Denise Buck to Succeed Campbell as IFM CEO

As IFM Community Medicine (IFM) Founder and CEO David Campbell M.D. plans to retire mid-year, his successor, Denise Buck M.D., has started working full-time with IFM in St. Louis. Before assuming this new role, Buck worked part-time as IFM’s chief medical officer for six years. Buck is a licensed physician and surgeon in the State of Missouri, Board Certified by the American Board of Family Medicine, Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and is a member of the American, Missouri, and St. Louis Academies of Family Physicians. Prior to joining IFM full time, she had been in private practice as a family physician for 26 years.  The following are excerpts of a conversation IFM held with Dr. Buck to get to know her better and hear her perspective on the organization and what she sees for IFM’s  future.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in family and community medicine.

A: I grew up in south St. Louis city. My parents were always involved in various organizations within the community and encouraged my siblings and me to get involved as well. Through this involvement even at young age I saw the significant differences in opportunities people had just based on where they lived.

My grandmother was a volunteer in the gift shop at Deaconess Hospital. I would go with her on weekends to help water plants and refill card racks. I was intrigued by the student nurses that stopped in the gift shop and wanted to help care for people like they did. I did not know any women physicians, so I never thought about being a doctor. In school anatomy and physiology were my favorite subjects. During my junior year in high school, my grandfather was in and out of the hospital. While visiting him, I was impressed by the physicians and how the care they provided improved his quality of life. I realized being a physician was my calling. When I started medical school, the idea of being able to care for people of all ages with any number of health concerns appealed to me. I was drawn to the relationships family physicians developed with their patients and ability to have a real impact on quality of their lives.

Q: How did you get involved with IFM and what made you say “yes” when the opportunity to take over the reins presented itself?

A: I was already familiar with IFM and many of their partner organizations. I was involved with [and] volunteered at [CHHSM members] Every Child’s Hope and Lydia’s House. As a resident physician at Deaconess Hospital our Residency Director (Dr. Campbell) partnered with community organizations to provide the residents unique opportunities. I would go to Every Child’s Hope once a week to provide medical care for the youth there. As the on-call resident, I loved getting paged to St. Louis Crisis Nursery to do an admission physical and developmental assessment on a new child or evaluate an acute medical concern. More recently, my son coached Hancock students in football. When Dr. Campbell approached me a few years ago, it just seemed like a natural fit.

Q: What do you think IFM’s most important role is in our community?

A: Improving access to health care for all in our community.

Q: Where do you see IFM in the future under your leadership?

A: We will continue to build on the foundation Dr. Campbell has provided. There are still too many in our community that need care. We will continue to listen to those in the community and work to find unique solutions to reach those in need. I see us continuing to grow, strengthening our current partnerships as well as forming new partnerships to help reach more in need.

Q: How can others in the community who care about accessible health care get involved with IFM?

A: We would love to have anyone with a passion for improving health within our community to volunteer to help and one of our clinics. You can fill out a volunteer form on our website. If you have an idea or see a need in the community, we are happy to listen to any concerns or ideas for improving our mission.