(Topeka, Kan., June 10, 2011) –Robert Jacoby, II, M.D., FAAFP, Cotton-O’Neil Clinic family medicine and obstetric physician, has received the 2011 Kansas Family Physician of the Year award. The award was presented at the 2011 KAFP Annual meeting, June 10, in Wichita.
Dr. Jacoby, a Topeka native and graduate of Topeka West High School, received his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1972. While at Johns Hopkins, he received a Commonwealth Fund grant to conduct a 6-month medical care study in Scotland. He completed his family medicine residency at the University of Kansas, Kansas City, in 1974, where he was a member of the first graduating class of family medicine physicians at the University of Kansas. He returned to Topeka in 1975 to begin his own practice called Family Practice, PA. Dr. Jacoby was always looking for innovative ways to improve patient care, and knew that physician assistants (PA) and advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNP) would be beneficial to the family medicine field. He was the first family physician to hire a PA in Topeka.
In 1990, Dr. Jacoby and his group were recruited to join the Internal Medicine, PA, an internal medicine physician group in Topeka. This consolidation grew to become Cotton-O’Neil Clinic five years later. “Dr. Jacoby provided great leadership for that transition and the Clinic now has a family medicine department with more than 35 family medicine physicians in 12 locations throughout northeast Kansas,” said Kent Palmberg, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer, at Stormont-Vail Health
Care. “Dr. Jacoby is the patriarch and physician leader of the family physicians within Cotton-O’Neil Clinic,” added Dr. Palmberg.
Dr. Jacoby’s strong leadership and passion for family medicine led him to be one of the founding members of the Topeka Family Medicine Residency program in 1990. He is the only family physician still providing care at the Shawnee County Maternal and Infant Clinic, and serves as their consultant physician. He volunteers at the Marian Clinic in Topeka. He is active in the United Way and the Rotary Club, and a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians, the Kansas Medical Society, and the Kansas Medical Education Foundation. He has served on numerous boards as president, chairman and member. He works alongside his wife Anita, an ARNP at the family medicine clinic located at 901 S.W. Garfield in Topeka. Together they have four sons.
Dr. Jacoby personifies the full scope of a family medicine physician by providing a broad range of comprehensive care for patients of any age. He still maintains an active obstetrical practice and continues to fully enjoy what he does for his patients. He shared his thoughts in writing about what being a family medicine physician means to him:
Practicing Family Medicine has been my life’s work. From my early childhood, I admired my family physician, Dr. Donald Pierce of Topeka, and knew of my own father’s ambitions for medical school, frustrated by the depression of the 1930’s.
Family Medicine joins the knowledge of biology and chemistry and psychology to the practice of caring, kindness and compassion, and allows me to “do unto others as I would have them do unto me.”
The family doctor participates in life from cradle to grave, from newborn deliveries to hospice care, and all the intervening journey. He is privy to his patients’ deepest secrets and ambitions, and earns their trust by his daily
personal attention.
It can be taxing, demanding and frustrating, but also rewarding with joy, satisfaction and fulfillment.
I cannot perceive any other life’s work so desirable or appropriate for me, and to be able to practice now for 35 years has been a great gift to me.
— Robert Jacoby, M.D., FAAFP
