine is what equips us to reach the most marginalized people, advocate on their behalf and work to improve our systems to serve everyone better.

Wanting to be the most prepared to take care of everyone is why I chose a full-spectrum residency program in which to train — Grant Family Medicine in Columbus, Ohio — and it’s where I’ve stayed as faculty now for almost 7 years. I’m truly humbled and honored to be surrounded every day by humans with such grit and heart — truly the best and brightest. Primary care is hard; there’s no way around that. But it is also a deeply rewarding and sacred profession, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Matthew Adkins, DO
New physician member, American Academy of Family Physicians board of directors