Health Care Professionals Discuss Future of Primary Care

FORT WORTH – Providing team-based health care is a lot like assembling a championship level football team.  

 That was the message Nancy Dickey, M.D., Professor and Past President of Texas A&M Health Science Center and Past President of the American Medical Association, gave to nearly 100 health care providers during the 2025 Healthcare in a Civil Society Conference. 

“If you can’t find a team that fields all of the positions, all of the things that need to be done, then you’re not going to win championships,” Dr. Dickey said.  

Dr. Dickey, the keynote speaker and a panelist at the conference, said having primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other staff members working together would provide the best care for patients.

 “You can’t have a team of only quarterbacks,” Dr. Dickey said.  “We need to find a way for this concept of teams to work so the patient is getting the care that they need at the time that they need it from the person most able to provide that care.” 

Health care providers from across North Texas and beyond gathered at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University to discuss ways that providers could improve primary care for patients during the annual conference, which was sponsored by the Tarrant County Medical Society, Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, Cook Children’s, JPS Health Network, and the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.  

The conference seeks to engage leaders of varying perspectives in a civil conversation that focuses on the health care issues that are important and devoid of rhetoric that often undermines these conversations.  The 2025 program explored the future of primary care by analyzing current trends to anticipate what the future workforce and care delivery models would look like. 

“We were so honored to host this event,” said Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., Founding Dean of Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. “We love showing off our beautiful medical education building and I love the topic that we’ve all come together to discuss.” 

 The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) projects a shortage of 13,500 to 86,000 physicians in the U.S. by 2036.  The shortage includes many medical specialties, including primary care.  

The narrative about primary care being overwhelming contributes to the shortage of medical students choosing the specialty, according to Frank Lonergan, M.D., MSW, Medical Director, Tarrant County Jail Diversion Program and Assistant Professor at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. 

“It gives the students the message of ‘well, I respect them, but boy I don’t think I want to do it,’ ” Dr. Lonergan said.  

Dr. Lonergan was a panelist during the conference alongside Dr. Dickey; Tracy Hicks, DNP, MBA, President-elect of the Texas Nurse Practitioners; and Jo Tilley, DNP, Director of Nursing Practice for Cook Children’s Medical Center.  The discussion was moderated by Pete Geren, who is president and CEO of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation and was Congressman for the 12^th District of Texas from 1989-1997.

The future of team-based care will rely on current medical students going into primary care and putting an emphasis on team intelligence versus personal intelligence, according to Dr. Lonergan.  

“By the time that they are in practice, a lot of these separations between the nurse practitioners, physician assistants, MDs and DOs are going to disappear,” Dr. Lonergan said. “I think everybody out in the community really sees them as being equal. The students have interacted with both so I think the same thing is going to happen over the next 10 years.” 

Another pertinent issue is leveraging technological and operational innovations to improve the health of communities.  

For instance, medical students at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU have four years of physician communication, simulation and technology training embedded into their medical education. They are also connected to physician coaching initiatives that help develop their professional identity. 

“I’ve noticed that students have different projects on social media platforms so they’re already jumping ahead and I think that’s great because with the literacy issues and just people’s attention the more you can move it to the audio visual the better,” Dr. Lonergan said.  

Having faculty members at medical schools encourage students to explore primary care and show them the opportunities to be dynamic is important.  

For example, the family medicine residency program at JPS Health Network equips residents with skills to perform ultrasounds, baby delivery, and intensive care unit (ICU) skills, Dr. Lonergan added.  

“But the reality is a fair amount of them will go into a practice where they utilize none of those skills,” Dr. Lonergan said. “That’s the big miss and we need to somehow broaden primary care to the way that it was.”