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GME News & Notes: March

Mar 19, 2021 | Announcements, GME News & Notes, News

Dear GME Community,

Happy Match Day!  This is our second “News and Notes” post, including bi-monthly updates about members of our community, policy updates, program changes, events of interest, and other updates.  If you have feedback, and/or information or events that you would like us to include in future posts, please send them to me at hamrac@uw.edu.

Cindy

Cindy Hamra

Cindy Hamra
Assistant Dean of GME

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Table of Contents

People

  • Barbara Jung, Chair of the Department of Medicine, joins the presidential line up for the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA). She will serve as vice president, president-elect and will become president in 2023. She will be the 4th woman holding this office.
  • Jennifer Best, Associate Dean for GME and Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program, and Hadar Duman, GME Director of Accreditation, joined colleagues from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and University of New Mexico School of Medicine to present “Special Reviews: When You Still Haven’t Found What You’re Looking For” at the 2021 ACGME Conference in February
  • Estell J. Williams, Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, and General Surgery Residency Program alum, received the 2021 Distinguished Service Award for Community Service and Volunteerism, in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy. The award is sponsored by the UW Health Sciences Administration & University of Washington Medical Center.
  • John Choe, Associate Professor, General Internal Medicine, and Associate Program Director in the Internal Medicine Residency Program, has been elected to the governing council for the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine (APDIM), part of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM).
  • Judy Pauwels, Associate Director of Program Development in the UW Family Medicine Residency Network, is the recipient of the Senior Women Faculty Mentor Awardee from the Dean’s Standing Committee on Women in Medicine.

Policies

  • The Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC) approved a new Chief Resident/Fellow Policy at the March meeting, which is posted on the Policies and Procedures page.
  • The New Program Application for GMEC Approved Non-Accredited Fellowship Programs was revised by the GMEC-Approved Non-ACGME Fellowship (GAF) Programs Committee in February and is available for new programs on the Non-ACGME Programs Resources page on the GME website.  In addition to the revised application, the GAF Committee also developed a new Department Chair Letter of Support letter template for new non-ACGME program directors.  Questions about the application can be directed to Gabrielle Pett at nathangl@uw.edu.
  • The Residency and Fellowship Position Appointment (RFPA) Agreement 2021-2022 is now posted to the Policies and Procedures page.
  • A friendly reminder that pursuant to the MedHub User Access Controls Policy, requests for MedHub accounts must now be requested via forms posted to the MedHub page of the GME website.
  • The ACGME has released new Institutional Requirements, which will take effect July 2021.

Program Information

  • Today is Match Day for the NRMP Main Residency Match.  Please join us in congratulating our residency programs that filled all 285 available positions offered in this year’s Match.  You can read the NRMP’s Press Release here.  We will share a larger update on UW’s Match results in the coming weeks.
  • The GMEC has approved the following new ACGME program director appointments. All are awaiting ACGME approval:
    • Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology: Dr. Nazem Akoum, replacing Dr. Kristen Patton
    • Epilepsy, Dr. Jeffrey Tsai, replacing Dr. Norman So
    • Hematopathology: Dr. Dan Sabath, replacing Dr. David Li
    • Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Dr. Emily Myers, replacing Dr. Samuel Zinner
  • The GMEC also approved Dr. Travis Nelson, as the new Program Director for Pediatric Dentistry, replacing Dr. Zheng Xu

Events of Interest

  • Registration for the Spring Program Director Development Series is now open. If you haven’t yet signed up to join us, please register before noon on March 29.
  • Join us for our Program Administrator Meeting, on Tuesday, April 13.  Topics include Annual Program Evaluation (APE) best practices and presentations from the Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) contest.  Event details can be found here.
  • Other GME Events can be found on our calendar: https://sites.uw.edu/uwgme/calendar/

COVID Updates

  • Reopening Vaccine First-Dose Appointments to Eligible 1A and 1B1 Employees: With a third COVID-19 vaccine now approved and vaccine supply increasing nationwide over the next few months, we are pleased to begin scheduling first-dose vaccinations for employees who meet the Washington State Department of Health eligibility criteria. Eligible employees are those in Phase 1A or 1B tier 1. This includes healthcare workers at high risk for COVID-19 infection, first responders, people who live or work in long-term care facilities, anyone 65 and older, people 50 and older who also live in a multigenerational household, and educators, staff and child care workers in pre-K, K-12 or daycare settings. If you are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination, please visit the UW Medicine employee COVID-19 vaccine site to schedule your appointment.
  • Travel restrictions for UW Medicine employees remain in place, even for those who have already received the vaccine. This includes work-related travel for conferences and meetings. Non-essential personal travel also is strongly discouraged until further notice.
  • Scheduling for COVID Moonlighting shifts is transitioning from the GME Office back to the services effective shifts starting 3/22/2021. Residents with questions can still contact Cindy Hamra (hamrac@uw.edu) for help navigating.
  • UW COVID-19 Employee Emergency Fund: The roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine has brought new hope to all of us. At the same time, members of our community continue to feel a variety of impacts on their lives.  For many, the financial strain of this time is significant.   We want to remind everyone that the UW COVID-19 Employee Emergency Fund (EEF) remains available to employees most in need.  In addition, we know that changes in the availability of child care resources and the addition of remote learning have at times felt overwhelming.  To help ease some of these challenges, we are excited to announce that the Employee Emergency Fund is now offering an additional child care supplement.
  • We continue to update our guidance for residents/fellows and programs on the GME COVID page: https://sites.uw.edu/uwgme/covid-19-updates-gme-community

Progress, Activities and Resources

  • Bias Incident Reporting Tool Our commitment to a culture of inclusivity is shaped by the actions we take to recognize injustice and address and correct it where it occurs. One such measure, now available for the UW Medicine community, is the Bias Incident Reporting Tool, created and maintained by the UW Medicine Bias Response Team. This tool offers a mechanism for all community members to safely report incidences of bias and misconduct, and to receive a clear and streamlined response.
  • 2021 PAAC Continuous Process Improvement Contest: Do you have the perfect tracking sheet for leave or trainee publications? The perfect CCC process or excellent MedHub evaluations? A great idea for how to innovate GME through program improvement? Send in a submission to the 2021 PAAC Continuous Improvement Contest! Send a brief summary (250 words) of what tool you’re submitting, the issue it addresses, and any examples to the PAAC at paac@uw.edu by March 26.
  • 2022 ACGME Awards Nominations Open The ACGME recognizes notable designated institutional officials, program directors, residents and fellows, and institutional and program coordinators for their outstanding work and contributions to graduate medical education through its Awards Program. Nomination materials are available in the Awards section of the ACGME website.  The deadline for nominations is March 24, 2021, at 5:00 p.m. Central.
  • UW Human Resources is launching an Advisory Committee on Work-Life. Formed at the recommendation of the COVID-19 Caregiver Task Force, this group will help guide the University’s continued response to COVID-19 caregiving challenges and shape post-pandemic work-life initiatives. UW Medicine will be represented in the committee by Anne Browning, School of Medicine Assistant Dean for Well-Being and Aimee Buckius, UW Medicine Human Resources. To help us understand the unique and nuanced needs of our community, please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us.
  • The American Hospital Association, in partnership with ACGME, the National Association of Medical Staff Services, and the Organization of Program Director Associations and others, recently released an updated version of the Verification of Graduate Medical Education Training (VGMET) Designed to streamline and standardize the residency verification process and meet hospital credentialing needs, the template letter and form provide the necessary information to meet credentialing needs while reducing the need for residency programs to complete multiple requests for information.