Voices of Primary Care:
Dr. Kelly Thibert, Family Physician & Abortion Provider in Nevada
Written by Nikitha Balaji, AMSA National President
In celebration of AMSA’s annual National Primary Care Week, we are uplifting the voices and stories of primary care physicians whose work embodies the heart of primary care – a path to medicine which is grounded in equity, community, and patient-centered medicine. Throughout this series of interviews, we invite readers into conversations about the power of primary care, the unique joys and challenges of the field, and the many paths one might take in pursuing this calling to heal.
For our first installment, I had the honor of speaking with Dr. Kelly Thibert, DO, MPH, a family medicine physician and comprehensivist practicing ambulatory medicine in Nevada, past AMSA National President, and current Chair to the AMSA Foundation Board of Directors. Together, we reflected on her journey to family medicine, the impact of and need for primary care in our present moment, and the continued place that AMSA takes in shaping Dr. Thibert’s path as an inspiring physician-activist.
Nikitha: Welcome Dr. Thibert! Could you get us started today by introducing yourself and telling us a bit about the primary care work you do?
Dr. Thibert: Absolutely, thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here for National Primary Care Week. I’m Dr. Kelly Thibert – my pronouns are she/her. I’m currently a family medicine physician in Las Vegas, working for a branch of the federal government, where I’m providing care for folks who are 18+. With that, I am providing abortion care, gender-affirming health care, and primary care, and am seeing folks on a day-to-day basis in the ambulatory setting. In that role, I’m still able to participate in advocacy and activism in various ways, both within my job and outside, really encompassing what it means to practice family medicine.
Nikitha: That is so amazing. It sounds like in many of those different parts of primary care that you practice within, that skill set and orientation towards advocacy is so important, especially at this current moment that we’re in.
What initially inspired you to pursue family medicine, and where did you see AMSA shepherding you in that journey, in addition to other early advocacy experiences?
Dr. Thibert: AMSA was vital, first in helping me get into medical school. It was the reason I joined AMSA. Then, I learned that AMSA was so much more than getting into medical school. AMSA taught me what osteopathic physicians were, and I’m proudly an osteopathic physician. AMSA helped me to learn about the different specialties that I could consider.
It wasn’t until my fourth year, getting ready to go into my presidency year within AMSA, that I really had a great experience in a family medicine setting. That was at a rotation where I was at an FQHC – a federally qualified healthcare center – rotating with this incredible family medicine doc. He was practicing full spectrum: pediatrics, hospice care, treating patients living with HIV, participating in public health by means of both encouraging and advocating for his patients with them and alongside them in and outside of the clinical setting.
It was then that I realized that these are all the things that I want to do in family medicine. I was so excited about every rotation that I always had in medical school and ultimately that boiled down to: this might be family medicine that I want to do. That rotation really solidified it for me.
AMSA was there every step of the way, both as a pre-med and especially as a medical student. It was really helpful to have a space to come back to when I was learning. Medicine has a lot of flaws in it – sometimes clinically, a lot of times politically. AMSA was my safe space to come to learn how I could advocate for my patients and for myself as a physician in training. It was important for me to be able to show up in a place where I felt safe, where I felt heard and supported, where I could learn tools to learn how to advocate, both within my medical school and then my residency, and then use that to be the physician that I wanted to be.
AMSA has always been the medical school without walls, and so AMSA has always provided me with all of those additional things that I wanted to learn in medical school that just were never in the curriculum. It really supplemented everything that I wanted to learn to be the best-rounded physician that I can be. And quite frankly, AMSA still teaches me as an attending physician, all the time, still reading and learning and participating in AMSA activities. It was really beneficial and necessary for me to be a part of AMSA, to be the best family medicine doc.
Nikitha: That is so beautiful. It’s so lovely to hear how AMSA has partly shaped your journey towards family medicine. I’m hearing so much about how AMSA provided that safe space for you to explore medicine and all of its points of beauty, but also its flaws.
We’re having this discussion at a time where evidence-based medicine is increasingly under attack, we’re seeing cuts to care on a federal level, and we’re seeing how that places access to healthcare in peril. I’m wondering how you were able to translate that safe space that you experienced at AMSA to what you do now as a family medicine physician, meeting this current moment?
Dr. Thibert: Yeah, this is so important, especially at this time, so I really appreciate you asking that. Medicine, and specifically the physician frontline, is where a lot of patients come to first when they have questions. Most specifically, though, they come to their family doctor. The person who has known them longitudinally, someone who oftentimes knows their entire family. They’ve known them outside of the clinic walls, which really informs how we take care of our patients in family medicine.
Number one, we are the most trusted resource for patients. We’re the place people come to in order to ask questions. Even if they do their research online, they come to us to confirm that this is, in fact, actually accurate. “Should I listen to this? Or what should I consider?”
We are the people that patients partner with, and it’s crucial for us to still be here, speaking up, and showing folks that we can help them understand what is actually evidence-based. There are things out there that come across as evidence-based that we know, when we read and we delve a little deeper, are not. Our patients are susceptible to falling prey to that. We are the specialty that’s really going to help our patients and our communities stay healthy and help provide them with evidence-based healthcare and options.
Family medicine is advocacy at baseline. We’re going to keep being advocates and activists in family medicine – speaking up for justice, speaking up against misinformation, and bringing our voice to Capitol Hill, our communities, and our states for what our patients – and ourselves, as physicians and physicians in training – not only need but deserve as humans living in this country.
Nikitha: It’s so lovely to hear you reflect on family medicine and how you’re meeting this moment in your specialty and the unique role that you’re able to occupy in the field of medicine through your primary care orientation.
For all those who are aspiring to family medicine and who are tuning in to this National Primary Care Week, what parting message would you leave for them?
Dr. Thibert: I would say choose family medicine – we’re the best specialty. I’m not just saying that because I’m a little biased as a family doc.
Truly, we can do it all. We can deliver babies, we can be there for people’s last breaths, we can help with an entire family in one visit, which is so unheard of. We can be there on Capitol Hill. We can do it all.
You can really choose your own adventure, too. You can choose if you want to do a particular part of family medicine or you can do the whole thing and be a comprehensivist. You can really find what you love in medicine, find what you’re passionate about, and be there and succeed in it, and be there for your patients and for your communities.
I want you to just choose family medicine. There is a whole great world of family docs here ready to accept you with open arms, and we could not be more excited to stand next to you, to be your colleagues, and to be in this fight for social justice together.
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Watch & Share Nikitha’s interview with Dr. Thibert on @AMSAnational Instagram HERE
