Personal History

Katherine (Katie) Haga, DO, is a board-certified family physician and core faculty with the Novant Health Family Medicine Residency Program, Charlotte, NC, where she is clinic director and director of health systems education and advocacy. Her role in resident education allows her to share her interests in advocacy, leadership development, and transforming healthcare delivery and effectiveness. She attended Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine where she served as Student Government Association (SGA) President and completed her residency training with the Novant Health Family Medicine Residency where she served as chief resident.

Dr Haga has been active with the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians (NCAFP) and served as a member of the Membership Satisfaction and Practice Environment Committee as a resident. Currently, she is a member of NCAFP’s Advocacy Committee and is the Program Chair of the 2025 NCAFP Winter Meeting.  She has twice served as the North Carolina Women’s Representative for AAFP’s National Conference of Constituency Leaders (NCCL).  She has enjoyed being an active member of STFM and completed the Emerging Leaders Fellowship in 2024. In advocacy spaces, she has had an opportunity to meet with various state and national level legislators and was invited to a round table discussion with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra to discuss access to healthcare. Dr Haga’s professional interests include the business of the healthcare system/healthcare operations, community engagement, whole-person health, and empowering young physicians.

Position Statement

Family medicine is a wonderfully diverse field offering its practitioners the ability to operate within a huge scope of practice. As a group of educators who are trying to equip our family medicine learners to land anywhere within this broad scope, we oftentimes can feel stretched thin ourselves. We need to be well, and practice wellness in our own lives, before we can effectively teach it to our residents, students, and patients. Addressing system issues that contribute to administrative burden while also fostering connection with things that bring professional and personal fulfillment is needed.

As physicians and health care professionals who are shaping our learner’s perspectives on their future in the field, we also need to help our learners leave their years of formal medical education with a sense of wellbeing and excitement for their future, who are equipped to be leaders. Health care is rapidly evolving, and I am confident that how we practice medicine today will not be the same as 5, 10, or 20 years down the line. Making sure that we continue to prepare our learners to face the challenges ahead and to actively participate in change conversations is crucial. In the same way, we should consider whether the way we teach and practice medicine should stay the same as it has been, or whether it needs to evolve. Approaching both the present and the future with humility, curiosity, integrity, kindness, and a sharp focus on bettering the world around us will be key. STFM’s wealth of resources have always offered practical tools to equip us to teach and practice medicine, and I hope to take part in conversations around the future direction of this wonderful organization.

Answers to Candidate Questions

What actions does STFM need to take to move STFM toward the goal of being the indispensable professional home for all family medicine educators?

STFM offers a variety of tools and resources to its membership to equip us for educating the next generations in family medicine and supporting our professional and personal wellbeing. As a relatively new physician and faculty, STFM has been an incredible resource for me to bolster my skills and refine my practice within academia. Having STFM continue to evaluate the needs of the membership and create and maintain these resources will be key. Additionally, and just as importantly, continuing to create community and networking opportunities within the organization is crucial. The connections that I have made through this organization have been invaluable and finding people who I can connect with and learn about their own experiences within academic family medicine is empowering.

Choose one or two key challenges you anticipate that STFM will face in the next 3 years and describe a potential course of action to address each challenge.

Over the next 3 years, the pace and challenge of change will continue to increase. In addition to today’s current concerns with effective care delivery, we need to be vigilant and informed of governmental changes that may influence how we practice medicine and the public’s perception and understanding of medical sciences. We need to create physicians and health care practitioners who are leaders and active participants in change conversations within their organizations and communities, who are willing and able to advocate for patient care and effective care delivery. Without these voices, the problems of today will persist and amplify. STFM continuing to create tools and equip learners for leadership and advocacy, as well providing tools for leading organizational change with a foundation in the business of medicine, would be of great benefit for our membership and future health care leaders. With STFM already taking an active role in furthering competency-based medical education, having clear and effective resources to help our leaders truly gain competence in advocacy (systems-based practice 4) would be a great start. Equipping our membership with these tools would help instill courage and hope for the future in medicine.

Share your experience at bringing people together with diverse agendas and finding common ground

Listening well with humility is the key to understanding and effectively mediating difficult conversations. From serving as SGA president in medical school, to chief resident (with a term that began March 2020) in residency, to operating as clinic director for our 25 physicians, I have had an opportunity to help bring people together who have extremely diverse ideas and goals, and I love to help find win-win solutions wherever possible. More broadly, I am an osteopathic physician and have oftentimes found myself in spaces where I am one of the only, or the only, osteopathic physician in the room. While there has historically been a bit of a divide between osteopathic and allopathic medicine, I have enjoyed bridging that space and encouraging my osteopathic colleagues to engage in the broader field of family medicine alongside our allopathic colleagues. I’ve also used these tools in many different advocacy spaces and have had productive conversations with many whose views are different than mine, and I have learned much in the process.