Policies and Processes

• Please make sure that you’re wearing a mask when you’re in a UW Medicine or UW space! The University of Washington has published a corrective action process for violations of the Face Covering Policy. 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 Required and Extended-Use Masking Policy at the medical centers as a condition of employment or will be subject to corrective or disciplinary action including dismissal from University employment.
• The WA Cares Fund, the mandatory long-term care insurance benefit established by state law, is to be funded by a premium paid by employees beginning January 1, 2022. The Employment Security Department (ESD) has provided new information about how qualifying individuals can apply for a premium exemption. ESD is now accepting applications for WA Cares Fund exemption: Starting October 1, 2021, you may apply to ESD for an individual exemption to the WA Cares Fund if you have purchased a long-term care plan prior to November 1, 2021. If approved, you are required to notify the UW of your exemption and provide a copy of the premium exemption approval letter from ESD. For more information, visit the ESD’s WA Cares Fund Exemptions webpage as well as UWHR’s WA Cares Fund overview and FAQs.
• UW and UW Medicine COVID symptom daily attestations: Residents and fellows engaged in any clinical activity during a given day 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.
• The Washington Medical Commission (WMC) has posted a position statement about the spread of COVID misinformation by healthcare professionals.  The WMC may discipline practitioners who are found offering treatments and recommendations regarding COVID-19 that fall below standard of care as established by medical experts, federal authorities and legitimate medical research.
• Open Enrollment is November 1-30, 2021. This is your once-a-year opportunity to enroll in or make changes to your health plan elections in Workday.

Program Information

• GMEC approved the following new Program Directors at the October 14 meeting. All are awaiting ACGME confirmation:
  • Heather Brandling-Bennett, Pediatric Dermatology
  • Jimmy Beck, Pediatric Hospital Medicine
  • Monique Mogensen, Neuroradiology
• Please join us in welcoming the following new program administrators:
  • Jeanine Hughes, Infectious Diseases
  • Miranda Skillin, Pain Medicine and Critical Care Anesthesiology
• Paid personal holiday: A reminder that residents and fellows are entitled to one (1) paid personal holiday each calendar year (see Article 12 of the CBA).
• For programs that submitted GMEPAC applications for AY23, the committee met on September 13, and we will be communicating decisions as the hospitals make funding decisions. Please reach out to Cindy Hamra with any questions.
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Events of Interest

• New Program Directors and Program Administrators, please join us for our next quarterly GME Meet & Greet, Friday, October 29, from 10 – 10:45am. More information is here.
• NURF Diversity Town Hall for Candidates:  The Network of Underrepresented Residents and Fellows (NURF) will be holding a Diversity Recruitment event on Tuesday, November 2, from 6 – 8pm. The event is intended to answer questions for potential applicants from underrepresented and/or disadvantaged backgrounds who are currently applying to residency or fellowship at UW.  Find more information and the registration link here.
• UW Center for Child & Family Well-Being Courses: The UW Center for Child & Family Well-Being has several upcoming courses in September that are open to all: Mindful Self-Compassion, Finding Calm – Strengthening Bonds Through Self-Kindness, RAIN, and Tools for Teens: Stress Management and Emotional Resilience. For more information, please visit their website.
• Volunteer for the Seattle Marathon: UW Medicine has opportunities for medical and administrative volunteers at the Seattle Marathon over  Thanksgiving weekend, Sunday, November 28.  Led by Mark Harrast, MD, a sports medicine physician at UW Medical Center, Sports Medicine fellowship director, and the Seattle Marathon medical director, medical teams will manage three stations along the course and one at the finish line.  If you are interested, please complete the Seattle Marathon Medical Team Volunteer Registration form.  Residents and fellows who want to participate also need to submit a Medical Volunteer Activity Request Form consistent with the Medical Volunteer Activities Policy.  For more information, contact Dalika Ung at rmsports@uw.edu.
• The presentations and recording from the October Program Administrator meeting are now available here.
• Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.

Projects and Resources

• If you have a concern that you would like to share with GME, please use our recently updated Report a Concern form.
• GME has recently revised our GME Annual Program Timeline, which includes program activities and GME dates of note by month for the academic year.  The timeline is posted here.
• Sign up to receive parenting and childcare emails from UW Work-Life.  Emails include regular updates on childcare-related caregiving, local and virtual family activities, webinar lectures, access to a biweekly parenting newsletter and more.
• Did you know that the GME Office has extensive equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) resources for programs, residents and fellows, and recruitment resources for programs on our GME website?  Check them out and please let us know if you have additional suggestions.
• Do you use the GME Website? We’re collecting feedback!  Please take this short survey and help us improve the website for you.
• Find child care, pet care, housekeeping and more. Benefits-eligible UW employees and students can find sitters, nannies, housekeepers, pet sitters and dog walkers by registering for a free premium membership to Sittercity.
• The GME Finance Team is hiring a Budget Analyst (Req 196582). Please share with anyone who might be interested!

People

• The Department of Surgery David Tapper Teaching & Leadership Award was awarded to Oluwatobi Afolayan. This award is presented to a General Surgery Chief Resident who exemplifies the teaching and leadership qualities that others seek to emulate.
• Katharine Bennett, Program Director, Geriatric Medicine, is featured in the DOM Faculty Spotlight.
• Kathleen Berfield, Program Director, Cardiothoracic Surgery, was named Chair of the inaugural National Surgery Office Thoracic Surgical Advisory Board (SAB). A s Chair, she will lead other Thoracic surgeons within the Veterans Health Administration and serve as subject matter expert to the National Surgery Office and Veterans Health Administration leadership. Dr. Berfield, previously served on the Cardiothoracic Surgery SAB, and started her 3 -year term as Chair for Thoracic Surgery on June 1st.
• Jehan Budak, Assistant Professor, Medicine, was voted by her peers as the winner of the 2021 Bruce C. Gilliland Award for Excellence in Teaching of Residents and Fellows. The Gilliland Award is awarded annually to the faculty member who is actively engaged in clinical and didactic training or in the implementation of a graduate medical education curriculum. Read more.
• Chris Bundy, Executive Director, Washington Physicians Health Program (WPHP), has received WSMA’s Unsung Hero Award
• Lauren Feld, Gastroenterology fellow, talked about Pregnancy During Medical Training on the Explore the Space Podcast.
• Jeff Friedrich, Program Director, Plastic Surgery, has been selected to join the ACGME Review Committee for Plastic Surgery.
• Anisha Ganguly, Internal Medicine resident, is the recipient of the Lisa A. Cooper – David M. Levine Award for her abstract: “Race and Satisfaction with Pain Management among Patients with HIV Receiving Long-Term Opioid Therapy,” published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
• Supaksh Gupta, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellow, is quoted in “COPD Exacerbations Up After Ambient Temperature Increase” in HealthDay.
• Department of Surgery Resident Award for Medical Student Teaching was awarded to Alison Haruta. This award is presented to a Department of Surgery resident at any level who made a positive impact on medical students through teaching and mentoring.
• Madeleine Heldman, Infectious Diseases fellow, is lead author of “Changing Trends in Mortality Among Solid Organ Transplant Recipients Hospitalized for Covid-19 During the Course of the Pandemic” in the American Journal of Transplantation, and lead author of “Association of Inherited Chromosomally Integrated Human Herpesvirus 6 with Neurologic Symptoms and Management after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation” in Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. DOM co-author is Michael Boeckh.
• Cooper Kersey, Internal Medicine resident, is lead author of the case report “Anti-MDA5 Antibody-Associated Clinically Amyopathic Dermatomyositis: Case Report and Literature Review” in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
• Christine Limonte, Nephrology fellow, was featured in Authority Magazine’s Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech
• Anna Morenz, Internal Medicine resident and Joshua Liao, Associate Professor, General Internal Medicine, wrote “Using Area-Level Measures To Account For Social Risk In Health Care Payment” for the Health Affairs Blog.
• Henry Ou, Program Director, Pediatric Otolaryngology, is featured in this SCH story!
• Anna Ratzliff, Program Director, Psychiatry, and Jurgen Unutzer, Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, authored an article in the Seattle Times on addressing the mental-health crisis in Washington State.  Additionally, this article in the UW Magazine on the mental-health crisis features Jurgen Unutzer, Anna Ratzliff and Psychiatry resident James Lee.
• Shinetra Pryor, Program Administrator for Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine fellowship programs is the subject of the DOM Staff spotlight.
• Neha Sathe, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellow, is lead author of “Identification of persistent and resolving subphenotypes of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure in two independent cohorts” in Critical Care.
• Kathryn Stadeli, current Surgical Critical Care fellow and 2021 General Surgery program graduate, is recipient of the Annual Harborview Housestaff Achievement Award. This award is presented annually to a UW resident from amongst a pool of over 1,300 residents and fellows. This incredibly prestigious award recognizes nominees for their “extraordinary clinical ability and humanitarian concern,” as best shown through their exemplary care provided to Harborview Medical Center’s patients.

Policies and Processes

• UW and UW Medicine COVID Vaccine Requirement and Attestations: A reminder that UW Medicine requires all employees (including residents and fellows) to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or receive an approved exemption no later than Monday, Oct. 18, 2021, as a condition of employment.
  • The UW Medicine attestation is located on the UW Medicine Employee Website for COVID-19 Vaccine Compliance.  Note: If you were already vaccinated with UW Medicine through the employee process, no action is needed.  Thank you to everyone who has been working to get the outstanding 30 attestations resolved.
  • Additionally, UW is requiring employees (including residents and fellows) to complete the Workday attestation.  At this time, we are partnering with UW Medicine, the Integrated Service Center (ISC) and other central offices to streamline the vaccine verification process for SoM employees (including residents and fellows) who are engaged in clinical duties with UW Medicine. Faculty and other academic personnel (including Housestaff), whose vaccination status has been verified through the UW Medicine process, will not need to go through a separate visual verification process within the department.  Instead, for current employees, information will be provided by UW Medicine to the ISC and vaccine verification status will be uploaded to Workday through a mass upload. Additional information to follow. .
• 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.
• Access to Magnuson Health Sciences Building: The Board of Health Sciences Deans has determined that Magnuson Health Sciences building, the Foege Building, and South Campus Center will remain locked on a permanent basis.  This means:
  • You will need to use your Husky Card to access these buildings.
  • To provide access for clinic patients and events, two Magnuson Health Sciences entrances (HS Lobby and F-wing S1) will be unlocked Monday-Friday, 8:00am-5:00pm, effective September 27, 2021.
• Licensure Examination Policy: The GMEC approved revisions to the Licensure Examination Policy at the September 2021 meeting. Key changes include removal of the USMLE Step 2 (CS), COMLEX Level 2 PE, and MCCQE Part II exam requirements (exams were all discontinued/suspended indefinitely this year) and the addition of completion of USMLE Step 3 for candidates who require an eligibility exception review under the ACGME’s eligibility exception requirements.
• Reminder that the updated UW Medicine Patient Rights and Responsibilities Policy is available on the intranets for Harborview and for UW Medical Center. If you experience any type of discrimination by a patient or visitor or another staff member, you can report using the UW Medicine Bias Reporting Tool.

Program Information

• For programs that submitted GMEPAC applications for AY23, the committee met on September 13 and we will be communicating decisions as the hospitals make funding decisions. Please reach out to Cindy Hamra at hamrac@u.edu with any questions.
• The GMEC approved the following new program directors at the September meeting. Both appointments are awaiting ACGME approval:
  • Lisa Koch,  Gynecologic/Breast Pathology
  • David C. Mauchley, Congenital Cardiac Surgery
• Please join us in welcoming the following new program administrators:
  • • Jenelle Kirschner, Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology
    • Lauren Stoll, Child Neurology

Events of Interest

• Due to high census in UW Medicine Hospitals, many of our clinical services are offering moonlighting opportunities. If you are interested, please complete the Moonlighting Interest Survey and make sure you get approval from your program director, consistent with the Policy on Working Outside of the Training Program (including Moonlighting).  Use the Outside Work Request Forms to request approval.  Please send completed forms to Angela James (ang226@uw.edu) in the GME Office.  GME will share the list of interested moonlighters with each service.   At this time, the services will reach out to share opportunities.
• GME’s Family Planning & Fertility for Resident Physicians event is Thursday, September 30, from 6:00 – 7:45pm.  All residents, fellows and guests are encouraged to attend. Register here.
• Registration for our Fall Program Director Development Series (PDDS) is now open.  Please register here.  This season we are excited to be bringing you information about Standing up to Microaggressions, the Washington Physicians Health Program (WPHP), and the Peer Support Program.  Please see the agenda for additional details on these important topics.
• UW Center for Child & Family Well-Being Courses: The UW Center for Child & Family Well-Being has several upcoming courses in September that are open to all: Mindful Self-Compassion, Finding Calm – Strengthening Bonds Through Self-Kindness, RAIN, and Tools for Teens: Stress Management and Emotional Resilience. For more information, please visit their website.
• The next GME Outreach Event will be on Tuesday, October 12, at Seattle Children’s Hospital. More information to come.

Projects and Resources

• Recruitment Resources for Programs and Applicants: Check out the GME website for helpful recruitment resources for programs and applicants, including:
  • Prospective Residents & Fellows: Videos for prospective applicants, letter to applicants from Dr. Joyner, eligibility and recruitment policies, resources on appointments, salary and benefits including links to the RFPU-NW contract, RFPA, salary schedule, and benefits at a glance guide.
  • Recruitment Resources: Required notifications to applicants, eligibility requirements, application and interview tools, EDI resources, resources and best practices for virtual recruitment.
  • Recordings of Fall 2020 events:
    • Fall 2020 PDDS: Implicit Bias & Candidate Selection and Navigating Vulnerability & Shame in Medical Education
    • July 23, 2020 PAAC Workshop: Connecting with Applicants: AY21 Recruitment Season
    • June 9, 2020 Program Administrator Meeting: 2020-2021 Recruitment Season
• NIH Loan Repayment Program: NIH will help repay student loan debt to encourage outstanding health professionals in the pursuit of research careers in biomedical or biobehavioral research careers. Loan repayment benefits are in addition to the institutional salary received for research. The LRP online application is open this year from September 1 to November 18.  More details are available on UW applicants to NIH: Loan Repayment Programs
• We are sharing the following (excerpted) guidance from Academic Affairs to UWSOM Medical Students pursuant to the recent the Coalition for Physician Accountability (CoPA) recommendations:
  • Earlier this year, CoPA recommended that medical students should do only one away rotation in a specialty to which they are applying, and the UWSOM, like other schools in the country, has adhered to this recommendation.
  • CoPA has also announced their recommendation that all interviews for residency and fellowship during the 2021-2022 application cycle again be conducted virtually.  This decision was made because of concerns regarding the delta variant of Covid, and future variants that may pose risks and cause inequity and disruptions.  They have also recommended that the medical education community assess the value of virtual interviews along with concerns to make recommendations for future interview seasons.  You can read more information here.
  • UWSOM graduating students did very well during the 2021 Match and were well-prepared for virtual interviews.  Our career advising team, including Sarah Thomson, Linh Ngo, Tonja Brown and the specialty career advisors, are ready to help you prepare for virtual interviews for this year.  Each of you will have a mock interview with a faculty member as a core part of your preparation. Please review the resources for preparing for virtual interviews here.
• Child Care Resources
  • Child care assistance for those living or working in King County: Families who live or work in King County, and who were negatively impacted by COVID-19, may qualify for financial support from King County’s Child Care Assistance Fund.
  • Receive priority access to child care placements at Bright Horizons: Benefits-eligible UW employees and students receive enrollment priority at all Bright Horizons child care locations nationwide.
  • More information about these programs is here.
• The Fall 2021 Well-Being Index (WBI) survey window is from September 1 – October 15.  All residents and fellows are encouraged to participate in this 7-question survey.  Participation can help you understand your overall well-being compared to other residents/fellows across UW and the nation and provides access to resources.  All data is completely anonymous and your personal information and individual scores are private and will not be shared with UW GME, UW Medicine, or your program.  More information available on the GME website.
• GME Website Feedback: Please take a few minutes to tell us about your experience using the GME website, good or bad, so we can better understand what is important to you, what we are doing well, and where there are areas where we need to make improvements. You can access the Feedback link here or on any of the page footers on our website.

People

• Nashwa Abdulsalam, Cardiology fellow, is lead author of “Gender Differences in the Pursuit of Cardiac Electrophysiology Training in North America” in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
• Omeed Alipour, Gastroenterology fellow, is lead author of “Systematic review and meta-analysis: real-world data rates of deep remission with anti-TNFα in inflammatory bowel disease” in BMC Gastroenterology and “The assessment of sarcopenia using psoas muscle thickness per height is not predictive of post-operative complications in IBD” in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology.
• Jennifer Best, Associate Dean, GME, was interviewed for “Meeting Your Match in the Virtual Space: Tips and Advice for Interviewing for the 2022 Residency Match” by the Macy Foundation.
• GME is excited to welcome our new wellness counselor, Patty Long-Brohm to the team! Information about how to schedule counseling with Patty is on our GME Wellness Service page.
• Frederick Chen, Director, Family Medicine Residency Network (FMRN), and Judith Pauwels, Associate Director, FMRN, authored “Rural Residency Training as a Strategy to Address Rural Health Disparities: Barriers to Expansion and Possible Solutions” in JGME.
• Dipti Chrastka, GME Wellness Director, has joined the board of directors for Sound Health.
• GME is excited to welcome Jasmine Duong, who started on September 13 as an Accreditation Specialist. Jasmine recently graduated from UW School of Public Health where she completed her master’s in public administration. She will be supporting GME accreditation in the management of affiliation agreements, and in the coordination and monitoring of various accreditation requirements.
• Erik Kimble, Hematology-Oncology fellow, is lead author and Ryan Cassaday, associate professor, Hematology, is senior author of “Antibody and cellular immunotherapies for acute lymphoblastic leukemia in adults” in Leukemia & Lymphoma.
• Michelle Pengshung, Nephrology fellow, is lead author of “Arterial Stiffness is Independently Associated with Acute Kidney Injury in SPRINT” in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
• Perrin Romine, Hematology-Oncology fellow, is lead author and Hannah Linden, Medical Oncology professor, is senior author of “18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET or 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT) PET to assess early response to aromatase inhibitors (AI) in women with ER+ operable breast cancer in a window-of-opportunity study” in Breast Cancer Research. DOM co-authors are Lanell Peterson and Jennifer Specht.
• Lisa Vande Vusse, APD, Internal Medicine is the author of “Ninety-six Paces of Privilege” in JAMA.

Do you have a concern to report to GME? This QR code will take you to our Report A Concern form!