Dr. G. Gayle Stephens

Dr. G. Gayle Stephens (1928-2014)
A founder of family medicine in the United States, Gayle Stephens was a family physician, writer, thinker, teacher and leader whose ideas and convictions have guided the development of family medicine, primary care, and medicine as a profession for decades. He provided consistent intellectual leadership that connected history, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, the family, the community and the sciences to the practice of medicine. He wrote regularly about our successes, our challenges, and our shortcomings. He particularly advanced the importance of relationships in clinical practice and the role of the personal physician as a trusted and trustworthy agent for patients.

“In just 15 years (1966 to 1981), family practice, in the words of Gayle Stephens, evolved from a highly debatable abstraction to the third largest graduate medical education enterprise in the United States… The history of family practice has been chronicled by many writers, notably John Geyman and Robert Taylor, but the clearest description of the theoretical basis of the new specialty belongs to Gayle Stephens. Always a humble man from Kansas who counted his blessings as a witness to history, Gayle became the towering voice for family practice as a reform specialty within medicine.”—Joseph E. Scherger, M.D., MPH 

Keystone Conferences
In 1984, Gayle decided to pull together some personal friends and others from diverse backgrounds to engage in the first public reexamination of the political and intellectual origins and development of family medicine as a discipline since its founding in 1969. He did this under the sponsorship of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. He held it in Keystone, Colorado, near his family’s mountain home. Those who attended, paid their way. This event inspired two subsequent “Keystone Conferences” that Gayle helped organize… the last was in 2000, called Keystone III, and was the stimulus for the Future of Family Medicine project and its continuing offspring today.

An invitational conference planned for June 5–7, 2015 will be the first conference in this newly established series and the fourth Keystone conference. It will focus on what promises personal physicians in the United States are prepared to make as to when and where they will be there for their patients. Several large group sessions will be streamed live… stay tuned for log-in information.

The American Board of Family Medicine Foundation Inaugurates the G. Gayle Stephens Keystone Conference Series

The American Board of Family Medicine Foundation will host the fourth G. Gayle Stephens Keystone Conference Series June 5-7, 2015 at the Keystone Resort in Colorado.

The 2015 conference will follow the basic purpose and strategies of the first three Keystone Conferences and will focus on the question, “What promises will a personal physician make to her/his patients going forward in the evolving health care system of the United States, particularly in terms of when and where they will be there for their patients?”

This conference will feature conversations stimulated by four plenary speakers. Dr. Rosemary Stevens, Dr. Will Miller, Dr. Kim Griswold, and Dr. David Loxterkamp. Most of the conference will be streamed live. In addition, to participate from offsite, the conference will be available on Twitter using the hashtag, #keystoneIV.

Dr. Gayle Stephens (August 6, 1928-February 20, 2014), one of the founders of family medicine in the United States, provided consistent intellectual leadership that profoundly impacted the specialty. He connected history, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, the family, the community, and the sciences to the practice of medicine, and he explained how family medicine was a “counter-culture” within medicine, manifested in personal relationships and rooted in social change. He particularly advanced the importance of relationships in clinical practice and the role of the personal physician as a trusted and trustworthy agent for patients.

In addition to his institutional leadership, textbooks, scientific articles, essays, visiting professorships, and invited lectures, Gayle initiated an unusual invitational conference, known as “The Keystone Conference,” where a relatively small group of colleagues could discuss ideas and discern important challenges and opportunities meriting the attention of family physicians and medicine as a profession. The third Keystone Conference inspired the Future of Family Medicine project that guided family medicine through the first years of the 21st century. In an effort to support the continuation of Dr. Stephen’s life-long work and service, the American Board of Family Medicine Foundation established “The G. Gayle Stephens Keystone Conference Series” in 2014. The aim of this series is to continue his legacy of occasional, carefully constructed, invitational conferences focusing on relevant, challenging, perhaps neglected topics worthy of substantial consideration by family physicians, other health care professionals, and the public.

The American Board of Family Medicine is honored to carry on the tradition of the Keystone Conferences and deeply grateful to the Stephens family for their permission to use their name to assure such reflective efforts continue in perpetuity.