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WASHINGTON DC USA -- HEALTHCARE UPDATE NEWS SERVICE™ -- JULY 20, 2026: Join us on July 27th for a free webinar with researchers and policy experts assessing the factors contributing to U.S. primary care workforce shortages and policy approaches to ensure adequate access to care across communities.
With an aging population, the U.S. faces growing demand for primary care—and more demands on clinicians. In this virtual event, researchers and policy experts will explore workforce challenges, their impact on health inequities, and strategies to strengthen care capacity.
The United States faces a potential crisis, as an aging population meets head-on with a shortage of primary care physicians, especially in rural and underserved areas.
Join us on July 27th for this free webinar with researchers and policy experts assessing the factors contributing to U.S. primary care workforce shortages and policy approaches to ensure adequate access to care across communities.
In the first panel, researchers will present recent research related to the primary care workforce. Panelists include:
- Jane Zhu, Oregon Health and Science University
- Darshali Vyas, Harvard University
- Michael Topmiller, HealthLandscape
- Lori Rodefeld, Sheps GME Technical Assistance Centers
In the second panel, policy experts will react to the research and discuss the primary care workforce and what that means for patient access and health outcomes. Panelists include:
- Yalda Jabbarpour, Medical Director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies
- Joanne Spetz, University of California San Francisco
- Colin P. West, Mayo Clinic
- Robert Monteiro, The Physicians Foundation
Each panel will be moderated by Ateev Mehrotra of Brown University. This event is part of Health Affairs Publishing's Practice of Medicine series, which is supported by the Physicians Foundation.
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FACULTY BIOS
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Yalda Jabbarpour
Yalda Jabbarpour, MD, is a family physician and Vice President and Director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Primary Care. In this role, she oversees a team of researchers who create and curate the evidence to support primary care. Her team at the Robert Graham Center conducts research on the primary care workforce, payment for primary care, scope of practice for family physicians, factors contributing to primary care burnout and the integration of public health and primary care.
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Ateev Mehrotra
Ateev Mehrotra, MD, MPH, is the chair of the Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health.
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Robert Monteiro
Robert Monteiro, MD, is a Board Member of The Physicians Foundation and a board-certified internist with more than two decades of experience in clinical practice and physician leadership.
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Lori Rodefeld
Lori Rodefeld, MS, is Deputy Director of the University of North Carolina Cecil G. Sheps Center's GME technical assistance centers, where she supports rural and community-based GME initiatives nationwide, and Director of the Wisconsin Collaborative for Rural GME, helping expand and strengthen rural residency training across Wisconsin. She has over a decade of experience in physician workforce development including development of rural programs as well as engaging with policymakers, health systems, and stakeholders to advance sustainable workforce solutions in rural and underserved communities.
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Joanne Spetz
Joanne Spetz, PhD, is Director and Brenda and Jeffrey L. Kang Presidential Chair in Health Care Financing at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS), University of California San Francisco. Dr. Spetz's research focuses on the economics of the health care workforce, organization of health care services, and quality of health care.
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Michael Topmiller
Michael Topmiller, PhD, is a Senior Research Scientist at HealthLandscape and a population health researcher specializing in community-engaged research and geospatial analysis.
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Darshali Vyas
Darshali Vyas, MD, is an internal medicine resident and instructor at Massachusetts General Hospital recognized for her work on racial justice in medicine and her research challenging race correction in clinical algorithms.
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Colin P. West
A practicing internist at Mayo Clinic and Professor of Medicine, Medical Education, and Biostatistics at Mayo Clinic, Colin West, MD, PhD, is Director of the Mayo Clinic Program on Physician Well-Being and was named the first Medical Director of Employee Well-Being for Mayo Clinic in 2022. Dr. West's research has focused on medical education and physician well-being, and has been widely published in prominent journals including Lancet, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and JAMA Internal Medicine.
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Jane M. Zhu
Jane M. Zhu, MD, MPP, MSHP, is a primary care physician and associate professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Zhu's research centers on health care access and quality, as well as the effects of provider incentives and organization on health care delivery.
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Confronting the Primary Care Crisis
July 27, 2026
3:00 pm ET
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