Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
A continued welcome this month from the GME Office to the 500+ new residents and fellows who are joining UW School of Medicine to start their clinical training. Dr. Joyner’s June blog post and The Huddle both celebrate new residents and fellows: Welcome 502 New Trainees.
July is Disability Pride Month, which honors “the history, achievements, experiences and struggles of the disability community in recognition of the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, landmark legislation that broke down barriers to inclusion in society” (see this WholeU article). The GME Office supports with trainees and programs regarding disability accommodations. Please reach out to Bre Smith, GME HR Manager, with any questions.
Finally, the Association for Hospital Medical Education has announced that August 18 is GME Professionals Day. Please take the time to thank colleagues in your departments and programs who support our 200+ graduate medical education programs here at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The July issue of News & Notes includes lots of important information as we start the new academic year. If you have information you’d like included, please let me know.
Thanks,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- Effective July 1, 2023, the GME Meals Policy and SCH Meals Policy have been updated to reflect an increase in meal reimbursement prices.
- In response to the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action for student admissions, President Cauce has provided a statement re-iterating the University of Washington’s commitment to creating opportunity and expanding access to world-class education for students from all backgrounds (Statement from UW President Ana Mari Cauce on the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decisions | UW News (washington.edu). We are currently working with the Attorney General’s Office to further analyze the Supreme Court’s decision and will follow up with more detailed information once that review is completed. Also sharing Follow-Up to Dr. Nasca’s June 13 Letter to the Community after Supreme Court Decision Regarding College Admissions and Race.
- The GMEPAC application for academic year 2024-2025 (AY25) is open and information is posted to the new GMEPAC webpage. Any changes in rotations or expansions that result in an increase in training time at any site requires pre-approval through the GMEPAC process and confirmation of funding by the hospital(s). The GMEPAC process does not include VA FTE. The GMEPAC process was discussed at the April 2023 Lunch & Learn and the presentation slides and recording are available. GMEPAC applications for AY25 are due July 28, 2023. Please reach out to Cindy Hamra or Amanda Easton if you have questions about the process or would like to discuss VA funding.
- GME Grant Funding Policy: The GME Office received feedback from our residents and fellows that late and/or conflicting information about grant funding availability and impacts has caused confusion and frustration. In response, we have developed a new Grant Funding Policy to centralize information and guidance that currently exists across multiple sources. We welcome your questions.
- The GME Office and GME Wellness are pleased to announce that as of July 1, 2023, the GME Wellness Service will be available to our non-ACGME fellows for those without faculty titles or with an existing counseling relationship. For those non-ACGME fellows with faculty titles (appointed as Acting Instructors), there are a number of support resources available via UWSOM Faculty Affairs. Please direct any questions to GME Director of Wellness, Dipti Chrastka.
- Learn More About Medical Regulation: The Federation of State Medical Boards has developed a series of educational modules to help medical students and residents learn about medical regulation before they begin their careers in medicine. The series includes:
- Residents and fellows who wish to moonlight must renew existing outside work activity requests for AY24. All requests for outside work must be reapproved each academic year. Please review the GME Outside Work webpage for the Moonlighting and Outside Work Policy and Outside Work Request Forms. Please email Angela James with any questions.
- Programs that have matched or extended an offer to a trainee who requires a disability accommodation should reach out to the GME Office (Bre Smith) as soon as possible so that we can work with the Disability Services Office to support the program and trainee through the process.
- The UW Medicine Bias Reporting Tool is for sharing incidents of bias including racism, sexism, ableism, discrimination of any form or other behaviors that do not reflect the prioritization of inclusion and equity expected in all areas of our community. Please feel free to share this flyer and postcard within your programs and workspaces.
- Additionally, the GME Concern Reporting tool is available to any members of the GME community to report concerns about the learning environment.
Program Information
- Welcome New Program Administrators:
- Serena Wong, Headache Medicine, Movement Disorders, Neuro-Oncology, and Pediatric Neurocritical Care
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Elizabeth Gass, Idaho Psychiatry
- Deepika Nehra, Surgical Critical Care
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- GME Lunch & Learns
- AY24 Lunch and Learn schedule now posted
- July 20: ADS Annual Update + Program Oversight
- August 17: TBD
- UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety has shared the following information about application deadlines for key quality and safety training programs (apply via the Center website):
- August 3, 2023: Certificate Program in Quality and Safety: Designed for healthcare professionals and teams from all backgrounds. An outstanding development opportunity for your faculty and staff to mentor and execute QI projects.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
The GME Office has posted an updated letter from Dr. Joyner for prospective residents and fellows to our GME Prospective Residents & Fellows page.- As of this month, UW employees will have access to a new benefit with the Washington State Employee Assistance Program (WA EAP)—a free health and well-being program that is just for Washington state employees. The WA EAP replaces CareLink.
- UW Medicine Equity Impact Review Tool The UW Medicine Office of Healthcare Equity has developed an Equity Impact Review Tool to help with decisions about hiring, budgets, policies, procedures, and everyday issues. The tool leads decision-makers through a series of six steps that explicitly identify potential equity issues and initiates a process to produce more equitable outcomes. For more information, please visit the OHCE website.
- The GME Annual Program Timeline: Please review for important dates for July and August.
- Based on feedback from our community, in AY23 the GME Office developed Total Compensation sample statements for trainees at the R1 and R4 levels, meant to reflect incoming residents and incoming fellows, respectively. The R1 & R4 Total Compensation sample statements have been updated for AY24. These resources are posted to the GME Prospective Residents and Fellows page under a Compensation section, which also includes a Comparable Total Compensation Table summarizing how UW total compensation compares with other West Coast Institutions.
- Residents & Fellows – We want to hear from you! We hope to learn more about your current engagement with the UW GME Community and to understand opportunities for further connection and communication among trainees. Please take a moment to complete this survey and share your ideas about current and future GME education and community engagement events and tools.
- Residents and fellows are eligible to apply for a Housestaff Emergency Loan through the GME Office. The purpose of the loan fund is to provide emergency financial assistance to residents and fellows. The total amount of this loan has been increased from $1000 to $2500. Please see the loan form for complete details. As a reminder, our GME Financial Management for Residents & Fellows webpage is a great resource for trainees who would like to learn more about their finances and options as they prepare for graduation and a high-paying career.
- Trainees are encouraged to subscribe to UW Medicine STAT|INFO ADVISORY which has been designed to disseminate official information via text message to keep the UW Medicine workforce informed during emergencies and situations that might disrupt normal operations.
- A new opt-in module, Prioritizing Ourselves When Fatigued is a 5 minute training intended as a brief reminder on the important issue of fatigue. Learning Gateway is happy to answer any questions about the module.
- Our new Leave of Absence webpage is now live on the GME website. Here you will find LOA planning information and resources along with an intake form to contact GME for leave planning assistance: Leave Planning Submission Form. This form can be completed by trainees or program leadership. The December 2022 Lunch & Learn on ‘Leave Policy and Guidelines’ provides an overview of both these new resources; please the recording and slides.
People
- Jonathan Avery, resident, Internal Medicine, is lead author of “Risks factor and outcomes for isolated catheter-related deep venous thrombosis in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation” in Thrombosis Research. Department of Medicine co-authors are Stephanie Lee and David Garcia.
- Joshua Bloomstein, resident, Internal Medicine, is co-author of “Impact of Gut Bacterial Metabolites on Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis: Current Status and Future Perspectives” in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
- Physicians in the Cancer and Organ Transplant Clinic (COTC) at Fred Hutch recently published a report of a patient who became the 17th in the world to receive this life-saving therapy. “Until recently, the use of CAR T-cell therapy for PTLD had been largely unknown,” says Christopher Blosser, Transplant Nephrology Associate Program Director and COTC director. “Aggregated data from our case and the 16 previously published reports show this treatment is safe and effective. CAR T-cell therapy does not appear to cause organ rejection and has limited side effects when compared to other chemotherapies and immunotherapies.” Read the full story from Hutch News.
- Markus Boos, Dermatology Program Director, is featured in “More than skin in the game” from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Kelley Branch, Cardiovascular Disease Associate Program Director, and Bryce Johnson, fellow, Cardiology, were awarded a CoMotion Innovation Award for $50,000 for development of the Seattle Clinical Pathway Platform (SCiPP) to update and market the current Chest Pain Pathway as well as expand the Platform to other disease states.
- Kelley Branch, Cardiovascular Disease Associate Program Director, is senior author of “Associations between clinical characteristics of cardiac arrest and early CT head findings of hypoxic ischaemic brain injury following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest” in Resuscitation. Department of Medicine co-author is Nicholas Johnson.
- Anne Browning, Associate Dean for Well-Being, is featured in “How LGBTQ+ UW Medicine Employees Define Pride” from The Huddle.
- Justin Bullock, fellow, Nephrology, is co-author of “Editors as Gatekeepers: One Medical Education Journal’s Efforts to Resist Racism in Scholarly Publishing” in Academic Medicine.
- Justin Bullock, fellow, Nephrology, wrote “I Am a Physician Face of Affirmative Action — The Supreme Court’s ruling hurts, but still I have hope” in Medpage Today.
- Congratulations to Maria Cassera, VA Chief Medical Resident, who has been accepted into the 2023 American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Foundation Emerging Liver Scholars Program, which residents the opportunity to explore hepatology as a career through educational and professional development programming, learning directly from leaders in the field, and networking with hepatology key opinion leaders and peers from around the globe.
- Adam Cheng, resident, Internal Medicine, and colleagues are interested in understanding how different types of DNA damage lead to oncogenesis. Their lab discovered that many of the mutations that lead to cancerous cell behavior result from cellular misregulation of mutagenic enzymes, specifically a 7-member family of APOBEC enzymes. Learn more on the residency website.
- Congratulations to Roxanne Hicks, resident, Internal Medicine, and Rebecca Stephens, acting instructor, General Internal Medicine, this year’s recipients of the Tina Juul-Dam Primary Care Award, voted on by the medicine residents. The award memorializes Dr. Juul-Dam, a third-year resident who died in 2004 while on rotation in Alaska, and celebrates her spirit, dedication to patients, passion for primary care, and motivation of others.
- Christine Johnston, Infectious Diseases Associate Program Director, and Joshua Schiffer, professor, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are co-authors of “Recurrent infection transiently expands human tissue T cells while maintaining long-term homeostasis” in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Schiffer also wrote the editorial “The Continuing Puzzle of Defining Duration of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infectivity” in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
- Whitney Kiker, fellow, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, has been selected for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Research Scholars Program. This program aims to advance the scientific endeavors of new/early investigators (who have applied for or will shortly apply for a Career Development Award) whose goal is to become independent scientists actively involved in palliative care research.
- Nicole Kim, fellow, Gastroenterology, is lead author, and George Ioannou, professor, Gastroenterology, is senior author of “Addressing racial and ethnic disparities in US liver cancer care” in Hepatology Communications. Department of Medicine co-authors are Anne Cravero, Philip Vutien, Rotonya Carr, and Rachel Issaka.
- Linzee Mabrey, fellow, Pulmonary Critical Care, is lead author, and Mark Wurfel, professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, is senior author of “Phase 2, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multi-center trial of the clinical and biological effects of anti-CD14 treatment in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia” in EBioMedicine. Department of Medicine co-authors are Carmen Mikacenic, Eric Morrell and Thomas Martin.
- Chris Marfo, fellow, Surgical Critical Care is the winner of this year’s Harborview Medical Center Annual Housestaff Achievement Award for Clinical Ability and Humanitarian Concern.
- Tanya Meyer, Otolaryngology Program Director, and Neel Bhatt, co-authored recently published research that confirmed their suspicion: Some people with laryngeal dystonia and essential tremor of the vocal tract benefit from Botox injections more frequently than the three-month interval that most health insurers allow. Read the full story in the UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Natalia Murinova, Headache Program Director, is featured in “Migraine Aura or Stroke? When to Worry and What to Do” from Right as Rain by UW Medicine.
- Chloe Peters, resident, Urology, is featured in “ Peters highlights additional research on the effect of the Dobbs ruling on urologists” from Urology Times.
- Sarah Prager, Complex Family Planning Program Director, is featured in “Idaho patients traveling to Kennewick, WA, for abortions since ban” from The Bellingham Herald and in “Number of Idaho abortion patients traveling to Washington up 56% after Roe overturned” from Oregon Public Broadcasting. She is also featured in “Pence would ban abortions when pregnancies aren’t viable — his GOP rivals won’t say if they agree” from the Associated Press and “FDA approves the first over-the-counter birth control pill, Opill” from NPR.
- Bonnie Ronish, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Associate Program Director, is quoted in “Wildfires a threat to Seattle air quality again this year” from MyNorthwest.
- In the latest Thrivecast, “What it Means to be Patient and Family Centered,” Anneliese Schleyer, Interim Chief Medical Officer for UW Medicine, brings insight on what it means to center patients and families in the work we do. Hosted by Trish Kritek, Thrivecast provides tips to help clinicians, educators, and researchers thrive professionally in their careers, covering topics from time management and organization to leadership and self-advocacy.
- Ginny Ryan, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Program Director, is featured in Opinion: Who gets to use the title ‘doctor’? from
- Congratulations to Amanda Shepherd, Internal Medicine Associate Program Director, who is the recipient of the 39th annual Paul B. Beeson Award. She was chosen by the medicine residents in recognition of outstanding clinical teaching and for exemplifying scholarship, humility, compassion, and integrity. The award commemorates Paul Beeson, a distinguished physician at the Seattle VA in the 1970s, who was celebrated for his teaching skills.
- Ken Steinberg has accepted the newly created position of Department of Medicine Vice Chair for Education, effective August 1. He has been program director for the Internal Medicine residency program since 2007.
- Rafee Talukder, fellow, Medical Oncology, received a 2023 John Quale Travel Fellowship from the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network. The Travel Fellowship Program engages early-career individuals, such as basic scientists, urologists, oncologists, and pathologists, and connects them with hundreds of other bladder cancer research and medical professionals at the Bladder Cancer Think Tank annual meeting.
- Mark Wiley, postdoctoral scholar, and Jessica Bauer, research scientist, are co-lead authors and Barbara Jung, Department of Medicine Chair, is senior author of “Non-Canonical Activin A Signaling Stimulates Context-Dependent and Cellular-Specific Outcomes in CRC to Promote Tumor Cell Migration and Immune Tolerance” in Cancers.