{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/7940r9nz35/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Jerry Rogers"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2008-08-13 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Sandy Panther (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio file"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["family medicine","Minnesota Family Physicians Academy","American Academy of Family Physicians","Family physician"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Jerry P. Rogers, MD (personal name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Rogers_Jerry_08.wav"]},"duration":4620.02287,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/286/746/original/Rogers_Jerry_08.wav?1755100277","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":4620.02287,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746/transcript/82482","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dr. Jerry Rogers Interview Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746/transcript/82482/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DR. ROGERS, THE FIRST QUESTION I HAVE FOR YOU IS THAT YOU ARE AWARE AND THAT WE ARE AUDIO TAPING THIS AND GIVE YOUR PERMISSION TO DO SO?\n\nI am aware and I give my permission to do so.\n\nI’M GOING TO HAVE A SERIES OF QUESTIONS.  WE’LL SORT OF DIVIDE THIS BY YOUR EARLY LIFE, YOUR EDUCATION, YOUR ACADEMICS, YOUR ACADEMY ROLE, YOUR FOUNDATION ROLE AND THEN ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO INCLUDE.\n\nWE WILL START WITH THE FAMILY.  SO IF YOU COULD GIVE US YOUR FULL NAME, YOUR PRESENT TITLE AND THEN WHERE YOU WERE BORN AND YOUR PARENTS NAMES.  SOME PAST HISTORY.\n\nMy name is Jerry Paul Rogers.  I’m a practicing physician full time in private practice.  I was born March 13, 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  My parents were Earl and Loyal Rogers.  Most of my growing up years my family lived on a farm.  We moved when I was an infant from Minneapolis to northwestern Minnesota.  And when I was fourteen years old my father started a business distributing petroleum products and lived off the farm after that.  \n\nI WILL GET INTO YOUR EDUCATION A LITTLE BIT LATER.  YOU ARE CURRENTLY MARRIED?\n\nI’m married to my wife Susan.  We were married in 1970.  We have two children.  Christopher was born in 1977 and  our daughter Melinda was born in 1980.  \n\nAND ARE THEY CURRENTLY EMPLOYED?\n\nThey are employed.  My daughter is employed as a journalist with The Salt Lake Tribute.  My son is Assistant Athletic Director at Ohio State University.\n\nAND AS THE ASSISTANT ATHLETIC DIRECTION HE IS NOT A PHYSICIAN, IS THAT CORRECT?\n\nHe is not a physician.\n\nDID YOU HAVE ANY PARTICULAR ROLE MODELS WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG?  PARTICULARLY THOSE THAT YOU MAY HAVE LOOKED UP TO THAT LED YOU INTO MEDICINE?\n\n\nGrowing up in a small town in northern Minnesota, it was a typical small town with most of the time a single family doctor as our only medical care that we had.  So that would probably have to be my most likely role model from the standpoint of medicine.\n\nDID YOU ALWAYS DREAM YOU WOULD BE A PHYSICIAN?\n\nFrom a very young age, I always thought I would like that.  \n\nANY CHILDHOOD STORIES THAT COME TO MIND THAT WERE REALLY GOOD MEMORIES?\n\nI wasn’t thinking about that.  Related to medicine or just childhood memories?  JUST CHILDHOOD MEMORIES.  Growing up in a rural area on a farm, you get to know very well both the family members and neighbors and friends.  And just the sense of community that is created through athletic games and other things.  And the neighborhood may extend for several miles in a farming community.  So there were enjoyable things as well as the times when we were able to travel some with my parents and siblings, which we did very seldom.  \n\nAS FAR AS YOUR EDUCATION GOES, CAN YOU TELL US WHERE YOU WENT TO SCHOOL, BOTH GRADE SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL?  WHAT YOUR EARLY YEARS WERE LIKE IN THAT SETTING?\n\nI went to elementary school in a town of Twin Valleys, Minnesota which is a town of about 600 people.  Those were the years when we lived on a farm.  As I mentioned, you get to know everybody very well.  My entire class in school was probably fifty.  And the entire grade school and high school, which was kind of all connected into one building, not much more than 100 to 200 students.  When my father established his business, we moved to a town of Minola, Minnesota which was actually on a reservation and that’s where I went to high school.  So in those days it seemed like a much bigger town of about 1200 people - and that’s where I graduated from high school.  And then from there I went to undergraduate school at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities, going from a typical very small town in Minnesota to by far the biggest metropolitan area in our part of the country.\n\nWHAT WAS YOUR MAJOR IN COLLEGE?\n\nActually, I had a couple of different majors.  I originally got a B.A. degree in psychology but then continued to get a B.S. degree from College of Education.  So I had a teaching degree and my first years in the work world were much different than medicine as I was involved as a secondary school teacher.  \n\nWHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL AND BECOME A PHYSICIAN?\n\nProbably a combination of looking back at those are the kinds of things I liked - science.  For me there were lots of frustrations as far as things happening in the public school systems in the early ‘70s.  And so I decided to go on to medical school.  And what happened at the same time is that there was the opening in Minnesota of two new medical schools in Duluth and at Mayo.  And so my opportunity came about as a priority of medical students being recruited from rural areas into the school of Duluth.  \n\nAND WAS YOUR HOPE ALWAYS TO GO BACK AND PRACTICE IN A RURAL AREA?\n\nI’m not sure if that was always the case.  But it was also one of the things that we got a lot of exposure to.  It was also one of the things that we were encouraged that that’s what the purpose, the priorities of the school were.  So in some ways you felt almost an obligation as well.  And I continued to have interest in that as well.  \n\nAND DID YOU DO YOUR RESIDENCY IN THE SAME LOCATION THEN AS MEDICAL SCHOOL?\n\nActually, my medical school, I was in Duluth for two years of medical school.  And then the school has a system where you transfer to a medical school in Minneapolis for your clinical training years.  And I did my residency in the Twin Cities following my medical school time there.\n\nAND WHERE DID YOU GO FOLLOWING RESIDENCY TRAINING?\n\nActually, I moved to the same location I live currently.  I was in a different practice.  Actually, my initial practice was in a small town about twenty miles from where we lived.  There was no hospital in the town.  The hospital is in the town where I live now.\n\nWERE THERE ANY STORIES DURING YOUR MEDICAL SCHOOL TRAINING OR YOUR RESIDENCY YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?\n\nIf we start on those there may be a lot.  Probably for me, because of the background one of the unique things at the medical school in Duluth, we were exposed to clinical practice very early on.  We spent time with family physicians during our first year of medical school.  Basically one day a month kind of shadowing the physician.  Our second year we would spend three days at a time basically living with a family physician somewhere in a rural community in the state.  And that sort of just made you feel this is the kind of thing that I kind of like doing.  Like many medical students, there are lots of rotations that you think this is kind of fun, I like doing this and maybe I would like to pursue it.  But it still kind of came back to the same thing, that I can kind of gear my practice to however I like based on the fact that we have a very broad training and the things we can do are so widely varied.\n\nWHAT WAS THE WORLD OF FAMILY MEDICINE LIKE WHEN YOU FINISHED YOUR RESIDENCY?\n\nEspecially in that part of the country, family medicine is a major part of the medical care provided throughout our region, including in the metropolitan areas.  Some of the biggest hospitals have the majority of the patients admitted to the hospital by family physicians.  And we are also in the part of the country where the managed care became a much bigger thing, especially in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  And the emphasis was on the old gatekeeper concept which made family medicine very vital to making those systems work.\n\n SO MANY NOW ARE IN ACADEMICS OR WORKING FOR HOSPITALS,.  BUT CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH YOUR PRIVATE PRACTICE?\n\nI guess I would consider my experience most of the time being what you would consider fairly traditional, meaning we do a full range of family medicine.  For the first twelve years I did a full range of services from seeing infants to elderly people.  I did a hospital practice, a daily clinic practice.  Taking call initially with two of us.  And it has become a much bigger group, so I don’t do that as often.  So a lot of those things, as far as the things I do day-to-day and the types of patients I see, haven’t changed a lot.  Other than I have not done obstetrics for the last ten or twelve years.  \n\nYOU HAVE HELD SOME OTHER POSITIONS BESIDES PRIVATE PRACTICE THROUGHOUT YOUR CAREER.  I NOTICED ON YOUR CV YOU WERE THE DIRECTOR OF A NURSING HOME - AND I DON’T KNOW IF YOU STILL ARE OR NOT.\n\nI still am.  That is actually one of the first places I worked when I first moved to this area.  It’s a rural nursing home that myself and my partner became the primary physicians.  It has sixty-some beds in it.  And there are some other people who see patients there.  Probably actually most of the patients are seen by another clinic group now.  But I continue to be the Medical Director there yet now.\n\nAND YOU ALSO SERVED AS TEAM PHYSICIAN FOR A UNIVERSITY?\n\nI did that for about eleven years for a state university that’s located in our community. We also have two other colleges in the city.  I just recently moved to a higher level which I spend less time.  Still, on occasion I do some things with it.  But I’m not there on a more than once a week basis any longer.\n\nHAVE YOU FACED ANY REAL UNIQUE CHALLENGES, BARRIERS OR OBSTACLES SO FAR IN YOUR CAREER?\n\nI’m not sure how unique they are.  We all have obstacles related to especially regulatory sort of issues and increasing amounts of time spent with doing paper functions, documenting things, doing authorizations for medications, getting people referred to other providers.  This has all become more difficult in some ways.  \n\nSO YOU FEEL THAT MEDICINE HAS ACTUALLY BECOME MORE DIFFICULT TO PRACTICE NOW THAN WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED?\n\nYes, from those standpoints.  From the standpoint of the problems people come with, dealing directly with patients from day-to-day, I don’t see those as any different. The people I’ve seen today, the problems they have and how we deal with them and how relationships have developed and continued, in my opinion that’s not much different at all.  \n\nHAVE YOU HAD ANY REAL TOUGH DECISIONS THAT YOU’VE HAD TO MAKE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR PRACTICE?\n\nWell, there’s always difficult things.  Helping people with sort of life changing decisions.  Probably getting family members into treatment for dependencies dealing with major life-threatening and life-ending illnesses.  Those are all things that you learn better how to deal with.  And you have a lot of patients that are kind of seen as friends as well as they are patients.  And those are difficult to deal with.\n\nDO YOU HAVE A BIGGEST SATISFACTION FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH WORKING IN MEDICINE?\n\nIt’s probably those same things.  The biggest satisfaction is the relationships that develop with the people you see over the years.  And at this point, a lot of my colleagues have patients that at one time delivered them as infants.  And they are now adults and have children of their own.  And if I was still in obstetrics, I would probably be doing some of that. But I do see now a third and fourth generation of people all at the same time in my office. \n\nIF YOU COULD START IT ALL OVER AGAIN DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD DO ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY?\n\nThere are probably lots of things we think we would like to do day-to-day differently.  But the major things, the directions we go, I don’t think so.  Would I go back and do medicine again or would I go back to family medicine again?  I’m pretty sure I would do that as well.  Would I practice in the same location doing the same type of practice for all that time?  I don’t know what I would have done different because there are lots of things that wouldn’t be the same had you not done that.  So I don’t think I would do anything to alter that.  There are lots of things not only in medicine but just in life that I wish I would have known then what I know now.  So there are things like that that you could in some ways make things easier for yourself or for other people, if you had insight.\n\nWHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOU WORKED WITH MOST CLOSELY, PARTICULARLY IN YOUR PRACTICE SETTING?  WE WILL GET TO THE ACADEMY AND THE FOUNDATION LATER.\n\nIn my practice or my training days?  \n\nEITHER PRACTICE OR TRAINING.\n\nI guess the people in the training that you get closest to are, of course, your residency because you spend three years at the same time.  I guess there are people close in my first year medical school that I have contact with.  In fact, a couple of them ended up being partners of mine in my practice group.  I started out in a small medical school.  Our student class size was thirty-six initially, which you get to know the people pretty well.  And the same with residency, you get to know all of those people very well.  You depend on each other and have to work together closely for three years of time.  And in those situations, or at least in mine, my Director was somebody I respected well and was somebody who had been in practice for years and years.  AND WHO WAS THAT?  His name is Carl Boyes.  He came from a small rural town of Iowa and said many times I thought maybe there was too much work for me anymore, so I went into academics and found out it wasn’t any easier at all.  There are lots of things I can still remember.  I could kind of give you little quotes here and there that you kind of remember.  Although I’m part of a very large practicing group for a number of years, I work in a clinic setting that is three or four people.  So you, again, are working in an environment with people you work pretty closely with that you get to know pretty well and become friends as well as colleagues.  \n\nHAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED IN ACADEMICS AT ALL, TEACHING, DEPARTMENT CHAIR?\n\nI have probably been involved to varying degrees.  But from the day I started practice I’ve been involved in academics all as volunteer faculty.  I mentioned having the experiences in my medical school days in which we would go out to essentially live with a family physician for three days at a time.  We did that three times for a year.  I have had students come and stay with me for a good share of the time that I’ve been in practice.  PRECEPTING YOU MEAN?  YOU ARE A PRECEPTOR?  Yes.  In this case, talking about the medical group that is in their second year.  I was also involved, there was a local family medicine residency in the community here, a couple of days a month precepting in the clinic. Again, that’s volunteer time.  I guess my other education connections, I’ve had opportunities to have both medical students, P.A. students and nurse practitioners through the various times, to spend time in my office as one of their rotations.  \n\nAND THAT WAS WORTHWHILE TO YOU?\n\nIt was worthwhile to me.  It gives you a good perspective and it also keeps you young.  There are new ideas, new questions that you may not think about because you get very used to doing things.  And they are the very things that I guess I asked people back when I was their age or at their stage of training.  \n\nNOW I WOULD LIKE TO SORT OF MOVE INTO YOUR WORK WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS.  YOU HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN A VARIETY OF ORGANIZATIONS.  LET’S START WITH THE MINNESOTA ACADEMY AND TELL ME A LITTLE BIT OF YOUR HISTORY WITH THAT ACADEMY BOTH PAST AND CURRENT.\n\nI actually was not as a student involved with the Academy at all.  When I was a resident I had a couple of friends that were somewhat involved with the Academy in Minnesota.  And I went to my first Annual Meeting in Las Vegas in I think it was 1981.  As residents from my program, we presented a scientific project on neonatal resuscitation.  And it seemed like a good time, that I got to know some of the people.  The following year I finished my residency, I moved 200-plus miles from where I had spent my last several years and knew lots of people.  And again, a friend said we can get together if you come back and help us with Academy things.  And the other thing is,  it’s very difficult to get people to be active participants when they have to travel significant distances to get to the meetings or functions that are going on.  And I found that part, that it a fun and interesting thing to do.  And I kind of went from there to becoming involved with the Board and becoming elected as an officer of the Board and becoming involved as an Academy Delegate.  AAFP, each step kind of gets you more involved - and ultimately on the Board of the American Academy.  Our Minnesota Academy is a pretty active organization.  So during the years I was involved as an officer I have been to the Academy meetings and getting to know people in all those states in the Midwest pretty much.  So that included involvement initially with committee functions as well as then when you become an officer - you’re kind of involved in all of those things.\n\nARE THERE PARTS OF YOUR SERVICE AT YOUR STATE LEVEL THAT YOU ARE PARTICULARLY PROUD OF?\n\nWe made a lot of significant changes, especially at the time when I was involved as an officer.  There was a transition from people that were non-residency trained.  I was the first residency-trained officer of our state’s Academy.  So it was more of the founding generation of family medicine people - and all of the official functions were people of a much older generation when I became involved.  And so we’ve made some transitions to get more and more involvement of younger and new family physicians.  Those are probably the biggest things for me.  We also, for the first time, got residents and students directly involved and they have been members of our Board.  There are three medical schools in Minnesota and it wasn’t an easy thing to get to a lot of the students to be at the meetings, first of all.  Second of all, to give them a vote at the meetings.  And third of all, to get a student from each school to be allowed to have a vote on the Board of the Academy.\n\nARE THERE PARTICULAR EITHER STAFF MEMBERS OR PHYSICIANS IN THAT LEADERSHIP ROLE THAT YOU HAVE SPENT A LOT OF TIME WITH THAT YOU PARTICULARLY RESPECT?\n\nThere are almost too many to ... I’m afraid of naming because I’ll forget other people that are really good and really prominent.  And the new generation of people, I think they are a step ahead of me.  They understand a lot of the especially electronic communications and all of those things.  And so I certainly have respect for the people that are able to do this now as compared to the time I was there.  The people of my generation - like I said, I’m not sure I would want to have specific names other than some of the well-known names in our national organization.  My Department Chair (inaudible name) is no longer with us.  He was somebody they certainly respected for what he knew about needing to be done in the world of medicine.\n\nYOU’VE SERVED ON OBVIOUSLY NUMEROUS COMMITTEES WITHIN YOUR CHAPTER.  WERE THERE ANY PARTICULAR STORIES, EXPERIENCES THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?\n\nFrom my state Academy?\n\nYES.  YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY EXECUTIVE MEMBERSHIP, SPORTS MEDICINE, NOMINATING, KEY CONTACT LEGISLATIVE.\n\nEspecially at the time that was one of the things that became new to our Academy as well, and that was sports medicine.  That was  the beginning primary care sports medicine organization as well.  And so we actually were able to make some inroads into the use of the family medicine people in like our state high school league, first of all.  And in athletes, in general, in our state.  \n\nYOU ARE STILL CURRENTLY AN ALTERNATE DELEGATE.  IS THAT CORRECT?\n\nTo our state Academy, yes.  My feeling is that if we could best have new people – as we get new generations of people, that would be a preference.  Going almost back to my early days doing this is that an area of our state that is kind of remote from where all of the meeting things are done, it’s difficult to get enough people to do that.  So in some ways by default, other ways I’m certainly interested in continuing to stay involved at that level.\n\nLET’S MOVE NOW TO THE AMERICAN ACADEMY.  AS YOU STATED, MINNESOTA, YOUR POSITIONS AND YOUR STEPPING UP THE LADDER INTO THE PRESIDENCY SORT OF PRECEDED AND WAS THE FORERUNNER OF YOUR SERVICE ON THE ACADEMY.  CAN YOU GIVE US SORT OF THE BACKGROUND OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE BOTH THROUGH COMMITTEES AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS WITHIN THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS?\n\nThat’s one of my first involvements with the American Academy other than I mentioned my first Annual Meeting.  But that was kind of as an observer.  My year as the President I at the time wasn’t aware of the process of people getting involved with the American Academy and the committees.  I learned about that by becoming an officer and submitting names to be appointed.  My first appointment was through the Education Committee.  That’s one of the things I still remember.  The first meeting I came to, I realized that most of the people in this committee were all highly  qualified people from academic institutions.  And I wondered what I was as a private practicing physician from a rural community doing on this sort of committee for the Academy.  And it turned out two other people, we all started the same year.  My friend Ron Christianson, he and I had that discussion many times because he came from the same background. And we soon realized that really what was important in family medicine is having the connection from people that are doing the practice day-to-day.  And that’s one of the good things about family medicine, that those two different parts of our specialty can talk to each other and they stay connected.  So that’s kind of my first experience with the American Academy.  And some of the things becoming involved as an Academy Board member, as most people become involved they know that it’s a highly political process to get to that level.  But some of it has to be kind of coincidence in the fact that I was there at a time when (inaudible names) had been delegates for several years.   So I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, I might say.  That helped me to get the opportunity to be a delegate.  And subsequently after being a delegate, giving me the opportunity to run for the Board of the American Academy and was successful.  I guess the committee structure, talking about it from the standpoint of being on these ... I was involved in finance at one time.  I had an opportunity to consider going back to education but instead I’d like to learn more about other things in both the quality initiative or the quality committee at the time.  And then ultimately was a candidate for the President of the American Academy - which I wasn’t successful.  But I suppose I could look at it as one of my former Board members said - it could be worse, you could have won.  But that’s just kidding.\n\nWHO ULTIMATELY WON THAT ELECTION?\n\nJim Martin.  Martin and -- and I were classmates.  That’s the situation where you get fairly close to your classmates, as we tend to call them, and I consider them to be friends to this day and certainly people that you don’t mind in the least losing your election to.\n\nI FIND ONE VERY INTERESTING ITEM ON YOUR C.V. AND THAT IS IN 1980 YOU WERE A TECHNICAL EXHIBITOR AT THE ASSEMBLY?\n\nThat’s what I was talking about my residency program.  We developed a course neonatal resuscitation.  The hospital I trained at, we were the only residents.  But our hospital had a neonatal unit.  And to this day it’s a very active unit.\n\nAnd so a course was developed by residents in our program using animal models for intubating infants.  So portions of the course were kind of put on as a technical exhibit at that meeting.  That’s the meeting I was talking about going to Las Vegas.  \n\nWERE THERE ANY MEMORABLE OCCASIONS THAT OCCURRED DURING YOUR TENURE ON THE BOARD?  ANY PARTICULAR EITHER EXCITING OR CONTROVERSIAL DECISIONS THAT THAT BOARD MADE?\n\nWell, the real memorable thing is I was there at the time when our Executive decided to retire.  I don’t know if that’s the right term, but decided to find a different avenue for his expertise.  And we were involved in the hiring of a new Executive.  That certainly was a time of a lot of discussion.  A lot of I’m not sure where we’re going to go next.  We had a difficult time of reducing budgets - and this goes on yet today.  We had to look at what we should really do as far as trying to get a more focused strategic plan which I would bet sounds familiar to people yet today.  \n\nBUT THAT WAS THE ONSET SORT OF, OF THAT STRATEGIC PROCESS, WASN’T IT?\n\nI believe so.  I’m not sure I know the history well enough to know where that started.  But we had some extended times just on developing the focused strategic plan and determining that we couldn’t take on every project that somebody thought might be a good idea.  Because there are 1,000 good ideas but we can’t do them all and do them all well.  \n\nI KNOW IT WAS DR. GRAHAM WHO DEPARTED, I’M CORRECT ... That’s correct, yes.  AND DR. HENLEY WHO ... Dr. Henley became then the CEO.\n\nNOW WERE YOU ON THE SELECTION COMMITTEE FOR THAT?\n\nWell, the Board was the selection committee.  But there was a screening committee that brought the candidates to the Board.  So I was not on the screening committee but the Board members all were well-versed in where we were at and what was happening and who was our candidate and those sorts of things.\n\nWAS THAT PROCESS EASY OR DID IT BECOME VERY TIME-CONSUMING WITH QUESTIONS ON  INDIVIDUALS AND WHO WOULD BE MOST QUALIFIED FOR THAT POSITION?\n\nI never thought of it being that difficult because the individuals that we saw as candidates, I didn’t think any of them would be bad people to choose.  I thought we had excellent possibilities in all the people we had.  I was not enthralled with the screening process.  I would assume there were a large number of people that submitted inquiries and applications that had to be screened through.  But that process, I wasn’t part of.  But that would be the time consuming part of that.  So I didn’t feel that it was that time consuming.  But there was a fair amount of time that we spent from the standpoint of face-to-face meetings as well as some phone meetings to discuss some of those issues.  \n\nWHAT JOB DID YOU ENJOY THE MOST ON THE BOARD?\n\nThe friendships with the people that you develop.  There are just good persons - the most energetic, the most intelligent, the most friendly people of anywhere.  And the sea of people with kind of diverse backgrounds from different parts of the country in the different settings.  And the amount of time you spend together - that would not be a good time if there was a lot of conflict or controversy or disagreement.  The fact that, in my view, the Board of Directors was a group that could get together and actively have disagreements, arguments about the pluses and minuses of whatever the issue of the day was, complete the meeting and be best of friends was exactly what I would hope for.  I did not sense any type of decisions made on a personal basis.  It was made on a basis of what was best for the business of especially family medicine and for our organization.\n\nWERE THERE PARTICULAR PEOPLE YOU WORKED MOST CLOSELY WITH IN THE ORGANIZATION?\n\nOf course, our co-board members and the people that came in at the same time. So you spend more time with those.  I really enjoyed getting to know our residents.  But they’re only a year, so there are several of those.  I can’t say there would really be anyone in the organization that I didn’t enjoy getting to know and working with.  I didn’t find any of them difficult to get our things done and timely.\n\nONE LAST QUESTION ON THE ACADEMY.  DO YOU FEEL THE ORGANIZATION IS DOING BETTER NOWADAYS THAN IT WAS WHEN YOU WERE ON THE BOARD?\n\nBoy, that’s a hard question to answer.  On some levels I think they have become a much more focused organization.  They have become much better at communicating with other organizations.  They have become, in my view, more influential from the standpoint of the world of medicine, amongst the business of medicine and amongst the government leadership.  I think people know who the Academy is, more likely now than when I was first involved with it.  On the other parts, it would seem like there are just the stresses of trying to manage the amount of the cost.  There is lots of stresses on the organization always from the standpoint of getting the organization’s mission done, down to the very specifics of the people that are hired, the staff people.  There has to be physical time to manage all that.\n\nI WOULD LIKE NOW TO GET INTO, DR. ROGERS, YOUR SERVICE WITH THE FOUNDATION.  IF YOU COULD GO THROUGH HOW YOU CAME ON BOARD AS A TRUSTEE AND THEN THE DIFFERENT POSITIONS YOU HELD HERE.\n\nMy first involvement with the Foundation is in some ways kind of a happenstance.  I don’t remember what year when I started doing it, but at the end of my first year on the Academy Board, at our winter meeting it was announced that the person who had been elected to an office in the Foundation had not been replaced and it had been overlooked.  And so then it was up to the Academy Board to appoint someone for the year to be the Foundation representative.  The Academy, of course, has two representatives that were already there.  And my friend  – said have you considered doing this?  I said I think it’s a pretty good thing to do, I kind of like going there.  At the time it didn’t seem very difficult to get elected.  It seemed like anybody who volunteered - okay, go ahead and do that.  And it kind of went from there.  It turns out that that position actually was not an Academy Board type position.  It was not a large position, which by the bylaws said that you fulfill someone else’s term, you were then eligible to be re-elected for a four year term.  Which happened to me to be the next year.  So I finished my time on the Board of the American Academy actually with two years left to serve on the Foundation Board.  I saw the Foundation as a way to continue in some ways an interest in some of the things that I thought family medicine should be about.  Especially the assistance with students, residents getting into the specialty and our humanitarian initiatives that I see as the good things family medicine does.  Not to in any way be derogatory towards our advocacy stands.  Those are very important things we do.  But I highly felt that I was better suited to that portion of the field of family medicine.  So I ultimately was also was there at the time that we needed to have someone to continue as an officer such as the treasurer.  Once elected the treasurer, I realized that the way this organization worked, that is kind of the next step to one of the offices - which had never occurred to me for some reason.  This was actually advised me by a former Foundation board member, Greg Johnson from my home state.  He said do you realize that’s what happens?  No.  And as I came back and asked people - well yes, commonly that’s the way it works.  It doesn’t have to but that’s the way that works.  So therefore I went from that step to the Vice President.  And people at the Foundation know that is generally the next step to being the President of the Foundation.  \n\nWHAT ARE YOU PROUDEST THAT YOU ACCOMPLISHED WHEN YOU WERE BOTH EITHER ON THE BOARD AS PRESIDENT?\n\nFor me the things that I saw as a change in the culture of the organization.  It became a much more business-oriented organization.  Much more geared to the mission of the organization.  I think at one time the members tended to be pretty much people that were kind of seeing it as, if I can use the term, kind of a retirement location.  They can spend some time continued with probably friends within family medicine.  And a chance to get together and socialize more than it was to do the business of being a foundation and doing the type of projects that meet the mission of the other organization.  And I think they made some significant changes in doing that.  I think that people elected became much more diverse.  The functioning of the Board, I hope I made an impact that people should feel like they made an important contribution and every single person that came to that board room had something to offer and they were to be listened to.  And we would go about discussing and coming to a decision with our business.  And again, when the people finish the business of the day, we are friends and family.  \n\nWHAT ARE YOUR FONDEST MEMORIES?\n\nThe time we spent in traveling to our various other functions as Foundation officers working with industry people.  I loved the days when we had our golf tournaments.  That’s somewhat personal and I think was good when we could do that.  Some of the memorable things, things such as Dave Masonary (?) and I getting a chance to do red eye flights on two different planes, going from California to Florida overnight and continuing with our meetings with our industry colleagues and trying to stay awake and function during that.  On one hand, at the time it was really exhausting.  And looking back at it, those were kind of interesting, fun things to do and were memorable.  And for me, going back it’s, again, the wonderful people that I admire and spend time with to this day.  \n\nYOU WERE ALSO PRESENT THE ONE AND ONLY TIME THAT WE WERE ABLE TO TRAVEL TO A PROFESSIONAL GOLF TOURNAMENT.\n\nWe were, yes.  And for me who is a fan of the sport, it was a great opportunity.  The other thing that many people won’t be aware of is it probably is the most amount of public knowledge of the organization that I’ve seen anywhere.  We were on a national T.V. tournament talking about us as being one of the chosen charities.  I’m sure many of the viewers didn’t know how the people were chosen or why.  But they saw the name of family medicine and they saw the name of the Family Medicine Foundation associated with the PGA and one of their tournaments.  THIS WAS THE JOHN DEERE CLASSIC, OF COURSE.  Yes.\n\nWERE THERE ANY DARK DAYS OR DIFFICULT TIMES EITHER FOR YOU PERSONALLY OR YOU FEEL FOR THE ORGANIZATION DURING YOUR YEARS ON THE BOARD?\n\nI think some of the really difficult thing was our resolving issues with our state chapter foundations.  The organization had been set up such that there was a lot of this sort of complicated structure of reporting funds back and forth.  And we have to review all these things.  There are all these contracts,  of who was doing the proper amount of reporting and who was getting the funds transferred from the national organizations and state foundations.  And we finally investigated and found out there wasn’t really very much having to do with the funds at all.  But it certainly created a significant amount of conflict, of controversy among the parties involved.  I think resolving that was an important thing to do, especially the change in structure and the direction of the Foundation from doing that.  So some of those things were seen as sort of being bad guys to the smaller foundations in the country.  Was not something that I like to be thought of as having done.  So I hope we set that in the right direction.\n\nYOU WERE ALSO PRESIDENT WHEN WE CHANGED THE ORGANIZATION AS FAR AS STAFFING GOES WHERE THE STAFF BECAME EMPLOYEES OF THE ACADEMY AND YOUR EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT THEN BECAME VICE PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY AND REPORTED TO DR. HENLEY RATHER THAN THE BOARD.  IN REFLECTION OF THAT DO YOU FEEL THAT WAS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE FOUNDATION?  \n\nI think it probably is in the best interest of family medicine and certainly in the best interest of the Academy.  There are still some things that I have some concerns about from the standpoint of the gentlemen of the Foundation in the future from having gone through that.  When you asked the question earlier about some of the more difficult things from the Foundation, that was also a very big issue because we were at a point of discontinuing meetings between the Foundation’s Executive Committee and that of the Academy as it was felt, and I think I heard it described once well, there’s no business to do.  Well, I couldn’t imagine how there would be no things to discuss and no business to do. So that point - I didn’t see the relationships between these two organizations that really organizations within our family, that it should be that way.  That we should be able to be working in a common direction with common goals and just line out the best ways to do them.  And my hope is that as this continues in the future that that’s what we will see happening.   My concern at that time, and is still a little bit, that the Foundation had its own staff reporting directly to the Board and evaluated essentially by the Board, at least from the standpoint of evaluate through the Chief Executive or the Executive Vice President to report to the Board.  That reporting is not as direct and the line of authority is different.  And the concerns that we have to have with that is that the Foundation continues to do the humanitarian and the development sort of things for our specialty and for the health of the public and not simply the method of fund raising for the daily operations of the organization.  I WOULD AGREE.\n\nALSO AS PRESIDENT, YOU REPRESENTED THE FOUNDATION AT THE FAMILY MEDICINE WORKING PARTY.  PHILOSOPHICALLY GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON OUR FOUNDATION ROLE WITHIN THAT ORGANIZATION.\n\nI did learn some of the history from various people of the Foundation being part of the working party.  Because my initial reaction attending working party meetings is that we were sort of there just as an observer and not getting much of the functions that we, as an organization, could be doing.  As I spent more time there, I realized that being together with all of the members of the family of family medicine, it certainly served a good function.  And the Foundation is probably there with the least amount of self-interest involved and can be a good mediator for some of the conflicts that come about amongst the organization.  So I think it has a very important role to play.  Some of the things that seemed like it was time not well spent to some people or that was done at things we could better spend our funds for.  But I think the input of the Foundation is important to the other organizations.  In the last couple of years I was involved, we were actually able to assist some of the other family medicine foundations in funding some of their projects and kind of be doing direct projects with them.  \n\nOne more difficult time for me was with the announced retirement of my Executive Vice President.   I could do all these things because we’ll do these things together with all the experience of my Executive ... And I’ve only got one year left.  And it turned out I was going to have a year not to be that way.  And so now we’ve got to go through all the issues of looking for new people and sort of feeling like gosh, I might be all on my own - not knowing enough about this stuff and being here as a volunteer, having another real job to do.  It created lots of kind of anxiety about it.  But I have to say, I think it’s worked out right.  I THINK IT HAS TOO.\n\nONE FUN THING I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN.  IN YOUR TWO YEARS AS PRESIDENT YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRAVEL WITH PHYSICIANS WITH HEART.  IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A LITTLE BIT OF WHICH TWO COUNTRIES YOU WENT TO, SOME OF THE GREAT THINGS THAT HAPPENED DURING THAT PROJECT AND SOME OF THE EITHER FUNNY STORIES OR TIMES WHERE YOU HAD SOME DIFFICULTIES.\n\nI traveled actually three different of the projects.  I was there initially on my own, not there as a Foundation representative, to the country of Tajikistan.  And then the following year my wife and I were both on the trip, we went to Moldova.  And then we returned to Tajikistan the following year.  This is the sort of thing that I think the Foundation is absolutely the best thing for family medicine that they can do, the good humanitarian of things that you do for people in the world is one part of it.  The relationships that you develop with other people of the world is extremely important.  And the things that you are showing that family medicine can be about makes these projects just be really important things to do, this type of thing.  I’m sure in the future some of these things will change as far as how it’s done, who you collaborate with and what specific things you do when you’re on such projects.  But I would the Foundation is never at a point where they decide this is not part of things they do.  \n\nDO YOU HAVE ANY MEMORABLE OCCASIONS THAT OCCURRED ON ANY OF THOSE THREE TRIPS?\n\nThere are almost too many to enumerate.  Some of the things I think about ... The first one I was on, I had never been in this part of the world before.  And we flew on an Air Force cargo plane which was an experience that I’m glad I had the opportunity to do.  I don’t know if I would want to do it on a regular basis, more than once a year.  But the experiences involved in that sort of travel, first of all.  Being involved with people at those levels of government from the standpoint of our government, going through the military bases and that sort of thing.  And then dealing with government officials in an entirely different culture.  It was so different than anything I had experienced that it’s just sort of mind-boggling.  Until you go back and kind of see it again ... Maybe the people really aren’t as different as you thought.  But everything about the country was different.  I was really impressed by the lack of facilities of any kind.  The poverty you see amongst a lot of people.  Or the discrepancy in poverty in some cases.  \n\nSome of the fun things, you spend a lot of time with groups of people.  The most impressive thing my first time was the number of people that had various illnesses.  Those of us who had a chance to do things together such as going to Russian sauna we’ll never forget.  That’s an experience that everyone should have such an experience at some time in their life to see what things like that are about.  My last year, going to international soccer match was something really unique.  AND WHERE DID YOU DO THAT?  That was in Tajikistan.  The time in Moldova was kind of a different experience with the culture being so different from that of the central Asian countries.  And unique people such as our travels to the southern part of the country.  Maybe the scary ride in our life was when the medical director for the region decided to give us a police escort to a road full of holes and horse carts on the side of the roads.  And leading us back to the capital city of Kisnow at the time we said we needed to be there.  That was very memorable.  \n\nLAST YEAR WHEN YOU WENT TO ISTANBUL, DID YOU HAVE ANY EXCITEMENT?\n\nLike I said, we could spend days on all of the experiences going there.  Probably the most interesting thing in Istanbul is that one of the Foundation staff members, Laurie Foley (?), and I said that this is something we should look into staying overnight.  It turns out that our flights were such that we could not get back to our home cities with the group.  She made arrangements to stay in a hotel and she had a place that she picked out.  Wanted to be by the shopping district and historical things.  And the travel agent had this all worked out that this would be a good place to go and the hotel.  So we get a cab to go this place and get within a block of the hotel and she swore that we had driven by the places that she said she wanted to see, which it turned out she’s right.  But there were hundreds of policemen in riot gear.  And the closer we got to the hotel, the more of them there were.  And when we got actually to the point where we were supposed to be able to get into this hotel, which we had to drive around for several blocks to finally find an entrance that looked like we could get into, the cab driver became more and more nervous.  We were asking him what’s going on.  He said I don’t know, I’ve never seen this, I don’t know what’s happening here.  Finally asked one of the guards there and he said it’s a convention.  Well, that would be a strange convention that had all these police and riot gear.  It turned out this was the same week that the country of Turkey had declared they were going to invade Kurdistan, so there must have been something going on.  They had wands out and totally went through our entire car looking for contraband or bombs or something.  We had to go through a metal detector gate to get into the hotel.  And we find out that we are staying then in a hotel that they’re having a conference with all of the Iraqi foreign ministers.  But probably the part best was the response of our Foundation’s – member who felt very responsible to the President of the Foundation saying my gosh, I’m taking you into an area of world conflict and we’re going to be here, there are going to be tanks in the streets and they’ll be shooting at us.  We’ll be here for weeks.  We’ll be arrested.  And she was upset with the travel agent for not forewarning us about this.  As it turned out, after we were there for a while it was probably the safest place we could be because every floor of the hotel had multiple security guards.  People that looked like FBI type guys.  United Nations people were there and people from the U.S. and Turkey and Iraq.  It was really a unique experience as it turned out.  I WISH WE HAD MORE TIME TO GO THROUGH IT BECAUSE THOSE WERE EXPERIENCE I THINK NONE OF US WILL EVER FORGET, WHO HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO THAT.  \n\nJUST TO GO BACK, YOU WERE ALSO INVOLVED IN SOME OTHER ORGANIZATIONS OTHER THAN JUST THE MINNESOTA ACADEMY, THE ACADEMY AND THE FOUNDATION.  WHAT ARE SOME OF THOSE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS,  BOTH MEDICALLY AND COMMUNITYWISE, THAT YOU’RE INVOLVED WITH?\n\nThe first obvious one is my state Medical Association.  Our state of Minnesota has the somewhat unique situation in which the Medical Association and the family medicine Academy work very well and closely together.  And so a lot of the things we do advocacywise and legislatively we do as joint projects.  And after my time as an officer on the Academy board, I was nominated to be, from my area, a board member of the Medical Association foundation.  And that was actually done at the same time that I was on the Academy board.  And I had to tell them that my priority is my Academy board and if there are things that conflict I won’t be here to do this.  And again, since I was from a somewhat remote part of the state from their standpoint, they said okay, that would be fine.  So I was a member of the Medical Association board for nine years, which is our term time.  So there was a significant amount of time involved with doing that.  That is probably the thing that I was most involved with from a medical standpoint.  \n\nI have to stop and think what sort of community organizations.   Mostly there are sort of volunteer things I’ve done as far as being involved.  My kids growing up with the organizations.  Our local health board.  \n\nARE YOU STILL A MEMBER OF THE ROTARY CLUB?\n\nYes, I am.  Those are some of the good people that are not in the same field as me.  They are business people.  We have three colleges in the community so there’s a lot of higher education people involved with this.  So we have several service projects here.  In fact, they helped to support one of our children’s hospitals  in Tajikistan.  One of our members is involved and is willing to help support that financially.  So I’ve been actively involved with our local Rotary Club for, I guess, twenty-one years now.  \n\nYOU HAVE BEEN HONORED WITH A COUPLE OF PRETTY PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS.  CAN YOU REMEMBER THOSE?\n\nFrom my state chapter, they have what’s called a Merit award.  I can’t even give you the real details.  I know it’s supposed to represent people that have spent at least a significant amount of time and effort in supporting and working for the organization, that they present each year. And I guess the other one is the Parke-Davis award.  I’m not even remembering the details.  That was my first year of practice.  And it was a way of encouraging people to be involved as volunteer educators, which I was interested in doing.  So I applied for that and was one of the people to get what was called the Parke-Davis Teacher Development Award.  Which the goal was to develop people to be volunteers and help with the education of medical students and residents.  It’s one of those things that I think is unique to family medicine, having people that are actively in the business volunteer their time to do that.  Which I think more and more it’s difficult to find people who are willing to have time to do such things.\n\nAS WE WIND DOWN, I JUST WANTED TO GIVE YOU AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE WITH US ANYTHING WE HAVE NOT COVERED DURING THIS AUDIOTAPE INTERVIEW THAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO ADD TO THE TAPE TO BE HELD IN THE CENTER FOR THE HISTORY.\n\nI’m not sure I’m much of a philosopher on things.  But one of the things I’ve thought about, what sort of things would you want to tell people about family medicine.  I was remembering, one of the things that I learned from my residency Director, this was towards the end of my residency and he reminded us - you guys are going to work real doing family medicine next year. When you see people, it will take them a long time, sometimes years before they figure out whether you really know anything about anything.  But when you come in to see them, they will decide in a matter of seconds whether they like you or not, so you better treat them nice.  And so if we could get all the people in the world to follow such a philosophy, it would probably be a better place for all of us.  \n\nANY LAST THOUGHTS?\n\nI’m not having any last thoughts coming to me, not til we hang up.\n\nAND IF THAT BE THE CASE, IF YOU THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD TO THIS TAPE, FEEL FREE TO LET ME KNOW.  WE CAN GO BACK IN.  WE WILL SEND YOU A COPY OF THIS TAPE SO YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT.  AND IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEFT OUT THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO THE HISTORY AND THINKING TO THE NEXT POTENTIAL GENERATION THAT MIGHT COME IN AND DO A SABBATICAL AND LISTEN TO THESE TAPES, ANYTHING THAT YOU FEEL IS INTERESTING WE CAN ADD IT AT THAT POINT IN TIME.  \n\nTHANK YOU VERY MUCH.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/156791/file/286746#t=0.0,4620.02287"}]}]}]}