Rarely do you find a family physician that wears so many hats within his profession and the community at the same time. David A. Harmon, M.D. of Jerseyville can now add the hat of 2003 Family Physician of the Year. Dr. Harmon was nominated by patients and colleagues and selected as the award recipient by the IAFP Awards Committee and the Board of Directors. He has served the Jerseyville area for 16 years where he resides with his wife, Lois, and three sons: Stephen, Timothy and Jonathan.

He received his award surrounded by 75 colleagues, friends and family at a banquet on May 21 at the Westlake Country Club in Jerseyville. This marked the first year that IAFP took the award to the recipient's hometown, allowing more of Dr. Harmon's friends and colleagues to share his big day. IAFP president-elect, Michael Brummer, M.D., drove over two hours from Effingham to present the award to our 2003 Family Physician of the Year.

Dr. Harmon's true compassion and caring is evident in the heartfelt letters from patients. Those letters detailed extraordinary things he's done and the long-term dedication he shows in supporting patients and families during times of trouble. One patient wrote, "I know many people who feel very grateful for having Dr. Harmon in our community. He's a doctor, sometimes he's a firefighter, and most of all, he's a good friend."

Along with incredible patient care, Dr. Harmon is well known as a medical educator, training the healthcare providers of tomorrow. He is a professor in the physician assistant program at St. Louis University and the family practice department at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. A former PA student named Kate Lane revealed that Dr. Harmon is known as the "Family Practice God" around the PA program. While training with Dr. Harmon, this student recalled an eleven year old boy telling her, "Dr. Harmon knows everything; he's the best doctor on the planet!" Judging by the many compliments in Kate's letter to IAFP, she shares this little boy's opinion.

One of his former students and now one of his partners, Dr. Michael McNear, offered his thoughts about his mentor. "I learned many things from Dr. Harmon. Most importantly he taught me that medicine is not about the technology, it's how you treat people and how much you listen to them." In an speech filled with admiration, and a little humor, Dr. McNear recounted how he also learned about "golf, duck hunting and prison medicine." Perhaps the highest compliment, and certainly most touching, is when he revealed "how proud I am when people call me ‘Little Harmon.'"

Along with his role as teacher and mentor, and "best doctor on the planet" Dr. Harmon is president of the medical staff at Jersey Community Hospital, medical director of the Jerseyville Manor Nursing Home and serves on the Jersey County Board of Health. He's a volunteer firefighter, assistant hockey coach, Sunday School teacher and board member of his Methodist Church.

Dr. Harmon also serves as a volunteer preceptor for the IAFP Foundation's Summer Externship program. By allowing a young medical student to spend four weeks immersed in Jerseyville-style family practice, he is helping the Academy recruit the next generation of caring family physicians. An externship with Dr. Harmon is a full-service experience. Externs live in the Harmon house and have the opportunity to see all aspects of his family practice life, from various clinics, to the day care center, nursing home, health board and hospital meetings and community events that are part of Dr. Harmon's service area.

With all these passions, accomplishments, responsibilities and interests what stands out the most? When asked what he considers his greatest accomplishment, Dr. Harmon told IAFP "finding the absolute best woman in the whole world, marrying her and being graced by God to bring three handsome, smart, and athletically gifted sons into the world."

Although balancing the demands of family practice and obstetrics in a small town is a challenge in itself, Dr. Harmon finds true happiness in his professional and personal life. Winning this award just adds to the joy. "I think that winning this award provides external validation that the choices I made along the way were the right choices for me," says Harmon. "The choices to enter family practice, to live in a small town, and to not only care for my patients, but to care about them, and attempt to instill these choices as valid options for my PA and medical school students – that was the right path for me to take, even thought it may be the less traveled one."

As is true for many family physicians, Dr. Harmon chose family practice partly as a result of a family physician that he encountered earlier in life. In his case, it was Dr. Roger Phillips of Glasford, Illinois who cared for his mother while she battled breast cancer, and at the same time cared for their entire family. Dr. Phillips planted the seed for the family physician we honor here today. "He was an absolute rock for my family to hold on to," Harmon recalls. "When I had the option of choosing a field in medicine, I chose family practice."

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