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Dear GME Community,
Our team enjoyed meeting so many residents and fellows at Harborview last week to hand out lunches. Thanks to UW Medicine Advancement for providing the Peet’s coffee as well. There’s lots to share in the December 2021 issue of News & Notes including a how to submit documentation of your COVID booster, updated information about the UW Medicine Employee Assistance Fund, Holiday Gift Guidelines and an update to UW’s Bereavement Policy, in addition to events, resources and publications.
As the end of 2021 approaches, we want to make sure you’re aware that the GME website is the first place to go to find current forms, policies, processes, and educational resources. We also appreciate your feedback about what else we can add to the website to make it more useful.
Finally, we want to (re) share A Message From Dr. Paul Ramsey, CEO: Holiday Greetings and Thank You to Our UW Medicine Community.
If you have anything you would like included in future News & Notes posts, please send to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season,
Cindy Hamra
Assistant Dean, GME
Policies and Processes
- Industry Interactions Policy: The GMEC approved revisions to the Industry Interactions Policy (formerly known as the Vendor Interactions Policy) at the December meeting. Changes include closer alignment with the UW School of Medicine Policy on Potential Financial Conflicts of Interest for Commercial and Non-Profit Entities; new sections on speeches/presentations at meetings and consulting; and updates to the FAQs.
- COVID Boosters and Attestations
- COVID Booster Signup and Documentation: Due to the rapidly increasing prevalence of the Omicron variant in our community, it is more important than ever to get a COVID-19 booster if you are eligible. Sign up on the UW Medicine Employee Website for COVID-19 Vaccine Scheduling site. If you received your booster outside of UW Medicine, please submit documentation of your booster to Employee Health so that your record can be updated. Information about boosters and how to provide documentation can be found on the GME COVID-19 Updates page under Vaccine Compliance.
- UW and UW Medicine COVID symptom daily attestations: For trainees engaged in any clinical activity during a given day, they need to complete the UW Medicine attestation, NOT the UW Workday attestation. Link to the attestation: 2019 Novel Coronavirus (nCoV) Response Program (uwmedicine.org). QR codes linking to this attestation are also all over clinical sites.
- Vaccine Requirements & Attestation for non-UW Medicine Training sites: GME has received information about vaccine requirements for non-UW Medicine training sites. See the COVID-19 Updates page of this website for details. If you know of others, please share them with us so we can distribute broadly.
- UW Medicine Employee Assistance Fund: The University of Washington launched the COVID-19 Employee Emergency Fund (EEF) in June 2020 to support employees who have experienced a financial hardship due to the COVID-19. The pandemic continues to take a financial toll and the EEF is still accepting applications. In addition, employees who have already received the maximum amount available to EEF recipients may now reapply if they experience a new financial hardship due to COVID-19 at least three months after last receiving EEF support.
- Update to Bereavement Policy to support staff impacted by miscarriage or stillbirth: UWHR has updated the Bereavement time off webpage to note that the policy applies to miscarriage or stillbirth of the employee’s child. In accordance with collective bargaining agreements, eligible employees may take up to three days of paid bereavement time off. Managers may approve sick time off to extend an absence when a staff member needs more time to grieve, heal, make arrangements and cope with a loss.
- Holiday Gift Guidelines: The holiday season is often a time of giving by grateful patients, vendors, and other outside organizations. State employees within UW Medicine are governed by the Washington Ethics in Public Service Act with regard to the gifts they may accept and how they may redirect gifts they cannot accept. Read the Gifts, Food, and Meals from External Sources – FAQs on the UW Medicine Compliance website. Additional information is available on the Internal Audit website. Contact UW Medicine Compliance at 206.543.3098 / comply@uw.edu or UW Internal Audit at 206.543.4028 / iaudit@uw.edu if you have any questions.
- Please continue to check the Travel Restrictions section of our COVID-19 Updates page for updated travel guidelines from the GME Office, UW Medicine, and the UW Office of Global Affairs, including updated restrictions on international travel.
- Please make sure that you’re wearing a mask when you’re in a UW Medicine or UW space! The University has published a corrective action process for violations of the Face covering policies. The process can be found on the HR website. Employees are required comply with the COVID-19 Face Covering Policy on campus or the UW Medicine face covering policy at the medical centers as a condition of employment or will be subject to corrective or disciplinary action including dismissal from University employment.
Program Information
- Welcome new GME Program Administrators:
- Kay Burke, Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Surgery-Integrated, Department of Surgery
- Arielle Miles, Addiction Medicine, Department of Medicine
- Meryl Yang, Allergy and Immunology; Global and Rural Health, Department of Medicine
- The ACGME is currently accepting applications and letters of interest for the next round of Back to Bedside projects. The ACGME seeks proposals for awards for resident- and fellow-developed, innovative, grassroots strategies to improve, foster, or cultivate meaning in clinical learning environments by increasing opportunities to build connections with patients and improving the physician-patient relationship. Proposals are due February 21, 2022.
Events of Interest
- “Got Burnout?”: Monday, December 20, 4-5pm Zoom Link, Meeting ID: 9990929 Passcode: 371555
- Exploring Gratitude: Positive Emotions and Expansive Thinking: The next session of the UW Medicine Well-Being and Resilience Curriculum is on exploring gratitude. Practicing gratitude is one of the keys to experiencing resilience and to mitigating risks of burnout. Wednesday, January 12, 12-1pm.
- Free drop-in mindfulness meditation: Reflect with gratitude on compassion given and received this past year, and learn ways to cultivate and recommit to a compassionate new year with the Center for Child & Family Well-Being.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar
Projects and Resources
- Did you know? The GME Office has a New Program Director and Program Administrator Orientation webpage with new and updated resources for directors and administrators new to their roles – but you don’t have to be new to take advantage of them!! This page also includes a revised GME Annual Program Timeline.
- GME is hiring a second Float Administrator! See UW Hires Req 199360.
- Don’t forget to check out our new Training Site Information Page. Big thanks go to Natalie Brady, GME Learning Environment Specialist for all her hard work!!
- The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) has launched a new website. The new site includes updated resources for programs and applicants.
- If you have a concern that you would like to share with GME, please use our recently updated Report a Concern form.
People
- Sarah Baker, fellow, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is lead author, and. Conrad Liles, professor and associate chair, is senior author of “Clinical presentation, complications, and outcomes of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in an academic center with a centralized palliative care consult service” in Heath Science Reports. DOM co-authors are Doug Leedy, Jesse Abbott Klafter, Yilin Zhang, Tristan Osborn, Richard Cheng, Seth Judson, Susan Merel, Carmen Mikacenic, and Pavan Bhatraju.
- Jennifer Best, associate dean, GME, Weston Powell, fellow, Pediatric Pulmonary, and Heather McPhillips, program director, Pediatrics residency, were recently featured on the AAP podcast for their research on parenting during pediatric residency.
- Workplace discrimination common among liver doctors: Hepatologists say they experience workplace discrimination, especially if they are women or BIPOC, results from a new survey reveal. Lauren Feld, fellow, Gastroenterology, presented her results at the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease this month. The study was conducted through the AASLD Women’s Initiatives Committee. Read the story from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Lauren Feld, fellow, Gastroenterology, is quoted in “Workplace Discrimination Common in Hepatology” in Medscape and “’Concerning’ Opioid Prescribing in Patients With Cirrhosis— PCPs more than twice as likely as gastroenterologists to prescribe opioids” in MedPage Today.
- Christine Johnston, associate program director, Infectious Diseases fellowship, talked to KUOW for “Seattle Now: Your booster questions, answered.”
- Heather McPhillips is the new Associate Dean for Curriculum for the University of Washington School of Medicine. She will officially begin the position on December 1, 2021 and will transition to the full scope of responsibilities on March 16, 2022. Heather will transition out of her current role as Program Director, Pediatrics.
- Ryan Murphy, senior fellow, is lead author and Teal Hallstrand, professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is senior author of “Selecting the Optimal Therapy for Mild Asthma” in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. DOM co-authors are Garbo Mak and Laura Feemster.
- The VA Puget Sound welcomes new Deputy Associate Chief of Staff for Education, Aaron Norr, who will primarily be responsible for Staff Development. Norr also holds an appointment as an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
- Please join GME in welcoming Branden Phanmaha as Business Analyst in GME Finance starting December 15th. The Business Analyst role will support billing and accounts receivable as well as lead several continuous improvement projects.
- Paul Pottinger, Program Director, Infectious Diseases Fellowship, is quoted in “Healthy Living: Staying safe while traveling for the holidays” from Q13 Fox.
- Evelyn Qin, resident, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, is primary author of Patient-reported functional outcomes 30 days after hospitalization for COVID-19 – PubMed (nih.gov) Mentors include James Andrews, assistant professor, Division of Rheumatology.
- Vax the Max: Over the summer of 2021 it was noted that there were tens of admitted patients at the VA Puget Sound who had no documented COVID-19 immunization. In response The Chief Residents at the VA implemented the Vax the Max This is a gamification of COVID-19 tasks where internal medicine ward teams are awarded points for COVID-19 vaccine engagement. Points are awarded for vaccine administration, scheduling vaccination after discharge, and for counselling vaccine hesitant patients. The competition has been paired with a vaccine hesitancy workshop that is offered monthly to all medical students and residents rotating on medicine services at the VA. Team points are tallied weekly, and a trophy rotates to the team with the most points. At the end of the block a certificate, signed by VA and Internal Medicine Residency leadership, is awarded to the team with the most points accumulated over the 4-week block. Since implementation, we have observed an increase in our hospitals rate of COVID-19 immunization, and recently passed the milestone of 100 vaccines being administered since implementation of Vax the Max. Thanks to Chief Resident for Quality and Patient Safety VA Puget Sound, Vincent Raikhel for sharing.
- Lauren Samples, Hematology Oncology fellow, was awarded the title of Practitioner Lead in Quality & Safety within the Hospital & Specialty Medicine service line at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. This new, annual award recognizes and celebrates providers involved in quality improvement and patient safety endeavors. Lauren was specifically acknowledged for her participation in the “Medicine call cycle restructuring” project.
- Neha Sathe, fellow, is lead author and Mark Wurfel, professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, is senior author of “Relationships Between Age, Soluble Triggering Receptor Expressed On Myeloid Cells-1 (Strem-1), And Mortality Among Critically Ill Adults: A Cohort Study” in Shock. DOM co-authors are Pavan Bhatraju, Carmen Mikacenic, Eric Morrell, F. Linzee Mabrey, and W. Conrad Liles.