David Walsworth, MD, named Michigan Family Physician of the Year | College of Human Medicine

July 16, 2024

David Walsworth was sitting in a parking lot in Lorain, Ohio, on April 8, waiting out the darkness of a total solar eclipse when something happened that brightened his day. He received an email from the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians informing him that he had been named Michigan Family Physician of the Year.

Three months later, as he was about to leave for the Michigan Family Medicine Conference & Expo on Mackinac Island to accept the award, Dr. Walsworth, an associate professor in the College of Human Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine, reflected on its significance.

The award, he said, was “a wonderful recognition of my work. It is not the reason for my work, but it tells me that I am going in the right direction.”

In honoring Walsworth, the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians said he was “a model of the leadership and persuasiveness required in the field of family medicine.”

Since graduating from Wayne State University School of Medicine, Walsworth has worked tirelessly to advance the practice of family medicine and medicine in general for the past 30 years. He joined the College of Human Medicine 19 years ago and is vice chair for clinical affairs and medical director at MSU Health Care – Family Medicine in East Lansing.

He is a member of the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association, a board member of the Michigan State Medical Society, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Ingham County Medical Society.

Walsworth said he spends most of his time caring for patients, followed by his administrative duties, teaching and research. He said the most satisfying time he spends advocating for family medicine and medicine in general is his time.

As a medical student, he had considered other specialties. “I enjoyed everything,” he said, “but general medicine brought it all together.”

“The depth and breadth of our field is amazing. We care for people from before they are born to the day they die.”

He encourages students to find the specialty that they enjoy, be it general medicine or another field.

“I want more people to choose general practice,” he said, “but I want them to choose what they care about.”

Walsworth said he plans to continue treating patients, teaching and advocating for his profession for the next 12 to 15 years and probably beyond his retirement.

“This has been my job for 30 years,” he said. “I firmly believe that I have to give something back to my profession and my patients.”