by amande | Jul 20, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
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.
- 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.
by amande | Jul 7, 2023 | Announcements, News
Welcome!
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA |
Jennifer Best, MD |
Cindy Hamra JD, MA |
We are excited that you are here to begin the next phase of your medical or dental education with us. Many of you have traveled from around the country – and from around the world – to train at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
We have all faced challenges and uncertainty, especially the last 3 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest. Many of you have never been to Seattle and might have questions as to whether this will be the right home for you. As you start your new journey, we want you to know that we are here for you. A world-class faculty and staff are committed to teaching you, providing you skills and feedback along the way. We want you to gain all the experiences you can and have all the learning opportunities you need to do your work. We want you to feel that you are working in a diverse learning environment, one that is inclusive, equitable, and fair.
There will be uncertainty during your training, not only because you will be learning new things about your chosen specialty but because uncertainty challenges you to discover new things about your community and the world. You will meet your colleagues and find new friends. You will encounter new interdisciplinary teams with whom you will care for patients, and, along the way, you will learn more about yourself.
Matriculating now into your new residency or fellowship program should be an adventure – even for those of you who are UW alumni returning as subspecialty fellows. Our top priority is to offer you the best and safest clinical learning environment so that you can develop the skills, behaviors, and attitudes you will need to be a successful, independent doctor.
You are one of the amazing, high-caliber physicians/dentists training in one of our 200+ residency and fellowship programs. This sets UW apart from other institutions. The new wave of 502 residents and fellows is our largest entering class ever. You represent an exceptional, diverse, and exceedingly qualified member of that class who will enrich each other’s lives and learning experiences. Best of luck to you!
Who you are
Exceptional.
- In total, you are 502 incoming residents and fellows
- You are pursuing 118 ACGME accredited specialties, over 85 non-ACGME specialties and 4 dental specialties
- 295 of you are first year residents
Many US medical school graduates going into your specialty have applied to our UW training programs, and you are among the select few to be admitted to our very competitive programs.
Diverse.
Altogether, you are global citizens who have studied around the world, with an increase in countries represented since last academic year:
You show diversity in gender identity, representing an increase in female and non-binary trainees:
This is no accident. Diversity and inclusion are core values of UW Graduate Medical Education.
Qualified.
Where you are:
Graduate Medical Education (GME). GME programs sponsored by the UW School of Medicine are designed to train skillful physicians with ingrained habits of life-long learning and well-formed ethical and professional modes of practice.
UW Medicine. Among nearly 871 institutions, UW Medicine ranks seventh in the number of programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and ninth in the number of trainees.
Looking at the number for the 2023-2024 academic year:
Although trainees most commonly rotate at Harborview Medical Center, the University of Washington Medical Center-Montlake & Northwest, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and the Veteran’s Administration, we partner with over 500 training sites throughout the WWAMI region – and the world – so you can have the best training.
Who we are
GME Office. In partnership with many members of the learning community, we are responsible for the administrative oversight and academic quality of UW’s residency and clinical fellowship programs. Most importantly, we are here for you. Please contact any of us with questions, comments, or concerns. (http://gme.washington.edu/).
Congratulations and thank you!
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
Jennifer Best, MD
Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
Cindy Hamra, JD, MA
Associate Dean, Operations and Administration
by amande | Jun 21, 2023 | Announcements, News, Sticky
As the new academic year begins, 502 new residents and fellows are joining UW Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs to further their medical and dental training.
Graduate medical education refers to the period of education in a particular specialty (residency) or subspecialty (fellowship) following medical or dental school. Here, trainees work in hundreds of different programs, from emergency medicine and surgery to lesser-known specialties such as nuclear medicine and headache medicine.
One in six physicians at UW Medicine is a resident or fellow, and over 100 graduating residents and fellows accept faculty roles within UW Medicine each year.
“It is always a pleasure to welcome new residents and fellows to our UW Medicine family. Every year, we look forward to training the next generation of exceptional physicians and to their many contributions to our patients — and to improving the health of all people,” says Byron Joyner, MD, vice dean for Graduate Medical Education and a Designated Institutional Official.
Read more >
by amande | Jun 23, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
First, a sincere welcome from the GME Office to the 500+ new residents and fellows who are joining UW School of Medicine to start their clinical training. GME hosted New Resident and Fellow Orientation on Wednesday to kick off the new academic year. The Huddle also featured an article about our new residents and fellows: Welcome 502 New Trainees.
We also want to wish our graduating residents and fellows the best as they move to the next stages of their careers.
June is Pride Month, when we celebrate the history, diversity and contributions of LGBTQIA people in the United States. For more about the history of Pride Month and what how UW Medicine does to honor and recognize the month (including digital assets and posters) please see the recent feature in The Huddle, as well as a spotlight on transgender voices from The Whole U.
The June 2023 edition of News & Notes has a lot of information about ongoing projects, new and updated policies, and pending events.
Thanks,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- *New* 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:
- 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.
- It is time for trainees to begin renewing their outside work activity requests for AY24. As a reminder, 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 AY24 GME Orientation webpage is now live! This webpage includes detailed information about important UW GME onboarding and orientation information. Additional pages with helpful information for trainees as they complete the onboarding process:
- The COVID-19 public health emergency is ending May 11, 2023. At the beginning of the COVID-19 public health emergency, CMS used emergency waiver authorities and various regulatory authorities to enable flexibilities so providers could rapidly respond to people impacted by COVID-19. Some of those flexibilities have been extended temporarily, some permanently, and some are ending on May 11. Please review resources on the UW Compliance COVID-19 Public Health Emergency page to answer questions you may have about changes impacting clinicians due to the end of the public health emergency.
- Please note the changes to University COVID-19 policies effective June 12th unless otherwise noted.
- 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.
- Interpreter Services and the Office of Healthcare Equity have created an online guide dedicated to providing resources for accessing medical interpreters, tips for partnering with medical interpreters, reminders about laws and regulations and directions on what to do in emergencies. Please read more about Clear Communication: Every Patient, Every Time.
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Ania Lang, Allergy & Immunology (ACGME)
- Evelyn Hsu, Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, (ACGME – Interim)
- The GMEC approved revisions to the following policies at the May meeting. All are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website.
- Grant Funding Policy (see above)
- Scheduling and Boarders Policy
- 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
- GME Outreach Event for trainees at HMC on June 30th from 11am to 1 pm. We encourage trainees to stop by to say hello, meet our GME team members and take a packed lunch. Please look for an email closer to the event with specific room details.
- The Institute for Common Power in partnership and the University of Washington Department of Medicine will be holding their quarterly Diversity Lecture series on Tuesday, June 29th from 12:00pm PST to 1:00pm PST (3:00pm EST to 4:00pm EST). Please join for “The History and Future of Black Physicians in Medicine” with Dr. Walter Conwell, Morehouse School of Medicine. Learn more and RSVP.
- UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety has shared the following information about application deadlines for three key quality and safety training programs (apply via the Center website):
- June 30, 2023: QI Scholars Program: Competitive yearlong advanced training; designed for junior and mid-career faculty pursuing QI as a scholarly focus.
- June 30, 2023: GME Quality & Safety Foundations Course: Open to any UW Medicine GME program—helps meet ACGME requirements for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.
- 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 Annual Program Timeline: Please review for important dates for June and July.
- 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
- GME Team Members received Wellbeing Grant Funding for the following projects:
- Therapeutic Lightboxes for Resident Well-Being Project (submitted by the GME Wellness Team): This project aims to improve resident wellness by equipping windowless work and team rooms at identified hospital sites with therapeutic lightboxes (10,000 lux). With Seattle’s long dark winters and limited hours of sunlight, light therapy can improve mood, combat fatigue, regulate sleep cycles, increase focus, and contribute to stress reduction and enhanced resident well-being. Thanks to Tara Reid, faculty, Infectious Diseases, for the suggestion!
- GME Staff Community Series (submitted by the GME Office Professional Development Group): This project aims to create opportunities for staff across GME’s diverse departments to come together, connect, and celebrate each other and the work we do. These events include outdoor celebrations, indoor arts, and more. Our goal is to continue building and maintaining the relationships that enrich our lives and help us to continue to improve our world-class support to our physician-learners.
- The EDItorial is a monthly Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Awareness Newsletter created by Internal Medicine residency program staff. Each month they highlight different marginalized groups with opportunities to engage, support, and participate on international, national, and local levels. The June newsletter highlights pride month and the LGBTQIA+ community. Read the EDItorial on the IM residency website.
- Emily Brown, Associate Program Director, Child Abuse Fellowship is featured in ‘Public Health Emergency ends – so does Medicaid automatic re-enrollment‘ from Northwest Asian Weekly.
- Daniel Cabrera, Associate Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency, is co-author of “Everyone Deserves to Belong” in The Hospitalist.
- Jason Castaneda, R2, Internal Medicine, is quoted in “Insomnia Drug Class May Not Influence Exacerbation Risks in COPD Patients” in Sleep Review.
- Jason Castaneda, R2, Internal Medicine and Lucas Donovan, assistant professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) are quoted in “Mortality, exacerbation risk in patients with COPD not higher with insomnia hypnotics” in Healio Pulmonology.
- Tom Fitzpatrick, fellow, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is quoted in “Council rejects Davison’s push to prosecute drug possession and public use” from Real Change.
- The Curbsiders Internal Medicine podcast featured top pearls from the recent Society of General Internal Medicine annual meeting, including Barak Gaster, professor, General Internal Medicine, for “Dementia in Primary Care” and Rebecca Gold R2, Internal Medicine and Adelaide McClintock, assistant professor, General Internal Medicine for “Trauma-Informed Care.”
- Mary Geist, R1, Internal Medicine, is lead author and Jocelyn James, assistant professor (General Internal Medicine) is senior author of “Timing of hepatitis C treatment initiation and retention in office-based opioid treatment with buprenorphine: a retrospective cohort study” in Addiction Science and Clinical Practice. Department of Medicine co-authors are Andrea Radick, Judith Tsui, and Nancy Connolly.
- Melissa Herrin, Chief Resident, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, recently published ‘Work, Service and Health: Lessons from Veterans in the Environmental Contaminants Clinic’ in the health policy section of in-House: The Agora for Medical Residents and Fellows. She describes her training experience at the VA Puget Sound and advocates for health benefits for veterans with exposure concerns.
- Christopher Hofstetter, Associate Program Director, Spine Surgery, is featured in “Ultra Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery” from The Huddle.
- Zaroug Jaleel, resident, Otolaryngology, is recipient of the 2023 AAO-HNSF Resident Research Award.
- Nicholas Johnson, Associate Program Director, Critical Care Medicine, is co-author of “Changing Severity and Epidemiology of Adults Hospitalized With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States After Introduction of COVID-19 Vaccines, March 2021-August 2022” in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
- Barbara Jung, Chair, Department of Medicine, is the current America Gastroenterological Association President. Read more about her role and how she is paving the way for women in gastroenterology.
- Vishesh Kapur, Program Director, Sleep Medicine, is quoted in “Wide Awake at Bedtime Despite Being *So* Sleepy Mid-Afternoon? Here’s What To Know About Catching a ‘Second Wind’ of Energy” from Well+Good.
- Hiba Khan, fellow, Medical Oncology, received a 2023 Young Investigator awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology for “Dismantling Disparities in Access to Oral Novel Hormonal Therapies in Prostate Cancer–A Mixed-Methods Analysis from a Population, Systems, and Patient-Centered Lens.”
- Among people whose liver is failing, the perpetual shortage of donor organs inhibits expectations of a timely, life-saving transplant. New research suggests that these people who initially seek care at safety-net hospitals may face additional obstacles to being considered for transplant. A study of three safety-net hospitals showed that, among patients whose measures of liver health would typically result in a referral for transplant evaluation, only about one-fourth received the referral. The finding was published June 8 in JAMA Network Open. “Patients who receive care at these safety-net hospitals generally do not go to the other hospital unless they have a specific referral,” said Nicole Kim, a co-author on the paper and a liver transplant fellow at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “Patients who present at safety-net hospitals are often more likely to identify as indigent and underserved, uninsured, lower-income, racial-ethnic minority and-or homeless.” Read the full story from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Somnath Mookherjee, Program Director, Academic Hospitalist Fellowship, is the recipient of the 2023 National Award for Scholarship in Medical Education from the Society of General Internal Medicine. He received the award for his extensive body of scholarly work related to clinical teaching and evidence-based physical exam that has impacted medical education across the spectrum from UME to GME to CME, and also his successful mentoring in educational scholarship and demonstration of educational leadership.
- Leo Morales, professor and Assistant Dean for UW School of Medicine, has been invited to serve as a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC) subcommittee for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The goal of this subcommittee is to make recommendations to the NAC on AHRQ’s proposed long-term strategic planning for AHRQ’s Patient-Centered Outcomes Trust Fund (PCORTF) investments.
- Fernando Picazo, fellow, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, is a 2023 recipient of the Underrepresented Trainee Development Scholarship from the American Thoracic Society (ATS).
- Jeff Probstfield, professor, and Kelley Branch, Program Director, Cardiovascular Disease, are co-authors of “Global Variations in Heart Failure Etiology, Management, and Outcomes” in
- Paul Pottinger, Program Director, Infectious Diseases, is quoted in “Rabid bat found in E. WA. It was the first in 5 years in Tri-Cities-Walla Walla region” in the Tri-City Herald.
- Ganesh Raghu, Program Director, Interstitial Lung Disease, is senior author of “Lung parenchymal abnormalities and outcomes in hospitalized patients with COVID 19 pneumonia: A positive message from a prospective hospital-based longitudinal study for future considerations” in Respiratory Medicine.
- Colbey Ricklefs, Resident, Family Medicine received the 2023 Mizzou Alumni Association – Young Alumni Award.
- Maureen Ryan-Murphy, Chief Resident, Psychiatry, is featured in ‘At the intersection of homelessness, mental illness and addiction in Portland lies psychosis’ from KGW8.
- Talicia Savage, R3, Internal Medicine, is lead author and Rachel Issaka, assistant professor (Gastroenterology) is senior author of “Association between patient, clinic, and geographical-level factors and 1-year surveillance colonoscopy adherence” in Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology. Department of Medicine co-authors are Veena Shankaran and Scott Ramsey.
- The Spring 2023 edition of Surgery Synopsis includes a wealth of information including features of newly appointed Vice Chairs, Program Directors, and trainees.
- Thomas Walsh, Program Director, Andrology, is featured in ‘Men’s Health Center Provides Comprehensive Care’ from The Huddle.
- Natalie Weathered, Program Director, Neurology, is featured in ‘If the Brain Is a Puzzle, Natalie Weathered Wants to Solve It’ from The Huddle.
- Douglas Wood, Chair, Department of Surgery, received the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s (NCCN) 2023 Rodger Winn Award for decades of work to develop, refine and promote the organization’s Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology.
by amande | Jun 2, 2023 | Announcements, News
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Jennifer Best, MD |
Cindy Hamra JD, MA |
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
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Dear Graduating Residents and Fellows,
Longer days and the reemerging sunshine are reminders that we are nearing the end of another academic year. For you, this year brings a remarkable accomplishment – completion of the residency and/or fellowship training that brought you to the University of Washington.
Simply put, thank you. Thank you for trusting UW Medicine with your development. Thank you for your commitment to learning, despite the crises of the pandemic and societal unrest. Thank you, most of all, for the big and small ways you cared for your patients – and for one another – in these trying times.
May the coming weeks bring meaningful celebrations with your colleagues, your faculty and staff, and those that you love.
On behalf of the GME team, it is a privilege to tell you how proud we are of each of you. We join your programs in honoring the many gifts you will offer the world. Your future is bright!
Congratulations!
- Jennifer Best, MD
Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
- Cindy Hamra, JD
Associate Dean, Operations and Administration
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- Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
by amande | May 19, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
Like many of you, the GME Office is busy this time of year, onboarding our nearly 500 incoming residents and fellows, planning for orientation, working on graduation certificates and planning for the new academic year. We also celebrate Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The Huddle has put together great resources and information.
We are also excited to be launching our new Strategic Plan for AY24-29. We will be presenting this plan to various groups and committees and a recording of the 5/18 Lunch & Learn (starts at 48:30) is available to the community. Thanks to those of you who gave feedback and otherwise contributed!
Please make sure to check News & Notes for reminders of the many processes and deadlines that are relevant this time of year, and don’t hesitate to contact our office with questions or for support.
Thanks,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- 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.
- It is time for trainees to begin renewing their outside work activity requests for AY24. As a reminder, 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 AY24 GME Orientation webpage is now live! Incoming trainees have been advised to visit this webpage for detailed information about important UW GME onboarding and orientation information. This page will be updated between now and the start of AY24 appointments, so we encourage trainees and programs to check back frequently for updates. In addition to our main orientation page, we would also like to highlight other pages which will have helpful information for trainees as they complete the onboarding process and prepare for our live orientation event on June 21st from 8:00 am – 1:00 pm PST:
- The COVID-19 public health emergency is ending May 11, 2023. At the beginning of the COVID-19 public health emergency, CMS used emergency waiver authorities and various regulatory authorities to enable flexibilities so providers could rapidly respond to people impacted by COVID-19. Some of those flexibilities have been extended temporarily, some permanently, and some are ending on May 11. Please review resources on the UW Compliance COVID-19 Public Health Emergency page to answer questions you may have about changes impacting clinicians due to the end of the public health emergency.
- Please note the changes to University COVID-19 policies effective June 12th unless otherwise noted.
- 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.
- Interpreter Services and the Office of Healthcare Equity have created an online guide dedicated to providing resources for accessing medical interpreters, tips for partnering with medical interpreters, reminders about laws and regulations and directions on what to do in emergencies. Please read more about Clear Communication: Every Patient, Every Time.
- The University of Washington continues to require facemasks in healthcare and clinical facilities after the statewide healthcare mask order from the Washington State Secretary of Health ends on April 3, 2023. This decision is in alignment with UW Medicine’s medical facilities, our public health partners and other local health systems.
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Andrew Koth, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellowship (ACGME)
- Judith Hagedorn, Urology residency (ACGME)
- In response to recent concerns about known precedent of unprofessional behaviors, the GME Office has modified the Program Director Change/Appointment Request Letter Template to include the following language:
- Acknowledging that a program director must be a role model of professionalism (ACGME CPR II.A.4.a), I personally attest that I have not been made aware of prior or current concerns regarding Dr. <<Last Name>> ‘s professional or ethical behaviors toward trainees, faculty, staff, or patients.
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Please mark your calendars for the Annual GME AY24 Event Calendar. As always, the GME Website remains the best way to get the most up-to-date information. Check out the PD & PA, and Resident & Fellow pages for info on upcoming and past events including resources and recordings (if applicable). Email reminders, Zoom links and registration information (if required) will be sent via email as individual events approach. Please note that attendance at the bi-annual Program Director Development Series (PDDS) is a requirement for all ACGME programs.
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- Residents and fellows are invited to join the School of Medicine strategic planning listening session on Wednesday, May 24th from 5.30 – 6.30pm.
- Our final Chief Resident and Fellow Listening Session for the academic year will be held on Thursday, June 1st from 5:00 – 6:00 pm. Chiefs will have received an email with session details from the GME Office and we ask that program leadership support Chiefs in attending.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
People
- EDItorial: Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: The EDItorial is a monthly Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Awareness Newsletter created by the Internal Medicine (IM) residency program staff. Each month they highlight different marginalized groups with opportunities to engage, support, and participate on international, national, and local levels. The May newsletter highlights Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Read the EDItorial on the IM residency website.
- Emergency Medicine residents are featured in UW Law Students ‘Depose’ UW Emergency Medicine Residents.
- Atrial fibrillation, “AFib”, is the most common heart arrhythmia in adults and is projected to affect 12 million U.S. residents by 2030. About 70% of people with atrial fibrillation are 65 to 85, a population demographic projected to grow over the next few decades. Nazem Akoum, Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Program Director, specializes in ablation. Read the full story from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Nazem Akoum, Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Program Director, is quoted in “New Risk Factors, Better Treatments for AFib: What to Know” from WebMD.
- Dermatology residents Mariam Alam and Caitlin Crimp are organizing patient panels as part of their collaborative research project, “Mitigating Bias and Burnout Through Patient-Centered Narrative Medicine.” In June 2022, they received a grant through the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) Back to Bedside program to develop a narrative medicine curriculum for dermatology residents, with the goal to improve residents’ understanding and connection to patients and mitigate both bias and burnout. Narrative Medicine is an emerging approach to health care that draws on the study of art and literature to enhance listening and observation skills. Read the full story on the Dermatology website.
- Katherine Bennett, Geriatric Medicine Program Director, has been elected Chair of the Fellowship Director’s Group for the American Geriatrics Society/Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs. She will serve a three-year term, chair the Fellowship Director’s Preconference and represent the fellowship program director’s at society board meetings.
- Kelley Branch, Cardiovascular Disease Associate Program Director, is lead author of “Diagnostic yield, safety, and outcomes of head-to-pelvis sudden death CT imaging in post arrest care: The CT FIRST cohort study” in Resuscitation. Department of Medicine co-authors are Peter Kudenchuk, Jeff Probstfield, David Carlbom, and Nicholas Johnson.
- Justin Bullock, fellow, Nephrology, is co-author of “My Assessments Are Biased!” Measurement and Sociocultural Approaches to Achieve Fairness in Assessment in Medical Education” in Academic Medicine.
- Anna Condella, fellow, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, is lead author of “Veno-venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for COVID-19: A Call For System-Wide Checks to Ensure Equitable Delivery For All” in ASAIO Journal.
- Kirk Deene, Associate Program Director, Neuropathology, is quoted in “Tracking King County seniors (and their brains) for clues to dementia and Alzheimer’s” in The Seattle Times.
- Jonathan Harper, Endourology Program Director, is featured in Kidney stone breakthrough procedure at UW called ‘game changer’ for patients from KOMO.
- Lianne Hirano, Palliative Medicine Program Director, is quoted in “’A different animal’: Doctors warn seniors about potency of cannabis products” from KOMO News.
- Christine Johnston, Infectious Diseases Associate Program Director, is quoted in “Tired of ‘dead end’ approach, herpes patients mobilize to demand government action” in STAT.
- Aditya Joshi, fellow, Cardiology, is co-author of “The Relationship between Circulating Apolipoprotein A-1 and Atherosclerosis Initiation and Progression in Psoriasis” in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
- Hiba Khan, Noam Kopmar, Chipo Kwendakwema, and Emily Liang, Hematology-Oncology fellows, have received merit awards from the American Society of Cancer Organization (ASCO). Merit Awards support students and trainees who are first authors on abstracts selected for presentation at the ASCO Annual Meeting.
- Hiba Khan, fellow, Hematology-Oncology, is lead author and Veena Shankaran, professor (Medical Oncology) is senior author of “Financial Toxicity in Cancer Care: Implications for Clinical Care and Potential Practice Solutions” in Journal of Clinical Oncology. Department of Medicine co-author is Scott Ramsey.
- Amy Law, Instructional Designer on the GME Team, presented a workshop called “Using Empathy Maps to Investigate Complex Problems” at the AAMC Western Group Collaborative Spring Conference in April. The workshop focused on using a design thinking tool to investigate the variety of stakeholder perspectives and needs related to complex problems like mistreatment in medical education. Amy co-presented with Ceradwen Tokheim from SOMALT.
- Joseph Merrill, Addiction Medicine Program Director, is featured in Is moderate drinking good for your health? from KING 5 News. He is also quoted in “‘They saved my life’: Everett man credits Harborview addiction program with helping him get sober” from KIRO News.
- Chinenyenwa Mpamaugo, resident, Pediatrics, is featured in Tips to keep your kids safe on the water with warmer weather from KXLY.
- Chloe Peters, resident, Urology, is the resident recipient of the Dr. Reem Ghalib Award for Promotion of Gender Equity. The award, named in honor of Dr. Reem Ghalib, a renowned advocate for women in medicine, was established in 2020 by Dr. Ghalib’s colleagues to recognize her dedication to improving the pathway for women medical trainees. “Dr. Peters is an outstanding early-career urologist who has made significant contributions to the field, and we are excited to see her present her research at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association. Urology is traditionally a male-dominated medical specialty and we are proud to support her important work,” said the award committee.
- Paul Pottinger, Infectious Disease Program Director, is quoted in “Can COVID-19 Cause Itchy Eyes or Pink Eye?” from Everyday Health.
- Sarah Prager, Complex Family Planning Program Director, is quoted in “Abortion pill legal challenge threatens miscarriage care” from the Associated Press.
- Shinetra Pryor, Program Administrator for Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Medicine, was invited to present on best practices for recruitment at the Fellowship Director’s Preconference at the American Geriatrics Society Meeting.
- Coralynn Sack, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Associate Program Director, is co-author of “Association between any underlying health condition and COVID-19-associated hospitalization by age group, Washington State, 2020-2021: a retrospective cohort study” in BMC Infectious Diseases. She is also quoted in “Exploitation, Abuse, and Death: The Dark Side of Working in the Weed Industry” in The Nation.
- Matthew Thau, former fellow, is lead author and Eric Morrell, assistant professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is senior author of “Association of Trauma Molecular Endotypes With Differential Response to Transfusion Resuscitation Strategies” in JAMA Surgery. Department of Medicine co-authors are Ted Liu, Neha Sathe, W. Conrad Liles, Ian Stanaway, Carmen Mikacenic, Mark Wurfel, and Pavan Bhatraju.
- Matthew Thau, former fellow, is lead author and Pavan Bhatraju, assistant professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is senior author of “Following the MAP for Improved Kidney Function in Hepatorenal Syndrome” in Kidney 360.
- Mitchell Vollger, fellow, Medical Genetics, is lead author of “Increased mutation and gene conversion within human segmental duplications” and co-author of “A draft human pangenome reference” in Nature. Learn more in “UW Medicine plays key role in NIH pangenome studies” from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Lisa Vande Vusse, Internal Medicine Associate Program Director, wrote “White Hair Ritual” in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
by amande | May 4, 2023 | Announcements, News
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
This month, I’ve invited Hadar Duman, GME Director of Accreditation, to share her thoughts about the importance of the annual ACGME Resident and Faculty Surveys.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for Graduate Medical Education, Designated Institutional Official
Hadar Duman, MHI Director of Accreditation
The 2023 ACGME Survey results are out! As an accreditation enthusiast, I am filled with excitement. The Surveys are an annual assessment of the experiences and opinions of residents, fellows, and faculty in ACGME-accredited programs. They serve as a vital tool for the ACGME to monitor and improve the quality of graduate medical education, expand the scope of trainees’ input in the accreditation process, and make annual accreditation and policy decisions based on systematic data collection and analysis. These Surveys also give us an opportunity to make changes based on the feedback we receive. The ACGME has been administrating the survey since 2004, and it was revised twice, in 2011 and 2020, to reflect current requirements. The Surveys’ importance has only increased over the years. This is especially true since the move to the Next Accreditation System (NAS) in 2011, when the frequency of site visits was reduced to once per decade. Absent of site visits, ACGME increased their reliance on survey data to make accreditation decisions.
However, despite the high stakes of the survey, the ACGME keeps the survey questions confidential. Programs do their best to prepare trainees and faculty so they understand the meaning of the questions and content areas, but the truth is that programs go at it blind. This leaves the task of interpreting the questions to survey takers and they may get it wrong at times.
For example, in a recent conversation I had at a national conference with a Program Director of a military-based program, I learned that, despite his best efforts, trainees often interpret “service” in questions related to the “Appropriate balance between education and patient care” item as their military service, and automatically respond that service takes precedent, leading to citations.
The 2023 ACGME survey window closed on April 9, 2023, and all 118 programs in our institution scheduled to take the survey reached the required 70% completion rate, thanks to the participants’ efforts. We are grateful to all of you who participated in the 2023 ACGME survey. Your valuable feedback enables us to improve the overall clinical learning environment in our institution. Thanks to you we can identify struggling programs and offer support through the Special Review process. Through which we have been able to advocate and obtain more Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) for services in need, address issues of faculty professionalism, enhance resources such as sleep and lactation facilities, and much more. Thanks to you, we can also identify institutional trends that we need to work on. A good example is the recent launch of the “Prioritizing Ourselves When Fatigued” refresher, an eLearning module we created in response to scoring below our expectations on the item “Instruction on minimizing effects of sleep deprivation”.
On the flip side of all of this, when the survey goes unfilled, it leaves the ACGME without the necessary data to make decisions, leading to extended citations, issuing of new citations, and denying program expansion requests.
As you consider your feedback and review this year’s survey results, keep in mind the following ways in which you can help improve your program and the quality of our learning environment:
- Take the ACGME survey every year. Your feedback is crucial!
- Advocate for change in your program. If you identify areas that need improvement, share your concerns with your program director, other leaders in your program or UW GME through our Report a Concern
- Get involved in your program’s quality improvement efforts. All programs are required to conduct an annual program evaluation. Get involved and help to make your program the best it can be.
Thank you for your commitment to the continuous improvement of graduate medical education. The data suggest we could not do it without you!
by amande | Apr 21, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
Opening April’s News & Notes as I try to do, with some reasons to celebrate. First, our programs and departments are celebrating our match results, and we are excited to welcome our new trainees to UWSOM this summer. We also note that April is National Arab American Heritage Month, another opportunity recognize the diverse members of our community.
In the GME Office, we’re excited to welcome two new team members: Chris Gibson has joined the GME Accreditation team as our new Affiliations and Agreements Specialist and Amy Wheat joins the Wellness team in an interim capacity as a new counselor. More information is below.
We are also excited about the news that Dr. Santiago Neme has accepted the position of UWMC-ML Medical Director. Dr. Neme completed his Internal Medicine residency, Infectious Diseases Fellowship and Master’s in Public Health here at UWSOM. He will step in for Dr. Tom Staiger, who is retiring. Both are really wonderful colleagues and true advocates for our trainees.
April’s News & Notes is full of events, reminders and resources.
Thanks,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- 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.
- Additionally, the GME Concern Reporting tool is available to any members of the GME community to report concerns about the learning environment.
- Interpreter Services and the Office of Healthcare Equity have created an online guide dedicated to providing resources for accessing medical interpreters, tips for partnering with medical interpreters, reminders about laws and regulations and directions on what to do in emergencies. Please read more about Clear Communication: Every Patient, Every Time.
- The University of Washington continues to require facemasks in healthcare and clinical facilities after the statewide healthcare mask order from the Washington State Secretary of Health ends on April 3, 2023. This decision is in alignment with UW Medicine’s medical facilities, our public health partners and other local health systems.
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Meena Ramchandani, Infectious Disease fellowship
- Nelson Chiu, Family Medicine Seattle & Family Medicine Chelan Track residencies (interim)
- Paul Swanson, Surgical Pathology fellowship (interim)
- Yongjun Liu, Gastrointestinal and Hepatic Pathology fellowship (interim)
- Jose Garcia, Advanced Geriatric Medicine fellowship
- Betty Zhang, Advanced Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease fellowship
- Claire Sandstrom, Emergency Radiology fellowship
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- April 20: GMEPAC Process for AY25; recording and slides now available
- May 18: Final Evaluations & Training Verifications + GME Strategic Plan
- June 15: Cancelled; Please join us again on July 20th
- This year’s Scheduling Workshop will be taking on a new format! Join Allison Shults to refresh and enhance your MedHub scheduling skills as you prep for the upcoming academic year. Three optional sessions will be held to provide PAs and PDs the flexibility to tailor your attendance to suit your current comfort level – attend them all or pick and choose:
- Scheduling 101: May 2nd | 10:00am – 11:30am: This session covers scheduling fundaments, including an overview of billing guidelines & FTE, using the New Schedule Task Wizard to create your schedule for the upcoming academic year, creating and editing a service/activity, and creating and assigning shifts/calls.
- Scheduling 102: May 3rd | 10:00am – 11:00am: Attend this session to learn how you can leverage the Conference Import Wizard, create conferences from scratch, and create and assign continuity clinics.
- Scheduling 103: May 4th | 10:00am – 11:00am: During this session we’ll discuss managing and approving absences and leave requests within MedHub, as well as some of the MedHub reports that will help your schedule management: the Resident Scheduling Errors, Resident Absence Details, and Billing vs Budgeted report.
- RSVP is not required, and we hope to see many of you there! Please refer to the Save-the-Date email for Zoom links, or reach out to Allison at ashults@uw.edu with any questions.
- Housestaff Event: “You are not Broken: Cultivating Healthy Sexuality During Training.” 6:30-8:00pm on Thursday, May 18th All residents and fellows are encouraged to attend via Zoom. Registration is now open and will close on Tuesday, May 16th. Register today.
- Tim Dellit, Interim CEO, UW Medicine; Interim Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs; and Interim Dean of the School of Medicine, would like trainees to know that the School of Medicine is now beginning their listening sessions as the first step in the SOM strategic planning process. These sessions will be open forums for trainees to share their thoughts and will be led by consultants. There are several options available for different cohorts of the community as the group wants to hear the voices from all parts of our School of Medicine. The majority of these will be via Zoom to make participation easier. There will also be an opportunity for written input later in the spring and the group will be joining some standing meetings (e.g., NURF, CMFA) to gather input. See email from April 29, 2023.
- Please join the annual UWNURF/HQSC Health Equity Conference via Zoom on Monday, May 8 from 7:00 – 8:00 PM PST. This year’s presentation is Improving Care of Unhoused Patients. Please register and share with others. All are invited to participate.
- Call To Action: Menstrual Product Donations – In honor of Women’s History Month, Dr. Sãdé Rodriguez and the Seattle Children’s GME office are partnering with Seattle Children’s Food Security program and Seattle Towers of Tampons & Pyramids of Pads (T2P2) to collect menstrual products for people who cannot afford them. Dr. Rodriguez is a pediatric resident at Seattle Children’s, and is invested in addressing this urgent equity gap for patients, families, and the community. Learn more about how you can donate on CHILD.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Annual Program Timeline: Please review for important dates for April and May.
- A reminder that residents and fellows can access CareLink, UW’s employee assistance program. UW CareLink is the employee assistance program provided for PEBB benefits-eligible UW employees, their dependents, and other household members. Initial services are provided at no cost, and the call is toll-free. UW CareLink is available nationwide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- The Human Subjects Division is launching a pilot project to offer drop-in Zoom office hours to student/resident researchers in April and May 2023. Their office receives many IRB applications from a wide variety of UW students, and often find that students of all levels would benefit from additional support in navigating the IRB process from the beginning. Go to their HSD Office Hours webpage for the schedule and Zoom information.
- The UW Health Sciences Library has announced a new institutional license for Covidence, a popular online platform for evidence synthesis projects including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and more. This new license is available to all UW faculty, staff, and students and is made possible in partnership with the UW Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, and Social Work. From April 24-27 the UW Libraries is offering Research Data Management Planning, an asynchronous online workshop for UW community members engaged in research with data.
- As part of a new initiative at UWSOM called Virtual Bedside Concerts (VBC), we are looking to recruit volunteer musicians who are interested in performing virtual concerts for patients in the hospital. Any and all instruments are welcome, we just ask that you have a documented history of music training and feel comfortable playing music for and interacting with patients over zoom. There are no hourly requirements, you can sign up to perform as many or as few concerts as your schedule allows. Our only requirements are that volunteers attend a virtual orientation session and officially register with our designated hospital volunteer programs before getting started. If you are interested or have any questions, feel free to reach out to vbcorg@uw.edu.
- Submit your 55 word story! When the pandemic began, two faculty members, Molly Jackson and Andrea Kalus, launched a 55-word story campaign in collaboration with the Well-Being team to capture the emotions and feelings of the moment through short vignettes. As a way of marking this moment, of three years with COVID-19 in our lives, UW Medicine Well-Being invites you to reflect on where you have been and where you are now through the creation of your own 55-word story. Share your three-year reflections in 55 words (or less) with our community here.
- 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.
- Set your pronouns in Identity.UW: You can now display your pronouns in UW systems such as MyUW, Zoom and soon Canvas and MyUW class lists when you click “Set pronouns” in Identity.UW.
- 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
- Emergency Medicine residents are featured in UW EM Residents Team Up with UW Law Students for Novel Medicolegal Workshop.
- Axel Adams, Emergency Medicine R4, received the Resident Academic Achievement Award from the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine.
- Alwiya Ahmed, Internal Medicine resident, is lead author and Matthew Triplette, associate professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, is senior author of “Delays in Recommended Follow-up after Positive Findings in Lung Cancer Screening” in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. Department of Medicine co-author is Kristina Crothers.
- Maheetha Bharadwaj, Urology resident, is featured in ‘Volunteer-Led Virtual Bedside Concert Program Thrives’ in The Huddle.
- Joey Chiang, internal medicine resident,, is co-author of “Population-Level Health Effects of Involuntary Displacement of People Experiencing Unsheltered Homelessness Who Inject Drugs in US Cities” in JAMA.
- Fiona Gallahue, Emergency Medicine Residency Program Director, received the Michael P. Wainscott Program Director Award from the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine.
- Chris Gibson has joined the GME Office as our new Affiliations and Agreements Specialist as of March 20, 2023. Chris joins our team after serving as a Research Manager at Ducharme, McMillen & Associates. During his tenure, he oversaw compliance matters that spanned multiple jurisdictions, led a team of research analysts, provided mentorship and training to team members, and managed an online platform and information database for managing international tax matters. Additionally, Chris recently earned a Master of Public Health degree.
- Fuki Hisama, Medical Genetics and Genomics Program Director, has been elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) for a six-year term. She has served on the board of directors of the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ABMGG), the Program Committee of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, and the Medical Genetics Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education.
- Ellora Karmarkar, Infectious Diseases fellow, is quoted in “Deadly fungus spreading in U.S. with approximately 60% mortality” in MyNorthwest.
- Hannah Linden, Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Associate Program Director, is lead author of “Can Molecular Imaging Find a Path to Navigate Evolving Breast Cancer Treatments?” in Clinical Cancer Research.
- Manoj Menon, Hematology and Oncology Program Director, has been appointed holder of the Scripps Endowed Professorship in Hematology..
- Somnath Mookherjee, Academic Hospitalist Fellowship Program Director, is the 2023 recipient of the Society of Hospital Medicine Excellence in Teaching Award, which recognizes outstanding teaching prowess and mentoring to other hospitalists, residents, medical students, or other healthcare professionals.
- Santiago Neme has accepted the position of UWMC Medical Director. Neme is a dedicated, collaborative leader, who champions change. He is a very talented clinical faculty member who is well positioned to lead us through the health care challenges we face today. Dr. Neme’s appointment will begin July 1st, 2023. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Neme.
- Anzela Niraula, Endocrinology fellow, is lead author, and Joshua Thaler, associate professor, Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition, is senior author of “Prostaglandin PGE2 Receptor EP4 Regulates Microglial Phagocytosis and Increases Susceptibility to Diet-Induced Obesity” in Diabetes. Department of Medicine co-authors are Kelly Ness, Jeremy Frey, Sophia Cuschieri, and Mauricio Dorfman.
- Robin Stiller, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine fellow, is lead author and Tyler Albert, associate professor (General Internal Medicine) is senior author of “Responsibilities of Internal Medicine Chief Residents in the Modern Era: A National Survey” in ATS Scholar. Department of Medicine co-authors are Gabrielle Berger, Başak Çoruh, and Paul Cornia.
- Aiming to better predict who is at greatest risk for checkpoint inhibitor-induced hepatitis, Erica Storm, internal medicine resident, and colleagues conducted a retrospective case-control study of adults who newly received checkpoint inhibitor therapies for a variety of solid organ malignancies between 2016 and 2020 at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Storm identified 97 cases of Grade 2-4 immune-related hepatitis. After adjusting for other factors that could contribute to risk of hepatitis, a liver cirrhosis was found to be associated with lower risk of immune-related hepatitis. In contrast, the presence of cancer metastases within the liver was associated with higher risk. Learn more on the Internal Medicine residency website.
- Joshua Thaler, Associate Program Director for Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition fellowship, is quoted in “Is Antihistamine Use Making Me Gain Weight?” from The Huddle.
- Amy Wheat joins the GME Wellness team this month as a new, interim wellness counselor. Amy brings her unique perspective as a therapist, as well as her life experience of being partnered with a physician. Read more about Amy here. Trainees can make appointments with Amy on Schedulicity.
- Bessie Young, Vice Dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for UWSOM, is quoted in “Celebrating (But Not Touching) Black Women’s Hair” in The Huddle.
by amande | Apr 7, 2023 | Announcements, News
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
This month, we celebrate the incoming class of trainees who will join us this summer! For the third year in a row, our residency and fellowship programs virtually recruited the best and the brightest medical students from around the country – and the world! This year, 84 of our 200+ total ACGME and non-ACGME training programs participated in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) and 23 participated in the San Francisco Match.
Both the NRMP Main Residency and Specialties Matches were the largest on record, with 40,375 positions available in the Main Residency Match and 13,365 positions in the Specialties Match. This year was also our largest Match at UWSOM with 299 positions offered in the Main match and 191 in the Specialties Match.
Main Residency Match
- In the Main Residency Match, the 26 participating UWSOM residency programs had a match rate of 98.7% (and 99.3% after the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program, or SOAP) compared to 93.3% nationally.
- From 2019-2022 we saw small year-to-year decreases in the number of UWSOM graduates matching to our residency programs. This year, we matched 56 UWSOM graduates (an increase of 17 from 2022) or 19% of our matched applicants.
- Nationally, the number of matched US MD seniors, US DO seniors, US citizen IMGs, and non-US citizen IMGs increased from last year. The number of unmatched US MD seniors to PGY-1 positions decreased again this year, a two-year trend.
Specialties Matching Program
- In the Specialties (fellowship) Match, the 58 participating UWSOM fellowship programs offered 191 positions with a match rate of 91.6% compared to 86.4% nationally. Another 10 positions have been filled post-Match.
- 41 of the 175 spots filled in the Match were filled by UWSOM residents, a slight decrease from 2022.
- Nationally, the number of matched UW MD graduates, US DO graduates, US citizen IMGs, and non-US citizen IMGs increased from last year.
The past three years have been difficult, but UWSOM programs continue to have strong match results and we remain a very competitive training institution, as reflected by the 5-year trends below:
Increasing Diversity in our Training Programs
UW Medicine is creating a healthcare system that works for everyone. To that end, it is essential that we prioritize diversifying the medical workforce. This is not just a moral imperative. It is a practical one, as diversity can lead to better health outcomes and a more effective healthcare system overall.
This year our programs reported increases in both Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), as well as Underrepresented in Medicine (URM) candidates who matched in our medical and dental programs. As we work together to increase and, more importantly, sustain inclusivity and diversity in our workforce, we can continue to provide better equity of patient care in our community.
I want to congratulate program and department leadership, residents and fellows, and the Network of Underrepresented Residents and Fellows (NURF) for their tremendous efforts in our journey to diversify our learning community. For the third year, the GME Office and NURF hosted Town Halls to help our programs attract underrepresented and vulnerable minority candidates. One of the NURF Town Halls had more than 600 participants.
Below is this year’s representation of BIPOC, URM and women who have historically been minoritized in Medicine, as reported by our departments.
Department |
BIPOC |
URM |
Women |
Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine |
39.0% |
7.0% |
14.0% |
Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine |
12.5% |
25.0% |
25.0% |
Family Medicine |
60.0% |
20.0% |
60.0% |
Laboratory Medicine and Pathology |
9.56% |
8.82% |
52.41% |
Medicine |
41.8% |
15.4% |
42.4% |
Obstetrics & Gynecology |
85.0% |
42.0% |
100.0% |
Ophthalmology |
80.0% |
20.0% |
40.0% |
Otolaryngology |
75.0% |
25.0% |
0.0% |
Pediatrics |
51.0% |
15.0% |
68.0% |
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation |
0.0% |
9.0% |
36.0% |
Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences |
33.5% |
6.0% |
64.2% |
Surgery |
44.0% |
19.0% |
88.0% |
Urology |
25.0% |
25.0% |
100.0% |
*See 2022 results and 2021 results
All members of our community, including the department chairs, residents and fellows, program directors and administrators, faculty, and staff, worked together to produce these excellent results. Especially during these challenging times, it is critical that we cultivate an environment where everyone feels safe and as though they belong, an environment in which everyone can be successful.
Congratulations and thank you!
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
by amande | Mar 24, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
This month brings lots of great celebrations – first, last Friday was Match Day. It’s been fun to talk with programs and hear their excitement about our matched residents and fellows. We look forward to onboarding and welcoming them to the University of Washington!
In the GME Office, we welcome two new team members. Bethany Griffitts is our new Fiscal Specialist on the Finance Team and Chris Gibson is the new Affiliations and Agreements Specialist on the Accreditation Team. If you’re not sure who to contact about a GME related question, check out the Our Team page.
A few other notes and reminders. Ramadan started on March 22 – the Info by Training Site page includes information about prayer / meditation spaces and other resources. Spring is also the time when UW’s cherry blossoms begin to bloom. Finally, March is Women’s History Month – check out this article by UW Medicine’s Office of Healthcare Equity featuring lesser known healthcare sector pioneers and this article in UW Huddle where women share their experiences in male-dominated fields.
Thanks,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- The GMEC approved revisions to the following policies at the March meeting. All are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website.
- Annual Program Evaluation: Revisions include alignment with the upcoming changes to the ACGME’s Common Program requirements (CPRs) scheduled to take effect in July 2023; addition of a Purpose statement; process section updated to reflect the new language that requires a review of outcomes from prior APEs, program evaluations by trainees and faculty, and allows flexibility in the data elements reviewed; added that tracking Workforce diversity also needs to include staff and community members; and added Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to CLER questions
- Eligibility and Selection Policy: Revisions include minor changes to reflect new CPRs effective July 2023; under Program Policies, grouped requirements as specialty-specific and UW specific and moved selective service and NIH grant restrictions up from footnote; moved footnote addressing program communication to applicants of changes to salary and benefits with grant funding up into Interview and Selection section.
- Visa Policy: Revisions include updating Scope to apply to programs (not trainees) and changed non-accredited training programs to ACGME Non-Standard Training (NST) Programs. Amended footnote to include definition of an NST program; added Purpose statement to align with format of other GME policies; and updated J-1 section to reflect changes under new ACGME NST requirements
- 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 both the program and trainee through the process.
- Due to decreasing COVID case counts and hospitalizations, effective Tuesday, March 7th the UW Medicine Required and Extended-use Mask Policy was updated with the following changes:
- Respirators are no longer required for all aerosol generating procedures. Respirators continue to be strongly recommended, in addition to other personal protective equipment (PPE), to prevent the acquisition and transmission of COVID and other respiratory viruses during these procedures. Respirators, in addition to other PPE, continue to be required for the care of all patients with known or suspected COVID-19. Respirators will continue to be provided to all staff who choose to use them.
- Physical distancing and masking are no longer required in breakrooms, team rooms, multi-person offices, conference rooms, and similar rooms isolated from patient care spaces by a door or away from patient care spaces. Using a mask or respirator in those spaces continues to be strongly recommended.
- Masks or respirators continue to be required in all patient care spaces, public spaces ( hallways, elevators, and cafeterias), and during all patient care and visitor interactions. Please ensure you have a mask or respirator on when entering and leaving patient care buildings. Masks may also be required by Employee Health following a high-risk exposure or recent COVID-19 infection.All healthcare workers should continue to wear the highest level of respiratory protection that they can tolerate as they may encounter people with asymptomatic COVID or other respiratory infections. Wearing a mask or respirator also protects those around you in case of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic COVID infection.
- Welcome New Program Administrators:
- Lanie Cueva, Pediatric Hematology-Oncology
- Taraneh Moll, Clinical Informatics
- Keely Peddycord, Child Neurology
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Rebecca Petersen, General Surgery Residency
- Ari Pollack, Pediatric Nephrology Fellowship
- Christopher Burke, Advanced Cardiac Surgery Fellowship [Non-ACGME]
- Rebecca Ronsley, Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Fellowshipb [Non-ACGME]
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- March 16: Annual Program Evaluations; recording and slides now available
- April 20: GMEPAC Process for AY25
- May 18: Final Evaluations & Training Verifications + Additional Topics
- GME Onboarding Drop-in Session: For additional support for program administrators, please find below a schedule for the upcoming informational drop-in session. This is designed to help programs with our various onboarding processes and answer any questions, in a casual and virtual format.
- GME Onboarding Drop-in Session #2
- Date: Wednesday, March 29
- Time: 9-10am
- Zoom
- RSVP: Not required
- Tentative Talking Points include: Guided instruction on MedHub functions (Adding, Advancing, Terminating/Graduating); Onboarding packages (How to monitor resident and fellow status); What’s on the horizon for April and beyond; and time for Q&A.
- Cherry Blossom run/walk celebration at UW – March 25th (5k run/walk) and 26th (half-marathon). Space limited – register soon! See full calendar of events: Cherry Blossom Activities at the Burke! The cherry blossoms at the UW campus are a seasonal tradition and celebration for the entire region. This year’s colder-than-usual spring is demanding a little more patience. Mark your calendars for a peak bloom expected in early April.
- GME Outreach Event for trainees at SCH on April 14th from 11 am to 1 pm. We encourage trainees to stop by to say hello, meet our GME team members and take a packed lunch. Please look for an email closer to the event with specific room details.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Annual Program Timeline: Please review for important dates for March and April.
- The UW Professional Staff Organization (PSO) has launched the new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Excellence Award which seeks to highlight professional staff currently working at the UW. Nominees include those who have demonstrated a deep commitment to the advancement of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging work directly within the UW and/or their local communities. Nominations are due April 15.
- The January 2023 DIO Blog featuring the work of the Care of Patients Experiencing Incarceration (CPEI) Task Force and Learning Gateway has been updated with the new Caring for Patients Experiencing Incarceration guide.
- Submit your 55 word story! When the pandemic began, two faculty members, Molly Jackson and Andrea Kalus, launched a 55-word story campaign in collaboration with the Well-Being team to capture the emotions and feelings of the moment through short vignettes. As a way of marking this moment, of three years with COVID-19 in our lives, UW Medicine Well-Being invites you to reflect on where you have been and where you are now through the creation of your own 55-word story. Share your three-year reflections in 55 words (or less) with our community here.
- The Health Equity, Advocacy, and Anti-Racism (HEAAR) Curriculum for the Internal Medicine Residency Program has been introduced by Drs. Lynsey Bernfeld, Hasib Yousufzai, Anna Morenz, Ryan Abe, Helen Jack and Anders Chen. HEAAR is a comprehensive, multi-tiered, and inter-professional curricular thread embedded into the residency program with the goal of learning principles of anti-oppression and using those frameworks to understand and address the structural origins of health inequities. Learn more on the Department of Medicine news site.
- Dr. Jennifer Best, Associate Dean of GME, wishes to highlight Dr. Carrie Cunnigham’s deeply personal and important President’s Address at the AAS Academic Surgical Congress. In the 45 minute video, Dr. Cunningham discusses the mental health crisis impacting our community, reflecting on her lived experiences. Dr. Best notes that, “it’s a message I think all of us need to hear.”
- 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.
- Set your pronouns in Identity.UW: You can now display your pronouns in UW systems such as MyUW, Zoom and soon Canvas and MyUW class lists when you click “Set pronouns” in Identity.UW.
- A new opt-in module from Learning Gateway is now available. Prioritizing Ourselves When Fatigued is a 5 minute module 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 review the recording and slides.
People
- Toni Brassfield, Resident, Internal Medicine, won top clinical vignette at the recent Northwest Regional Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM) conference for his poster, “Strongyloides stercoralis hyperinfection following initiation of CHOP therapy”
- Debra Cherry, Program Director, Occupational and Environmental Medicine and John Scott, professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) talked to KIRO 7 News in “Safeguarding wearable technology.”
- John Choe, Associate Program Director, Internal Medicine, is co-author of “AAIM Recommendations for Undergraduate Medical Education to Graduate Medical Education Transition Curricula in Internal Medicine” in the American Journal of Medicine.
- Anna Condella, fellow, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, is lead author of “Veno-venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for COVID-19: A Call For System-Wide Checks to Ensure Equitable Delivery For All” in ASAIO Journal. DOM co-author is Andrew Luks, Program Director, Critical Care Medicine.
- Shani Delaney, Program Director, Maternal-Fetal Medicine, is featured in UW study shows race-based prenatal test is outdated, ineffective – KREM.
- Mackenzie Holmberg, R3, Internal Medicine is lead author and Sarah Sanghavi, clinical assistant professor (Nephrology) is senior author of “Bridging the Gap: A Practical Approach to Discussing eGFR and Race with Medical Students” in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. DOM co-author is Başak Çoruh, Program Director, Pulmonary Critical Care.
- Nicholas Johnson, Associate Program Director, Critical Care Medicine, is co-author of “Total and subgenomic RNA viral load in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants” in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
- Vishesh Kapur, Program Director, Sleep Medicine Program, is quoted in “Here’s What Your Body Is Trying To Tell You If You’re Constantly Waking Up Before Your Alarm” in Well+Good.
- Eileen Klein, professor (Pediatrics) is one of this year’s recipients of the School of Medicine Excellence in Mentoring Women Faculty Award. Awardees are chosen based on recommendations from peers and mentees received by the Dean’s Standing Committee for Women in Medicine and Science.
- William Lombardi, Program Director, High-risk Coronary Intervention (CHIP) Fellowship, is the 2023 recipient of the TCT Geoffrey O. Hartzler Master Operator Award. He is receiving this award for his superior operator skills and leadership in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
- Leo Morales, professor (General Internal Medicine) is quoted in “University of Washington study will survey Latinos in the state with COVID-19” and “WA Hispanics suffer high rates of long COVID. UW study launched to find out more” in the Yakima Herald-Republic. He is also featured in Long COVID in WA Hispanics being studied — high rates expected from the Bellingham Herald.
- It is with great pleasure that the Department of Family Medicine announces the hiring of Joseph Nelson as the inaugural Associate Program Director for Diversity Equity and Inclusion for the residency. Joey is a member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. He is a graduate of the UW School of Medicine and the UW Family Medicine Residency and practices broad spectrum family medicine. During his time as a resident he was a leader in our Health Equity and Anti Racism (HEAR) Committee and the President of the Network for Underrepresented Residents and Fellows (NURF). Joey currently serves as the Academic Chief Resident where he applies his unending positive energy to the advancement of the HEAR vision, the betterment of the residency and the UW Department of Family Medicine.
- Urology resident Chloe Peters is first author of “Pregnancy and parental leave in medicine and academia — a focus on urology” in Nature.
- From the UW Medicine Newsroom: Medical students meet their matches
- Check out the UW Otolaryngology-HNS Winter 2023 Newsletter for lots of great faculty and trainee highlights.
by amande | Mar 10, 2023 | Announcements, News
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Jennifer Best, MD |
Cindy Hamra JD, MA |
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
|
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Exciting times are afoot within the GME Office!
Now to be fair, our team finds all the work we do exciting, but at this moment we are working to finalize our GME Strategic Plan for AY2024 to 2029. In this edition of the Blog, we would like to provide our community with an overview of work to date and what you might expect moving forward.
How Our Community Has Informed The Process
You may recall that in July 2022, we sent a survey to our community and stakeholders, including our residents and fellows, program directors and administrators, department administrators, chairs, and leaders of UW Medicine. Our goal here was to “broaden the circle” of voices, as compared with previous iterations of strategic planning. We appreciated hearing from many of you within the context of this SWOT (Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats) analysis about the work we accomplished related to our prior strategic plan and where there is work still to do.
How We Analyzed The Data
A group of GME team members sat with those results to identify themes for each group of stakeholders, with specific attention to themes identified by multiple groups as important priorities. Knowing that our work must be aligned with broader systems, the second step involved evaluated mapping this narrower list of themes against “inputs” that we felt would raise their priority moving forward, including UW Medicine strategy, our Equity Blueprint, ACGME requirements, and our own sense of emerging priority areas that has evolved as we engage each day with individuals, programs, and departments.
Emergent Priority Areas
Our previous strategic plan was predicated on list of key values that drove our work. Because we believe this has been an effective way to share our goals internally and externally, we will be communicating our new strategic plan on these same Strategic Values. At a high level, the following areas have emerged as key for AY24-29
ADVOCACY
Does everyone in our community have what they need to do their jobs and feel valued? How do we help programs avoid accreditation threats? Can GME fund the work it wants to do?
COMMUNICATION
Do members of the GME community feel connected with one another? Do we learn from one another and avoid reinventing the wheel?
EXPERTISE
How do we create standards where they haven’t existed before? How do maximize our use of technology? How can we come to be seen as the standard for GME?
INTEGRATION
How do we help programs to anticipate and respond to the shifts in clinical needs? How do we do more with limited resources? How do we support UW Medicine’s goals of serving the region?
PEOPLE
How do we bring, grow, and keep the right people, doing the right work? How do we create an environment in which all members can reach full potential? How do we heal and care for our community?
QUALITY AND VALUE
Can we be more strategic in data collection and reporting? How do we effectively “speak the language” of decision-makers when advocating for resources? How can we raise the visibility of learning environment needs that are common across programs and departments?
What’s Next?
We are vetting a draft of the Strategic Plan within the GME Office, including careful thought about how we will know we are making progress (What are our key performance indicators and outcomes?) We plan to bring a draft back to some members of the broader community that identified a desire to participate in a focus group with the plan to present the plan to the Graduate Medical Education Committed (GMEC) and share the final plan more broadly with our stakeholders – including you – in May and June.
This is important work – work that will take all of us. The worlds of clinical care, health professions education and GME are complex, and always shifting, as is the world around us. Thank you for the privilege of working on your behalf as your partners in this next season.
- Jennifer Best, MD
Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
- Cindy Hamra, JD
Associate Dean, Operations and Administration
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- Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
by amande | Feb 24, 2023 | Announcements, News
On this Thank A Resident Day, the UW GME team wishes to express our wholehearted gratitude for the many ways that residents and fellows enhance our community by bringing their best to challenging circumstances, supporting one another and working diligently to learn, grow and inspire change.
Yet there may be no better way, perhaps, to honor our trainees’ impact than by sharing the words of patients whose lives they improve each day. For these individuals, the work of residents and fellows is never unnoticed. These are just some of the recent comments received by UW Medicine. It is a privilege to receive and share them.
The resident helping me is a rockstar – very warm, helpful, informative, comforting and insightful.
I could have seen someone else saying, “You’ll need another appt. for all this.” But she dived in and got it done.
I would like to switch to this doctor because he is absolutely fantastic and knows what he is doing. Very well educated, concerned about everything you have to say and makes sure everything is done properly and you feel good about the visit with him.
…kind, gentle, attentive, and the model of excellent primary care
…talked to me with respect, not down to me. Several doctors and nurses treated me as an old woman and didn’t know or understand. I am an old lady but I am not senile. I still have all my marbles.
I loved that I had a female surgeon. She was knowledgeable, confident and caring.
A wonderful doctor- knowledgeable, caring, empathetic, and informative…I GREATLY appreciate her respectful “partnership approach” to my healthcare.
Always there for me. I love the professional manner in which he handles medical concerns.
She also told me she was here for me if I needed anything. I really appreciated that.
The resident on my case made my experience better.
Education can at times feel somewhat abstract, yet we are fortunate that in health professions education, relationships with patients are protective and centering. The moments represented above are anything but abstract. They are vulnerable, deeply interpersonal and filled with shared optimism. And today, we celebrate that they are only made possible by the exceptional personal qualities and commitment of our residents and fellows.
From those of us who work alongside you in hospitals and clinics, and the team of staff that make that clinical and educational work possible, thank you for inspiring our hope in the future of healthcare!
Jennifer Best, MD
Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
Cindy Hamra, JD
Associate Dean, Operations and Administration
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
by amande | Feb 23, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
February is Black History Month – there are so many good resources available, and I enjoyed reading President Cauce’s blog and the UW Combined Fund Drive’s engagement and learning opportunities. As we work to support our community, a reminder that Ramadan begins on March 22. Muslim colleagues and patients may be fasting between dawn and sunset in observance.
Additional celebrations in February include Thank a Resident Day on February 24. This day is an opportunity to recognize our trainees and their enormous contribution to our mission. In the spirit of celebrating our trainees, GME enjoyed partnering with The Huddle to craft this Getting to know our Chief Residents and Fellows article.
Finally, we are excited to welcome Allison Shults to the GME team as RMS and Information Systems Manager. In this role, Allison will be our MedHub subject matter expert and will lead a new strategic initiative to prioritize use of data in our work in GME. Allison joins us from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, where she was previously Assistant Director in the Master of Science in Information Systems program.
Thanks,
Cindy
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Anshu Bandhlish, Cardiovascular Pathology (Interim)
- Matthew Cham, Cardiothoracic Imaging
- Amanda Kost, Family Medicine – Medical Education Research
- At its January meeting, the ACGME granted Initial Accreditation to a new Internal Medicine residency program based in the Department of Medicine. The UW-Alaska Internal Medicine Rural Residency Program’s mission is to provide an intensive Alaska-based, rural primary care-focused training experience in internal medicine. This is the very first accredited rural residency training program in Internal Medicine in the country. More information on the Department of Medicine news site and at the UW Medicine Newsroom
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- February 16: Workplace Safety; recording and slides now available
- March 16: Annual Program Evaluations
- April 20: GMEPAC Process for AY25
- For additional support for program administrators, please find below a schedule of *optional* informational drop-in sessions. The available drop-in sessions are designed to help programs with our various onboarding processes and answer any questions, in a casual and virtual format.
- GME Onboarding Drop-in Session #1
- Date: Tuesday, February 28
- Time: 9-10am
- Zoom
- RSVP: Not required
- Tentative Agenda:
- Guided instruction on MedHub functions
- Forms: one-step stipend increase, extensions, Job Profile Change/Program Transfer
- Q&A
- GME Onboarding Drop-in Session #2
- Date: Wednesday, March 29
- Time: 9-10am
- Zoom
- RSVP: Not required
- Tentative Agenda:
- Register for “Fertility & Family Planning for those in Medicine & Science.” The UW Committee on Women in Medicine & Science will be hosting this workshop on Thursday March, 2 from 4:00 – 5:00 PST. This workshop will be presented by Rachel M. Whynott, MD, FACOG, Assistant Professor & Associate Fellowship Director, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Washington. It will discuss planning for pregnancy, what fertility testing may be appropriate for individuals, when to see fertility assessment, and fertility preservation options. Zoom information will be sent within the week prior to the event to those registered. For those unable to attend, materials and a recording of the event will be posted to the website afterward.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Annual Program Timeline has been updated and is now organized by activity type, eg ACGME Accreditation, Appointments and Onboarding, Program Activities, Recruitment. Please review the updated document and note the important dates for February and March.
- Set your pronouns in Identity.UW: You can now display your pronouns in UW systems such as MyUW, Zoom and soon Canvas and MyUW class lists when you click “Set pronouns” in Identity.UW.
- 2024 ACGME Awards: Nomination materials are available on each award’s page in the Awards section of the ACGME website. All nominations are due March 15, 2023. Please reach out to the GME office if you plan to submit an application.
- UW Medicine launched an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Survey to identify baseline measures of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion across UW Medicine and provide actionable data to help prioritize areas for work at the entity and departmental levels. All UW Medicine faculty, staff, and trainees are invited to complete the survey which will take about 10-15 minutes to complete. The survey closes February 28, 2023. Please participate in this survey to help make us a more equitable and anti-racist institution.
- The NRMP will be holding an Introduction to the Fellowship Match webinar for NRMP Match participating specialties on Thursday, February 16, from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Learn about program staff roles and responsibilities, managing your program’s participation in the Match, ranking applicants, and important policy information. Advance registration is required.
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for an Affiliations and Agreements Specialist (req. 212955)
- 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 from Learning Gateway is now available. Prioritizing Ourselves When Fatigued is a 5 minute module 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 review the recording and slides.
People
- Congrats to members of our GME community who were nominated for the 2022 – 2023 Distinguished Staff Awards.
- Geoffrey Baird, Chair, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, is quoted in “Is it time for a reality check on rapid COVID tests?”.
- The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, took to social media to highlight the efforts of Justin Bullock, fellow, Nephrology, who advocates for greater mental health support for health workers.
- Fionnuala Cormack, clinical associate professor (Nephrology) will serve as the Associate Program Director for the Nephrology Fellowship Program, effective July 1, 2023. She brings tremendous strengths and experience to this role. She has served as the Director of the UW dialysis program, leads the Nephrology efforts at UW Stone Center, and is the Section Head of UWMC’s NW Campus. She is a gifted educator, and the fellows recognized her with the Teacher of the Year award for the 2019 – 2020 academic year.
- Tim Dellit, Interim Dean and CEO of UW Medicine, is quoted in “Gonzaga Law School, UW Medical ends participation with U.S. News rankings” – KXLY
- The Department of Surgery Newsletter ‘Surgery Synopsis’ features many voices of the GME community, including Program Directors, trainees, and program staff. Check out the Winter 2022 / 2023 issue.
- Yolanda Evans, alum, Adolescent Medicine Fellowship, is featured in The Huddle piece, “How alumna Yolanda Evans improves adolescent health by pausing and listening to youths’ needs”
- Roxanne Hicks, R3, Internal Medicine has been accepted into the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Leadership in Health Policy Program (LEAHP). The Leadership in Health Policy Program aims to develop SGIM members who are effective and active health policy advocates and local health policy experts, leaders, and teachers; to offer health policy career development resources and opportunities to all SGIM members; and to develop an expanding, national cadre of Health Policy Committee members and broaden engagement in the Society’s health policy efforts.
- Trish Kritek, professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) won the Reeves Prize for Presentation Excellence at the 2023 International Hypoxia Symposia in Lake Louise for her talk “Hypoxemia in the COVID ICU — Mechanisms and Reflections.”
- The University of Washington’s Latino Center for Health has launched a study to better understand the extent and impact of long COVID on the state’s Latino communities. “Since the onset of the pandemic, Latino communities in Washington state have had higher rates of COVID-19 infection than the general population, higher rates of hospitalization, and higher rates of mortality on an age-adjusted basis,” said Leo Morales, professor (General Internal Medicine) and co-director of the Latino Center for Health. “Yet we are not seeing many people from Latino communities showing up in our long-COVID clinics.” Read more from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- To improve HIV testing rates in the West African country of Côte d’Ivoire, community health workers need more training and support, researchers from the UW and the Institute de Recherche et Actions en Afrique, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire report in a new study. “We need to identify people who are infected if we are going to treat them, but identification can be the hardest of the three 95 percent goals to achieve,” said Nancy Mugisha, fellow, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and lead author of the paper published in PLOS ONE. Read the full story from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Henry Ou, Program Director, Pediatric Otolaryngology, is featured in Meet Henry Ou, a Pediatric Otolaryngologist at Seattle Children’s.
- Paul Pottinger, Program Director, Infectious Diseases, is quoted in “Too Many People Are Using Neti Pots and Vaporizers Unsafely, Survey Suggests” in Everyday Health.
- Sarah Prager, Program Director, Complex Family Planning, is featured in “In a post-Roe world, miscarriage treatment becomes more difficult.”
- Sarah Prager, Program Director, Complex Family Planning, is featured in “How a Texas ruling on abortion pills would affect Washington.”
- UW Medicine has announced the creation of a historic endowed deanship honoring retired Dean Paul G. Ramsey. The Paul G. Ramsey Endowed Deanship was established with leadership gifts from Steve and Connie Ballmer and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Each donated $10 million to advance research discoveries, train medical leaders and further excellence and equity in health care.
- Colbey Ricklefs, R3, Family Medicine, is leading an initiative to rid insurance codes of pejorative language.
- Grace Shih, Co-Director, Reproductive Health & Advocacy Fellowship, is quoted in “Post-Roe, vasectomies tick up in the Seattle area” – KUOW
by amande | Feb 8, 2023 | Announcements, News, Sticky
The chief residents and fellows at UW Medicine are key players in the clinical space through their guidance and leadership, but who are they?
The chief residents and fellows are trainees, usually senior, who serve as the leaders and representatives for the group of residents or fellows in their training program. Their roles and responsibilities can vary greatly depending on their program, but each chief resident and fellow is expected to be a model of professionalism, to communicate or liaise with a variety of stakeholders to represent their trainees’ needs or opinions, and to provide counsel to trainees about all matters — big or small.
These roles are essential at UW Medicine because these individuals represent the interests and opinions of a critical group of the workforce while also acting as subject matter experts. They answer questions that would otherwise go to faculty or administrative staff and bring knowledge and insight that might otherwise get lost when developing policies, practices and communications. Many chiefs eventually pursue faculty roles and become clinician educators within the system.
Serving as chief is also an opportunity for a trainee to expand their leadership skills and get insight into the complexities of how a training program is operated. The selection process varies depending on the program. Some programs hold faculty or peer elections, while others have faculty members select trainees based on written criteria. All chiefs are chosen for their leadership abilities, clinical or scholarly accomplishments, administrative or oversight abilities, and strong communication and interpersonal skills.
To be a chief resident or fellow is a prestigious honor — one that can involve an additional year of training beyond the board eligibility and requires a large amount of attention. It denotes a respected leader.
Get to know some of the chief residents and fellows >
by amande | Feb 6, 2023 | Announcements, News
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
There are many symbols in our country that reflect the struggle of Black people in America.
For this month of Black History celebration, I choose to focus on The Embrace, the new controversial sculpture in the Boston Commons, unveiled just last month. It reminds me of the ultimate commandment – which is to love one other.
Of all the Civil Rights statues standing, it is one of few that commemorates both Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King. The 20-foot, 19-ton bronze sculpture was designed by Hank Willis Thomas, an African American artist who works primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. The work was chosen from more than 200 entries in a competition by the Boston public. From the moment of its unveiling, The Embrace has been criticized in the press and social media and panned widely by critics for its stylistic ambiguity and suggestive imagery.
I have not seen the sculpture yet, but I’m compelled to write about it because of its intended meaning. The Embrace is a great symbol of an iconic man, Martin Luther King, Jr., sharing a tender moment with his wife after he won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
Until that moment, the Nobel Peace Prize had only been awarded to two Black men: Ralph Johnson Bunche, a political scientist, diplomat and leading actor in the mid-20th Century decolonization process and the US Civil Rights Movement; and Albert John Luthuli, a Black South African and anti-Apartheid activist. At just 35-years old, Martin Luther King, Jr. was the youngest American ever to win the coveted prize for combatting racial injustice through non-violent resistance. Four years later, he was dead.
The Embrace represents the strong arms of MLK and is supposed to be the embodiment of a beloved community. We may not be there yet, but I have hope. Is it possible for us to think of what is good instead of demeaning the tremendous work of art and the artist? Especially now, at a moment that is so critical to our post-COVID-19 recovery, which has, in many ways, led to our isolation and desocialization, we need to think of King’s legacy as the reification of kindness.
King is arguably the most influential figure of the Civil Rights movement. This statue is a bold aide-mémoire that models for us what we should all be doing – and that is creating human touch and building up humanity, not tearing it down. There have been critical memes and statements debasing the statue, taking a swipe at our sacred and dignified man who shares a tender moment with his wife, an embrace displayed to the worldwide community at a time when we can all use a hug.
Take a moment out of your busy lives to embrace a friend, a family member, or a colleague during the month of February. We need less judgment and more love in our lives. In a world where we are taught, you can be anything, be kind.
Embrace The Embrace.
by amande | Jan 20, 2023 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
Happy New Year! On the heels of celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the start of the week, we encourage you to visit the UW Medicine Office of Healthcare Equity’s Cultivating a Beloved Community Mindset to Transform Unjust Systems page and participate in the UW Medicine Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Survey (more information below).
January News and Notes includes information about the Residency & Fellowship Position Appointment Agreement for 2023-2024 and our new Leave of Absence resource page for trainees. We also hope you’ll join us for upcoming events including a GME Meet & Greet for new program leadership and an Outreach event with lunch for trainees.
Also a reminder to check out Dr. Joyner’s January Blog, authored by Dr. Heather Barnett of the Care of Patients Experiencing Incarceration (CPEI) Task Force, regarding that group’s work on improving care of patients experiencing incarceration.
Please share information that you’d like included by sending to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Thank you,
Cindy
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program director; appointments await ACGME confirmation:
- Vikas O’Reilly-Shah, MD, PhD, Data and Technology in Anesthesiology
- Antonio Westphalen, MD, PhD, Abdominal Imaging (Interim)
- The GMEC approved revisions to the following policy at the December meeting. All policies are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website.
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- January 19: ACGME Surveys; recording and slides now available
- February 16: Workplace Safety
- March 16: Annual Program Evaluations
- GME Meet & Greet: January 2023 on January 26 from 9:00 – 9:45 am on Zoom. Join in meeting some of our GME Office staff, learning about their roles and responsibilities. This is highly recommended for new Program Directors and Program Administrators but welcome to all.
- GME Outreach Event for trainees at UWMC-ML on February 2nd from 11 am to 1 pm. We encourage trainees to stop by to say hello, meet our GME team members and take a packed lunch. Please look for an email closer to the event with specific room details.
- Please join the UW Network of Underrepresented Residents and Fellows (NURF) for a Diversity Lecture Series event by Dr. Denisse Tiznado (she/her/ella). She will be teaching about Activism Burnout & Fatigue.
- When: Monday January 30th at 7pm.
- Where: Register to receive the zoom link.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Annual Program Timeline has been updated and is now organized by activity type, eg ACGME Accreditation, Appointments and Onboarding, Program Activities, Recruitment. Please review the updated document and note the important dates for January and February.
- A new opt-in module from Learning Gateway is now available. Prioritizing Ourselves When Fatigued is a 5 minute module intended as a brief reminder on the important issue of fatigue. Programs can complete this survey to opt in for an October or January launch for trainees. 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 review the recording and slides.
- On January 17, UW Medicine launched an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Survey to identify baseline measures of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion across UW Medicine and provide actionable data to help prioritize areas for work at the entity and departmental levels. All UW Medicine faculty, staff, and trainees are invited to complete the survey which will take about 10-15 minutes to complete. The survey will be open until Feb. 28, 2023.
- The NRMP will be holding an Introduction to the Fellowship Match webinar for NRMP Match participating specialties on Thursday, February 16, from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Learn about program staff roles and responsibilities, managing your program’s participation in the Match, ranking applicants, and important policy information. Advance registration is required.
- The Huddle article “Helping Blacking Moms in Medicine Manage Child Care” features resources for our community members.
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for a Site and Contract Management Specialist, Accreditation Team (see posting, req. 212955)
People
- Alwiya Ahmed, R3, Internal Medicine, is co-author of “Trends in Labor Unionization Among US Health Care Workers, 2009-2021” in JAMA.
- Justin Bullock, fellow, Nephrology, is co-author of “Opportunities and challenges in discussing racism during primary care visits” in Health Services Research.
- The Department of Medicine was founded in 1948 with an original group of six stellar faculty members teaching and practicing at a single site. They are now the largest department at the University of Washington. Please visit their website where they look back at 75 of the changemakers who have shaped their history and 75 of their many emerging leaders who are helping to chart the path forward.
- Byron Joyner, Vice Dean for GME and DIO, is quoted in “Despite a rich history, UW struggles to enroll Black medical students” in University of Washington Magazine.
- Noam Kopmar, fellow, is lead author and Ryan Cassaday, associate professor (Hematology) is senior author of “How I Prevent and Treat Central Nervous System Disease in Adults with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia” in Blood.
- Henry Ou, Program Director, Pediatric Otolaryngology, is quoted in “4 reasons to put down the Q-tip and love your earwax” in Popular Science.
- Hongyang Pi, fellow, is co-lead author and Peter Leary, associate professor, and Sina Gharib, professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) are co-senior authors of “Metabolomic Signatures Associated With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Outcomes” in Circulation Research. Department of Medicine co-authors are David Ralph and Samuel Rayner.
- Andrew Portuguese, fellow, Hematology, is lead author, and Christopher Blosser, clinical professor (Nephrology) is senior author of “CD19 CAR-T therapy in solid organ transplant recipients: case report and systematic review” in Bone Marrow Transplantation. Department of Medicine co-authors are Jordan Gauthier, Scott Tykodi, Evan Hall, and Alexandre Hirayama.
- Grace Shih, Co-Director, Reproductive Health & Advocacy Fellowship, is quoted in Analysis: What the FDA’s rule changes allowing the abortion pill mifepristone to be dispensed by pharmacies mean in practice – 5 questions answered in The Conversation.
- Lindee Strizich and Chris Kim had their abstract “Fostering trainee participation in hospital patient safety event reviews,” accepted from among 1366 submissions for poster presentation in the Society of Hospital Medicine Converge Research, Innovations, and Clinical Vignette Scientific Abstract Competition.
by amande | Jan 5, 2023 | Announcements, News
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
This month, I’ve invited Dr. Heather Barnett of the Care of Patients Experiencing Incarceration (CPEI) Task Force, partnering with GME’s Learning Gateway to share the group’s work on improving care of patients experiencing incarceration. I am very proud of this group’s work for this vulnerable population of patients we see in our hospitals.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
We are excited to share the efforts that our group has been working on to improve the care of patients in the UW Medicine System experiencing incarceration.
Background of the group
Patients incarcerated in King County’s jails are a specifically identified mission population of Harborview Medical Center, but care for this population presents unique challenges. In July 2020, the Housestaff Quality and Safety Committee (HQSC) reviewed a submission to the patient safety network in which a trainee expressed moral distress regarding the care of a patient from King County Jail who left the emergency department against medical advice despite their acute medical emergency due to the use of 4-point forensic restraints. Many residents shared similar experiences of moral distress related to limitations in care for patients experiencing incarceration. Discussions among residents led to the recognition that care for patients experiencing incarceration needed additional attention and focus. To improve care of this patient population while maintaining a safe environment for all, a group of trainees created a designated task force to further investigate current issues and targets for quality improvement.
Work so far
Survey of Healthcare workers
We conducted a survey among UW Medicine healthcare staff (including attending physicians, trainee physicians, nurses, therapists, and others) and received over 300 responses. We found that:
- Most healthcare staff did not have any specific training or education related to this patient population.
- Most healthcare staff were interested in further training to address knowledge gaps and improve patient care
- Challenges and issues providing optimal patient care were frequent.
Data Gathering
We engaged key stakeholders to determine current issues, priorities, and goals. The group gained valuable information from a variety of stakeholders.
Stakeholders
- UWMC Nurse Care Managers
- HMC ED Charge RN
- HMC ED Attending
- Correctional health physician experts, Drs. Lara Strick & Marc Stern
- King County Jail Medical Director, Dr. Benjamin Saunders
- Hospital leadership
- Harborview security
- Office of Healthcare Equity
- Physicians and activists at other institutions in San Francisco and Los Angeles
- Community members who received medical care while incarcerated
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Education & Data Sharing
Several educational presentations and discussions were held, and preliminary resources were created:
- In May 2021, the UW HQSC-NURF Health Equity Conference was held focusing on the topic of “Caring for Patients who are Incarcerated.”
- Lara Strick and Marc Stern hosted a 3-hour training and discussion session with interested healthcare staff.
- The Task Force created preliminary training materials, including a one-pager and short video for resident and fellow use.
Additional Information
Next Steps
- To optimize educational content, we are excited to partner with GME’s eLearning team, Learning Gateway, to develop and distribute a GME-supported eLearning module for current and future residents, fellows, and (hopefully) other staff.
- This project will begin development in the Spring of 2023, with an expected 2024 launch
- We will continue to involve stakeholders, area experts, and anyone interested in supporting the project! Please get in touch!
- Possible long-term goals include evaluation of hospital policies related to care of patients experiencing incarceration and community involvement.
How to get involved
Heather Barnett, MD, PhD Acting Assistant Professor
If you are interested in being involved in the development of a training module, would like to share thoughts or feedback, or have other ways you would like to be involved, please reach out to our group by email!
by amande | Dec 21, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
As 2022 comes to an end, Happy Holidays from the GME Team to all who celebrate, and Happy New Year. This month we Reflect on the Year and we welcome our new Human Resources Manager Bre Smith (more below) to the GME team!
The December issue of GME News and Notes is brief, featuring several articles and awards, and program leadership changes. We also share information about a new Leave of Absence resource for trainees and an updated Annual Program Timeline, both designed to be resources for our community.
Please share information that you’d like to see included by sending to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- End of WA COVID-19 State of Emergency: the end of the State of Emergency indicates the end of COVID-19 paid administrative leave for workplace exposures. If a resident/fellow is sick for any reason, they can use their sick time off.
- Welcome New Program Administrators:
- Cullen McEvoy, Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition
- Emma Perrow, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Faith Ross, Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesiology
- Jackie Hobbs, Psychiatry
- Thomas Soeprono, Consultation Liaison Psychiatry
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- December 15: Leave Policy and Guidelines; recording and slides now available
- January 19: ACGME Surveys
- February 16: Workplace Safety
- Navigating Parental Leave for Resident Physicians on January 10th from 6:30 – 7:30pm on Zoom. At this event, Hayley Fisher, GME Director of Housestaff Affairs, will educate trainees about navigating parental leave, how upcoming ACGME requirements may alter provisions and answer trainees’ questions. Register today at: https://sites.uw.edu/uwgme/event-registration/ Registration will close at 8:00am on January 9th. All residents, fellows and guests are encouraged to attend via Zoom.
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Annual Program Timeline has been updated and is now organized by activity type, eg ACGME Accreditation, Appointments and Onboarding, Program Activities, Recruitment. Please review the updated document and note the important dates for December and January.
- Join us in welcoming Bre Smith, MBA, PHR, who started in the GME Office as the new HR Manager! Bre is joining UW from Seattle University where she had extensive human resources experience. In her role as the UW GME HR Manager, Bre will focus on supporting residents, fellows, and program leadership in navigating paid time off usage, leaves of absence, disability accommodations, and compliance with the CBA. We are very excited to have her join our GME team!
- 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 Annual Non-ACGME Program Survey is currently open for program directors and administrators of non-ACGME fellowship programs to complete. This survey serves to provide an annual check-in with our non-ACGME fellowship programs, identify program changes from the past year, and help identify areas where we can develop additional resources and support specific to our non-ACGME clinical fellowship programs, as defined in the GMEC-Approved (Non-ACGME Accredited) Fellowship Programs Committee (GAF) Charge and Educational Standards for Non-ACGME Programs. Responses are due by January 6.
- Early next year, the Office of Healthcare Equity will conduct a survey to better understand how personal identities, such as race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and disability, shape employee experiences at UW Medicine.
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for three roles:
- GME Float Administrator, Operations & Administration Team (see posting, req. 210821)
- RMS and Information Systems Manager, Operations and Administration Team (see posting, 213834)
- Site and Contract Management Specialist, Accreditation Team (see posting, req. 212955)
- Harborview Medical Center Emergency Alert Messages Subscription: HMC is reintroducing the UW Medicine STAT|INFO Advisory notification system to disseminate official information via text message to keep the UW Medicine workforce informed during emergencies and situations that might disrupt normal operations. Trainees are encouraged to subscribe to UW Medicine STAT|INFO ADVISORY.
- The UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety is proud to announce the (re)-launch of QI Match, an online web platform to match collaborators to quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across UW Medicine. Get started today.
People
- Justin Bullock, fellow (Nephrology) gave the 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics Plenary Session, “I’m Just Trying to Survive: A Story of Healing Through Humanity.”
- The Huddle recently featured Richard Ellenbogen, Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery and Neurological Surgery Residency Program Director, in “Improving Neurological Surgical Education.”
- Internal Medicine Residency Program Operations Specialist, Whitney Harper, is featured in the Department of Medicine Staff Spotlight.
- Fuki Hisama, Program Director, Medical Genetics, participated in the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Workforce Diversity Initiative Advisory Group that assessed diversity in the medical genetics workforce. The ACMG joined major genetics and genomics organizations in releasing the Human Genetics & Genomics Workforce Survey Report. Hisama has also been named the inaugural section editor for clinical genetics for Genetics in Medicine Open, a new open access journal of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, launching in January 2023.
- In 2021, the Mount Baker Foundation made a $1M pledge to the Kidney Research Institute to increase diversity in nephrology research and the workforce by supporting candidates in the early stage of their career. Christine Limonte and Justin Bullock (Nephrology) are the first UW fellows to be recipients of support from the gift.
- Michael Linenberger is profiled in Hutch News Stories. Check out “Leader in apheresis and cellular therapy, Dr. Michael Linenberger retires.”
- Linzee Mabrey, fellow, is lead author, and Mark Wurfel, professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is senior author of “Plasma Interleukin-6 Predicts Clinical Decline After Completion of Dexamethasone Therapy in Severe COVID-19” in Critical Care Explorations.
- Paul Pottinger, Program Director, Infectious Diseases, is quoted in “Limits of ‘Fauci effect’: infectious disease applicants plummet, and hospitals are scrambling” in STAT.
- Paul Pottinger, Program Director, Infectious Diseases, is quoted in “Infectious diseases fellowships go unfilled for newly minted doctors” in NPR.
- Vincent Raikhel, clinical instructor, is lead author, and Chenwei Wu, clinical assistant professor (General Internal Medicine) is senior author of “Vax the Max, a Gamification Intervention for COVID-19 Vaccination Task Engagement in the Inpatient Setting” in American Journal of Medical Quality. DOM co-authors are Kevin Blau, Katherine Alberty, Paul Cornia, Rudolph Rodriguez, and Kenneth Steinberg.
by amande | Dec 8, 2022 | Announcements, News
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Byron Joyner, MD, MPA |
Jennifer Best, MD |
Cindy Hamra JD, MA |
Welcome to winter – a time of year with a heightened pace and here in the PNW, ever-present questions as to which local weather forecast will prove most accurate! Like many of you, we embrace many of these seasonal changes yet deeply feel the strain of nearly-three years, know that public health crises remain acutely active, impacting the lives and work of our community. In these (and all) moments, celebration can be a welcome antidote. Here at the end of 2022, the GME team wishes to share some of the year’s good work that we have accomplished as a community.
Over the past year, the GME Office has consistently focused on our strategic values of expertise, integration, quality and value, communication, advocacy, and people – even as we began development of a new GME strategic plan for AY2024 to 2029. Thank you to those of you who provided early input, and we look forward to sharing more information early in the new year.
Our team continues to evolve. This year, we said hello to team members Karyn Crow (GME Float Administrator), Amanda Easton (Program Manager, Operations and Administration), Jenn Johal (Learning Environment Specialist), Brandon Phanmaha (Business Analyst), Howard Schaefer (Wellness Counselor) and Bre Smith (HR Manager). Two new roles – Site and Contract Management Specialist and RMS and Information Systems Manager – have also been posted. We hope to have good news to share regarding these hires soon.
A highlight of 2022 was the successful negotiation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between RFPU-NW and the University of Washington. During the process, GME staff actively advocated for residents and fellows to UW Medicine Leadership – and we believe that the outcome for residents and fellows represents a well-deserved step forward.
Our Sponsoring Institution received continued accreditation from the ACGME, reflecting the collective work of all of you, as well as a new ACGME Recognition status for Non-Standard Training Programs, including several of our non-ACGME accredited fellowships.
Continuing the opportunity to cultivate community and better identify and remedy needs in the learning environment, GME Leadership continued the Chief Resident/Fellow Forum. These gatherings have been increasingly attended and extremely high yield. We remain impressed by the thoughtfulness of these leaders and their creative ideas. Together, we have tackled and resolved challenges we may not otherwise have been aware of. A more recent community gathering was a convening of our growing cohort of Vice Chairs for Education – individuals filling a role supporting learners and programs across the continuum of medical education within our clinical departments We are hoping this group will work with us and with one another to develop standards, share best practices, and connect over similar work within a learning community.
The GME Office continues to partner on School of Medicine initiatives that we feel are key to the improvement of our clinical and learning environments. The first initiative is a large-scale effort to institute a program of restorative justice in response to harms within our community. Headed by Office of Healthcare Equity, this program will provide all of us with access to an alternative means of conflict resolution focused on community building. The second initiative – trainee participation in the UW Medicine Well Being Survey – is revealing actionable information on an expanded range of domains impacting trainee well-being within the workplace. We are working to compile program-level results early next year and anticipate close partnership with Dr. Anne Browning to develop action plans aligned with UW Medicine support that we hope will lesson trainee distress.
Most importantly, we want to express gratitude to each one of you. Thank you for your daily work to maximize, provide and ensure quality specialty training within UW GME with a shared goal of taking exceptional care of our patients. We welcome every opportunity to support our residents and fellows and to improve the clinical learning environment. If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions, we always want to hear from you.
Best for the holiday season and Happy New Year!
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
Jennifer Best, MD
Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
Cindy Hamra, JD
Associate Dean, Operations and Administration
by amande | Dec 1, 2023 | Announcements, Awards, News
Itay Bentov, MD
It is a pleasure to announce that Dr. Itay Bentov (Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine) is the winner of the 2023 Bruce C. Gilliland Award.
The Bruce C. Gilliland, M.D. Excellence in Graduate Medical Education Teaching Award was created in 2007 as a tribute to rheumatologist and academic leader Dr. Bruce Gilliland. Dr. Gilliland was a resident in Internal Medicine and a fellow in the Division of Rheumatology University of Washington, followed by a thriving faculty career at UW Medicine that spanned 45 years. Dr. Gilliland, who died in 2007 after a lengthy battle with cancer, will long be remembered for his dedication to the UW School of Medicine (UWSOM) as a mentor and as a physician.
The Gilliland Award is given annually to a faculty member actively engaged in clinical and didactic training or in the implementation of a graduate medical education curriculum. The winner must have demonstrated evidence of excellence over time and must have served at least 3 years within the UWSOM as a teacher of residents and/or fellows.
Dr. Bentov is a multi-year winner of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine’s Golden Apple Teaching Award, which is voted on by trainees in the Department annually. In fact, he has won the Golden Apple Award nearly every year since 2010 and twice in 2016 – more than any other faculty since he joined the Department in 2008! Dr. Bentov is widely regarded by residents, fellows and faculty as one of, if not the best educators and clinicians in the Department. He has a strong record of mentorship and has served in multiple leadership positions, including serving on the UW Faculty Senate, the Faculty Council on University Relations and Chairing the Anesthesiology Grand Rounds Committee. He is nationally recognized for his expertise in the field of geriatric anesthesiology and has published extensively in the area, including the seminal chapter on this topic in Clinical Anesthesia.
Evaluations of Dr. Bentov by residents and fellows extol his comfort teaching at any level, his eagerness to share and to seamlessly tailor discussions to learners’ abilities and to patients’ needs. For example:
Dr. Bentov embodies all the qualities patients would want in a physician. He is an advocate for the residents. He is a role model and thought of in the highest regard by all residents. He challenges you to be a better physician. He is very professional to both his colleagues and staff. His passion for medicine and anesthesia is contagious. He is a mentor I will strive to emulate as my career evolves, and I think I can speak on behalf of many other residents that they too feel the same way.
On behalf of the GME Office, congratulations to Dr. Itay Bentov!
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for Graduate Medical Education
Designated Institutional Official
by amande | Nov 18, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
November is Native American Heritage month, a time to celebrate and honor our Native and Indigenous communities. UW Medicine has a dedicated Huddle page with more information about Native American Heritage Month. November 8 was National First-Generation Day and two trainees were featured in this Huddle article sharing what being first generation means to them.
Two other opportunities to celebrate this month – Dr. Joyner’s November blog highlights UWSOM’s many ACGME award winners. Additionally, the University of Washington rose from No. 7 to No. 6 on the U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities rankings. The UW maintained its No. 2 ranking among U.S. public institutions and placed in the top 10 in clinical medicine (No. 6).
Many thanks to those who shared information; please continue to do so by sending to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- The GMEC approved revisions to the following policies at the November meeting. All are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website:
- End of WA COVID-19 State of Emergency: the end of the State of Emergency indicates the end of COVID-19 paid administrative leave for workplace exposures. If a resident/fellow is sick for any reason, they can use their sick time off.
- The Staff Quarantine and Isolation Policy has been posted to reflect the following changes:
- Change in conventional status recs to require two negative Ag tests if early return to work, per new CDC guidance
- Changed surveillance testing- Following a higher-risk exposure, HCP should have a series of three viral tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection, day 1, 3, and 5
- Added in option for Ag testing x 2 for symptomatic employees in the FAQ
- For exposed HCP, no longer requiring a PCR in the serial testing
- The second / final GMEPAC application for academic year 2023 – 2024 (AY24) is now open. Programs that want to make changes in rotations or expansions that result in an increase in training time at any site for academic year 2023-2024 must go through the GMEPAC process (excludes VA FTE requests). Information is posted to the GME website under Committees; select “GME Position Allocation Committee (GMEPAC).” AY24 applications are due December 2, 2022.
- RFPU-NW members are entitled to one (1) paid personal holiday per calendar year. If unused in the calendar year, the personal holiday is forfeit, and it is not paid at separation. It is the employee’s responsibility to schedule the personal holiday before December 31st. See complete information in Article 12 of the RFPU-NW Contract.
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; ACGME appointments require Review Committee (RC) confirmation:
- Laura Romecevich, Global and Rural Health (Department of Medicine)
- Welcome New Program Administrators:
- Danielle Long, Nephrology
- Karina Martinez, Plastic Surgery
- Tiffany Wallace, Medical Genetics and Rheumatology
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org.
Events of Interest
- Upcoming GME Lunch & Learns
- December 15: Leave Policy and Guidelines
- January 19: ACGME Surveys
- Residents, program directors, coordinators, and designated institutional officials are invited to hear and discuss provocative and inspiring stories of diversity, equity, inclusion, activism, and social justice from winners of the prestigious Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare. The event will take place virtually, November 4. Register to Participate.
- UW Medicine has opportunities for medical and administrative volunteers for the Seattle Marathon, Nov. 26. If you are interested, please complete the 2022 Seattle Marathon Medical Team Volunteer Registration. For more information, contact rmsports@uw.edu. Residents and Fellows will need to comply with the Medical Volunteer Activities Policy (please note the 2 week advance deadline).
- Other GME Events can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Annual Program Timeline has been updated and is now organized by activity type, eg ACGME Accreditation, Appointments and Onboarding, Program Activities, Recruitment. Please review the updated document and note the important dates for November and December.
- The ACGME has added an Equity Practice Toolkit to the ACGME Equity Matters online educational materials. The toolkit is available in the ACGME’s online learning portal, Access the Equity Practice Toolkit.
- Harborview Medical Center Emergency Alert Messages Subscription: HMC is reintroducing the UW Medicine STAT|INFO Advisory notification system to disseminate official information via text message to keep the UW Medicine workforce informed during emergencies and situations that might disrupt normal operations. Trainees are encouraged to subscribe to UW Medicine STAT|INFO ADVISORY.
- Please see the IT Governance: Tier 2 Clinical Education Committee presentation from Mike Leu (Professor, Fellowship Director, Head of Division of Clinical Informatics). Please contact Mike Leu with any questions or input.
- Support Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) medical students at the UW School of Medicine. Help Healthcare Equity develop the UWSOM BIPOC Physicians Directory and add your name to the UWSOM BIPOC Physicians Directory, a directory where BIPOC students can easily talk to residents and physicians with identities similar to their own to find advice and answers to their questions.
- The UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety is proud to announce the (re)-launch of QI Match, an online web platform to match collaborators to quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across UW Medicine. Get started today.
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for three roles:
- GME Float Administrator, Operations & Administration Team (see posting, req. 210821)
- RMS and Information Systems Manager, Operations and Administration Team (see posting, 213834)
- Site and Contract Management Specialist, Accreditation Team (see posting, req. 212955)
People
- In recognition of their substantial contributions to local healthcare quality and safety, James Araujo (Gastroenterology), Bernard Ng (Rheumatology), and Karly Williams Silva (chief resident) have been awarded the title of Practitioner Lead in Quality & Safety (PLQS) within the Hospital & Specialty Medicine service line at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.
- Congratulations to Julie Cheng (Pediatric Urology Fellow) whose abstract “Impact of Youtube Videos and Health Literacy on Postoperative Healthcare Utilization Following Pediatric Urologic Surgery” won Best Clinical Abstract Prize at the Societies for Pediatric Urology Fall Congress.
- A study recently published in Harm Reduction Journal examined a Seattle-based organization’s efforts to introduce heroin pipes as a means to diminish harms associated with injection drug use. Thomas Fitzpatrick, (fellow, Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is the study’s lead author. Read more from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- A recent study examined how markers of inflammation and angiogenesis in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension were related to clinical outcomes across disease subtypes. Kellen Hirsch (R3, Internal Medicine) is lead author on the paper, published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplant. Learn more on the DOM news site.
- The Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education recently launched a new Division of Clinical Informatics; and at the same time in conjunction with the Department of Pediatrics, launched a new section of Pediatric Clinical Informatics. Michael Leu, (Program Director, Clinical Informatics) is the inaugural division head and section chief. Get to know Michael Leu.
- Study sifts potential factors of device-implant complication. Machine learning identified preoperative conditions associated with poor outcomes of left-ventricle assist device surgery. Song Li, heart failure cardiologist at the UW Medicine Heart Institute is the paper’s senior author. Lead author is Arjun Bahl (R3,Internal Medicine). Read the full story from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Despoina Michailidou, fellow, is lead author, and Bernard Ng, associate professor (Rheumatology) is senior author of “Predictive models for thromboembolic events in giant cell arteritis: A US veterans health administration population-based study” in Frontiers in Immunology. DOM co-author is Gary Lyman.
- Andrew Portuguese (fellow, Hematology) is lead author, and Hans Joachim Deeg (professor, Medical Oncology) is senior author of “Transplantation for myeloid neoplasms with antecedent solid tumor” in Cancer. DOM co-author is Aya Albittar.
- The Fall 2022 DOS Surgery Synopsis is focused on education and has lots of great features!
- Chenwei Wu, (clinical assistant professor, General Internal Medicine) was awarded the 2022 Gene Peterson Award on behalf of the UW Housestaff Quality and Safety Committee (HQSC). The award is named after Dr. Gene Peterson, who had a great appreciation for the involvement of trainees in the fields of quality improvement and patient safety, and for the unique perspective they bring to the UW.
by amande | Nov 9, 2022 | Announcements, News
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
In the October DIO Blog, we highlighted members of the UWSOM community who volunteer for ACGME Review Committees. This month, we celebrate the many members of our community who have won ACGME awards for excellence.
As academicians, one of the most incredible aspects or our work is teaching others about our specialties – and about being a better clinician. None of us expect awards for something we are called to do. But, when we are recognized, it is particularly satisfying.
I am proud of our winners and encourage us all to teach each other and continue to learn everyday. It’s the only way a true academic environment can exist.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
The ACGME, which accredits 122 of our 200+ training programs, recognizes notable designated institutional officials, program directors, coordinators, and residents and fellows for their outstanding work and contributions to graduate medical education through its Awards Program.
We’re so pleased to share that Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, Program Director for the Neurosurgery Residency program and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, was recently named a 2023 recipient of the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award. This award honors program directors who find innovative ways to teach residents and to provide quality health care while remaining connected to the initial impulse to care for others in this environment. Dr. Ellenbogen has been program director since July 2002. His nomination for the Parker Palmer award included heartfelt and passionate letters from his colleagues, current and former trainees. One letter included the following high praise:
“Dr. Ellenbogen’s most cherished quality is his ability to share the most valuable asset of all: his time. Residents attend Friday evening meetings, complete with a home-cooked meal at his residence for two-way straight talk and airing concerns. He is omnipresent – he finds time to attend the manifold didactic sessions throughout our four-hospital system. He is constantly checking in with the residents and aware of the details of their personal lives because he truly cares.”
The University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) has won more ACGME awards than any of the other 871 ACGME sponsoring institutions. Over the last 20 years, UWSOM has had 13 program directors win the coveted Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award. This particular award is granted to only 10 program directors around the country per year. It represents an impressive legacy of UWSOM program directors who embody the ACGME definition of the award as leaders “who have fostered innovation and improvement in their residency programs and served as exemplary role models for residents.”
Dr. Richard Shugerman, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Professor, Vice Chair of Faculty Development, Director of Pediatric WWAMI and Regional Education, and 2008 Parker Palmer winner, facilitates annual retreats for ACGME award winners. “It is such an amazing tribute to UWSOM that collectively our residents, our coordinators, our program directors and our administrative leaders have received more of these awards than any other institution in the country. There are almost 900 accredited GME programs across the country and just 15-20 ACGME awards given in total each year. It’s incredible to think that the people behind our UW programs have brought home on average one of these awards every year! The faces of each one of the awardees below brings to mind their remarkable dedication to supporting the humanity of each one of the residents and fellows in their programs. We are so fortunate to have such committed teachers and leaders in our community.”
|
Name |
Award |
Year |
UW Program |
|
Richard Ellenbogen, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2023 |
Neurosurgery |
See photo at end
|
Pediatrics Residency Program |
Barbara Ross-Lee, DO, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion |
2022 |
Pediatrics |
|
Fiona Gallahue, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2020 |
Emergency Medicine |
|
Daniel E. Leifer, MD |
David C. Leach |
2020 |
Dermatology |
|
Kelli Corning |
Debra L. Dooley GME Program Coordinator Excellence |
2019 |
Internal Medicine |
|
Eileen Klein MD, MPH |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2016 |
Pediatric Emergency Medicine |
|
Angelisa Paladin, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2014 |
Diagnostic Radiology |
|
Sid Gospe Jr, MD, PhD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2013 |
Child Neurology |
|
Lisa Anderson |
Debra L. Dooley GME Program Coordinator Excellence |
2013 |
Hematology/Oncology |
|
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2011 |
Urology |
|
Karen Souter MB BS |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2011 |
Anesthesiology |
|
Michelle Rickard |
Debra L. Dooley GME Program Coordinator Excellence |
2011 |
Pathology |
|
Ron Maier, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2010 |
Surgical Critical Care |
|
Omar Bhutta, MD |
David C. Leach |
2010 |
Pediatrics |
|
Richard Shugerman, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2008 |
Pediatrics |
|
Karen Horvath, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2008 |
General Surgery |
|
Deb Cowley, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2006 |
Psychiatry |
|
Terry Massagli, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2005 |
PM&R |
|
Harold Johnston, MD |
Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach |
2003 |
Family Medicine |
**Did we inadvertently leave you off this list? Please contact Amanda Easton (amande@uw.edu) and we’ll update!
Pediatric Residency Diversity Committee
by amande | Oct 20, 2022 | Announcements, Awards, News
Başak Çoruh, MD
It is our pleasure to announce that Dr. Başak Çoruh (Program Director, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship) is the winner of the 2022 Bruce C. Gilliland Award.
The Bruce C. Gilliland, M.D. Excellence in Graduate Medical Education Teaching Award was created in 2007 as a tribute to rheumatologist and academic leader Dr. Bruce Gilliland. Dr. Gilliland was a resident in Internal Medicine and a fellow in the Division of Rheumatology University of Washington, followed by a thriving faculty career at UW Medicine that spanned 45 years. Dr. Gilliland, who died in 2007 after a lengthy battle with cancer, will long be remembered for his dedication to the UW School of Medicine (UW SoM) as a mentor and as a physician.
The Gilliland Award is given annually to a faculty member actively engaged in clinical and didactic training or in the implementation of a graduate medical education curriculum. The winner must have shown evidence of excellence over time and must have served at least 3 years within the UW SoM as a teacher of residents and/or fellows. Dr. Çoruh has been teaching at the UW SoM for 12 years and is the program director of the Pulmonary & Critical Care fellowship which led the way during our heroic efforts to safeguard the public against the COVID-19 pandemic.
To laud Dr. Çoruh as both innovator and inspiration would be an understatement. She has won nearly every teaching award in her field, including the UW Medicine Cares Team Award (2016); the Distinguished Clinical Teacher Award for UW SoM; the Darlene Buczak Award for Educational Excellence by the Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Program Directors; the David J. Pierson Award for Excellence in Education and Mentoring in the UW SoM Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine; the American Thoracic Society Innovation in Fellowship Educator Award; and finally the Distinguished CHEST Educator Award, American College of Chest Physicians. She is well known for her intellectual rigor and clinical judgement and for her ability to synthesize the literature with her own experience when rendering care or teaching a room of learners.
I have had the good fortune to know and work alongside Dr. Çoruh for many years and took this opportunity to ask her a few questions about education, career, and life.
Can you describe a favorite learning moment?
BC: Critical care is a team-based sport and I always enjoy my first day on service with a new team. I love learning about trainees’ life stories (in and especially outside of medicine), identities, and goals. This discussion builds trust and sets the stage for all the other great learning moments – the “aha” moments when a tricky concept becomes clear, the times when trainees recognize their growth, and seeing trainees supporting one another and celebrating each other’s contributions.
What is your advice for educators looking to build a sustainable and joy-filled career?
BC: First, figure out what gives you joy as an educator and ensure that your work is aligned with your interests, skills, and values. Next, keep growing, whether it is getting feedback on your teaching, learning new skills, or taking on new challenges. And finally, find a community. This includes mentors, mentees, collaborators, and people who can provide support on the tough days and celebrate with you on the good days.
What do you see coming in graduate medical education that excites you?
BC: It has been encouraging even to see the changes in GME since my time as a trainee, including competency-based medical education, interprofessional care, the use of technology, a culture of feedback, and coaching, to name just a few. I’m happy to see learners having a voice in their education and inspired by their advocacy.
From all of us here in UW GME, congratulations Dr. Çoruh! We celebrate you and your tremendous contributions to our UW GME community!
Jennifer Best, MD Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
by amande | Oct 17, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
I’m excited to start this month’s News & Notes with a note of congratulations to two members of our community. First, Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery and Neurological Surgery Residency Program Director, is a winner of the 2023 ACGME Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award. This award goes to program directors who find innovative ways to teach residents and to provide quality health care while remaining connected to the initial impulse to care for others in this environment.
We also celebrate Dr. Başak Çoruh, Program Director for the Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship, for being selected as winner of the 2022 Bruce C. Gilliland Award for Excellence in Teaching of Residents and Fellows. This award goes to a faculty member who is actively engaged in clinical and didactic training or in the implementation of a graduate medical education curriculum. The winner must have shown evidence of excellence over time and must have served for at least 3 years within the UW SOM as a teacher of residents/fellows.
As we transition to fall, the October issue of GME News and Notes is typically full, including a reminder on how to get information about your pay or benefits, information about how to sign up for HMC’s text alert system, a reminder about Paid Personal Holiday use and lots of awards and events.
Many thanks to those shared information; please continue to do so by sending to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- UW Medicine is requiring that all employees, except for those in non-clinical roles in the School of Medicine, receive the latest COVID booster or complete an online declination by Friday November 11, 2022. UW Medicine employees can schedule their booster through our online portal. Non-clinical employees in the School of Medicine should schedule by calling 844.520.8700.
- Remember that RFPU-NW trainees are entitled to one (1) paid personal holiday per calendar year. If unused in the calendar year, the personal holiday is forfeit, and it is not paid at separation. It is the employee’s responsibility to schedule the personal holiday before December 31st. If before the end of the calendar year the employee requests the use of their personal holiday in accordance with the employer’s time off or leave procedures and the employer denies the request, the employee is entitled to carry over the personal holiday to the next calendar year. Please see complete information in Article 12 of the RFPU-NW Contract.
- The Policies and Procedures page on the GME website has a new look! The page has been redesigned as a searchable table and includes policy summaries, flags for program-required policies, and the option to filter on applicable programs (ACGME, CODA, non-ACGME). These changes were made in response to feedback we received from programs and trainees.
- Our Clinical Learning Environment Webpage has been transformed and will track metrics for all of our CLER domains as well now houses resources for trainees and faculty looking for resources for QI work, QI data access, and curricular resources for our training programs.
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; all appointments await ACGME confirmation:
- Christine Rehwald, Diagnostic Radiology
- Amber Nolan, Neuropathology
- The GMEC approved revisions to the following policy at the October meeting. All are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website:
- Physician Impairment Policy (minor edits / contact information only)
- New Institutional Post-Recruitment Survey: The GME Office has launched a post-recruitment survey to gather feedback from interviewed applicants across departments and specialties on important factors that may have influenced their decision to rank a program at the University of Washington. An announcement was sent to ACGME program directors and administrators on October 17 with a link to the survey. Questions about the survey should be sent to Gabrielle Pett at nathangl@uw.edu.
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org
Events of Interest
- GME Lunch & Learns
- Program Administrator Meeting Schedule Update: In response to recent feedback from program administrators, the GME program administrator meetings are shifting from bi-monthly 2-hour meetings to monthly 1-hour meetings starting in November. The updated schedule for the remainder of the current academic year is posted on the Program Administrator Meetings page on the GME website.
- Family Planning & Fertility for Resident Physicians on October 24th from 6:00-8:00pm on Zoom. Please join us at this educational event intended for all GME trainees and their guests or partners, no matter your current or future family plans. Regardless of your vision for your future we hope the ability to become better educated on a variety of fertility considerations, and to hear from colleagues about their own experiences will be of interest.
- The UW Network of Underrepresented Residents and Fellows (NURF) is holding their first Diversity Lecture Series of this academic year. This year’s theme is Community Engagement and Grassroots Mobilization. They invite you to learn from Dr. Sundar who is Kaiser Permanente Family physician, a health equity leader, and community advocate at the lecture “The Making of Healthcare for Humans” on Monday October 24th at 7pm. Register to receive the Zoom link.
- GME Wellness is hosting a Halloween Play Day at Kelsey Creek Farm on Sunday, October 30th. Join us for a fun farm tour with your little ones and meet some farm animal friends. Children can pick a pumpkin to decorate. We will have games, snacks, hot fall beverages, plus “make your own treat bag” and a costume parade. We can’t wait to see all the little bats, ghosties, superheroes and more! (Don’t forget to wear your own costume too!) Learn more and register.
- On Friday, November 4th from 12:00 – 1:00 pm, the Department of Bioethics and Humanities will be presenting a Grand Rounds webinar: “Grief on the Front Lines: A Conversation with Rachel Jones and LaTonya Trotter.” Rachel Jones, author of Grief on the Front Lines, will address some of the most challenging aspects of healthcare and explore paths to a more supportive and sustainable working environment. Drawing on her research and interviews, Rachel will discuss the manner in which doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are emotionally affected by the work that they do, and ways they’ve found to cope. This conversation will be moderated by LaTonya Trotter, PhD, MA, MPH, UW Associate Professor of Bioethics and Humanities. Register to receive the Zoom link.
- UW Medicine has opportunities for medical and administrative volunteers at the Seattle Marathon, Thanksgiving weekend, Saturday, Nov. 26th. The race has a brand-new course and on a new day as it starts at UW and ends inside Husky Stadium! If you are interested, please complete the 2022 Seattle Marathon Medical Team Volunteer Registration. For more information, contact Ratna Sudarijanto at rmsports@uw.edu. Residents and Fellows will need to comply with the Medical Volunteer Activities Policy (please note the 2 week advance deadline).
- Open Enrollment is November 1 – November 30. Complete information about the process can be found on the ISC Open Enrollment website.
- Other GME Events including AY23 can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- UW Medicine Harborview Medical Center Emergency Alert Messages Subscription: In response to concerns about the recent shooting incident, HMC is reintroducing the UW Medicine STAT|INFO Advisory notification system, created to disseminate official information via text message to keep the UW Medicine workforce informed during emergencies such as an active shooter event, and situations that might disrupt normal operations. Harborview Medical Center staff, faculty, residents, fellows, and students are encouraged to subscribe to UW Medicine STAT|INFO ADVISORY using this link to receive emergency alert messages. This is also a good time to update or check your text and email alert enrollment status for UW Alert at uw.edu/alert (please be sure to select the appropriate campus).
- Support Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) medical students at the UW School of Medicine. Help Healthcare Equity develop the UWSOM BIPOC Physicians Directory and add your name to the UWSOM BIPOC Physicians Directory, a directory where BIPOC students can easily talk to residents and physicians with identities similar to their own to find advice and answers to their questions.
- The UW Medicine Bias Reporting Tool was launched in early 2021 to provide our community with a new way to report incidents of bias. Since then, over 600 events have been reported. The first year of experience with the tool is outlined in the First Annual Community Report.
- New “Academic Medicine Podcast” episode on fostering psychological safety in the clinical learning environment. Addie McClintock and Joshua Jauregui joined hosts Toni Gallo and Research in Medical Education (RIME) Committee members Andrea Leep and Paolo Martin on the “Academic Medicine Podcast” to discuss clinical teachers’ behaviors and how they support or harm students’ sense of psychological safety in the clinical learning environment. This is the first episode in a three-part series of discussions with RIME authors about their medical education research and its implications for the field. Read more on the AM Rounds website.
- The Huddle will be writing an article to highlight trainees and faculty who were first generation students as part of the UW’s efforts to honor the National First Generation College Celebration on November 8th. Please let Emily Boynton know if you are interested in sharing your experience. There will be buttons available on November 8th near the UWMC-ML Health Sciences A300 office.
- Names matter, and the way we treat them has impact. Research shows that our brains “light up” when we hear our name, while mispronunciation can lead to feelings of isolation and alienation. The first step in creating an inclusive workplace culture is learning your colleagues’ names. Learn more about the importance of name pronunciation, including personal stories by Geetanjali Chander, Başak Çoruh, Barbara Jung, and Genevieve Pagalilauan on the Department of Medicine news site. Resources on inclusion, including help with name pronunciations (and many other topics), are available on the DOM website, in their newly updated EDI Resources section.
- Trainees, questions about your paycheck? Please check the following resources:
- The UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety is proud to announce the (re)-launch of QI Match, an online web platform to match collaborators to quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across UW Medicine. Get started today.
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for two roles:
- GME Float Administrator – the Float Administrator provides continuity of key operations of UW ACGME residency and fellowship programs during program administrator vacancies, may assist in assessment of program operations including making recommendations for operational/quality improvements, works on special projects in the GME Office, and may also support non-ACGME fellowships. The job posting is on UW Hires (Req# 210821).
- GME HR Manager – this new position on the Operations & Administration team will provide HR support for trainees and programs regarding leave of absence, accommodations, etc. This position is a great opportunity to work with both the GME community and with other departments in the School of Medicine. The posting is on UW Hires (Req. # 212471).
People
- Suzanne Allen (Vice Dean for Academic, Rural and Regional Affairs) is featured in AMA’s “Physician residency interview invitations: What applicants should know.”
- To improve the understanding of underpinnings and optimal management of post-Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVADs) right heart failure, Arjun Bahl, R3, and colleagues examined over 19,000 individuals who had LVAD placement between 2008 and 2017 from the Interagency Registry for Mechanically Assisted Circulatory Support (INTERMACS) database. Learn more on the DOM residency website.
- Nephrology fellow Justin Bullock has managed bipolar disorder and depression in part by sharing his story and listening to others. He is a suicide survivor who’s lived life openly with bipolar disorder and depression. And he’s a gay man who wasn’t accepted by his family when he came out to them. Some of his experiences are difficult. But he also knows he’s not alone. Read more about him from UW Medicine Newsroom.
- Department of Medicine’s faculty spotlight for Women in Medicine month features Başak Çoruh, director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine fellowship program. Learn more about her on the DOM news site.
- Başak Çoruh, Amy Morris, and James Town (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) were recognized by the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) as 2022 Distinguished CHEST Educators. This designation provides national-level recognition of excellence in continuing medical education through their commitment, involvement, and leadership in CHEST education programs and activities.
- The Huddle talked to UW Medicine employees – including Daniel Cabrera (chair, GME EDI subcommittee)– who shared some of their favorite things about their cultures and why it’s important to recognize that, even among all the differences and diversity of Hispanic and Latinx people, they are stronger together and have ties that unite them. Read the full story in The Huddle.
- Congratulations to Anna Halpern, assistant professor (Hematology) and Nicole DeCuir Shoals, fellow (Gastroenterology) who have been accepted into the QI scholars program. The program supports junior and mid-level faculty pursuing QI as a scholarly focus.
- Bishoy Hanna, fellow, is lead author, and Nazem Akoum, professor (Cardiology) is senior author of “Demystifying electrophysiology” in Heart.
- Congratulations to Ramesh Iyer, who assumed the role of Medical Staff President-Elect at Seattle Children’s Hospital on October 1. The medical staff leadership team represents more than 1,800 hospital-and community-based physicians at the hospital.
- The Huddle recently featured Evelyn Qin, PM&R Chief Resident. Read the whole interview in “Get to Know: Evelyn Qin, PM&R Chief Resident.”
- James Wykowski, inpatient chief resident, wrote “Finding Your Voice to Champion Hope in the Intensive Care Unit” in ATS Scholar.
by amande | Oct 3, 2022 | Announcements, News
This month, we’re pleased to feature members of our community who volunteer on ACGME Review Committees.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
The University of Washington School of Medicine is the Sponsoring Institution for over 120 residency and fellowship training programs that are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
Within the ACGME, 28 Review Committees are groups of volunteers who set accreditation standards, provide peer evaluation of Sponsoring Institutions or programs to assess the degree to which they comply with the applicable published accreditation requirements, and confer an accreditation status for each Sponsoring Institution or program as to its compliance with those requirements. There are three types of Review Committees: Specialty Review Committee (SRC), Transitional Year Review Committee (TYRC), and Institutional Review Committee (IRC). (ACGME Glossary of Terms, April 15, 2020)
We have always had strong representation from the UW School of Medicine on ACGME Review Committees. And, for the last 3 years, our DIO, Dr. Joyner, has been an active member of the IRC. In this month’s DIO Blog, we highlight some current and past members who told us about their experiences volunteering on ACGME Review committees.
Why were you interested in participating on an ACGME Review Committee?
|
As a PD I wanted to understand more about how decisions are made when it comes to accreditation, probation, areas for improvement and I also wanted to have a voice in the future training requirements in pediatrics. (And the committee consists of a number of pediatric educators that I highly respect and enjoy spending time with). |
Heather McPhillips, MD
Former Program Director, Pediatrics
Professor
Pediatrics Review Committee |
I wanted to see how it worked and what it was like on the “other side” of running a fellowship program. I thought it would be wonderful to be able to contribute on a national level in GME, and I wanted to be a voice for smaller specialty/subspecialty fellowship programs, which have different resources and ways of functioning compared with a large residency or fellowship program.
|
Kristen Patton, MD
Professor of Medicine, Cardiology-Electrophysiology
Internal Medicine Review Committee |
I was surprised and honored to be nominated as a Radiology RC member by the American Board of Radiology in recognition of my ABR volunteer work and leadership. At the time, I was not fully aware of how the ACGME review committees functioned, and after speaking with former RRC members, I saw what a terrific opportunity this would be, to better understand Graduate Medical Education oversight and learn how the leaders in our field make critical decisions for the betterment of our specialty and for patient safety across the country.
|
Teresa Chapman, MD, MA
Former Program Director, Diagnostic Radiology
Professor
Radiology Review Committee |
As a trainee, I wanted to learn more about our graduate medical education system and accreditation. I was fortunate that my former program director, Dr. Zumsteg, not only shared that there were ongoing nominations at the beginning of my training (as a PGY-2), but also supported and recommended me for the position. I was also looking for leadership opportunities at a national level and the ability to represent residents.
|
Brian M Cervoni Rosario, MD
Rehabilitation Medicine Chief Resident
PM&R Review Committee |
What has your experience been participating on an ACGME Review Committee?
|
Fantastic, if I had it to do over again, I would definitely volunteer. |
Fuki Hisama, MD
Program Director, Medical Genetics Residency
Medical Director, UW Genetic Medicine Clinic
Professor
Medical Genetics and Genomics Review Committee |
It has been invaluable, particularly in understanding the processes behind determination of accreditation. Learning about the tremendous importance of the ACGME resident survey and site visits has been an eye-opening experience, and I have taken lessons from that to help improve our own program. |
Jeff Friedrich, MD, MC
Associate Professor, Plastic Surgery
Adjunct Associate Professor, Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine
Plastic Surgery Review Committee |
I think the benefits were augmented because I was initially Chair of the ABNS and from that position was elected/chosen for the ACGME RC. I feel thankful that I understand the two disparate yet overlapping missions, one about the standards for individual neurological surgeons and the tests required, and the other for residency program quality, mentorship, structure and standards. I feel lucky to be involved in both and saw it as a gift and not a duty. |
Richard Ellenbogen, MD
Chair, Neurological Surgery
Program Director, Neurological Surgery Residency
Professor |
When I was a member of the Urology RC, I had the chance to meet other Urology program directors around the country. I found them to be tremendously dedicated to serving the residents and fellows – and to improving their experiences during their training. Being on the Committee gave me a deeper understanding of how I could improve my own program. Now, as a member of the IRC, I feel as though I am contributing in a substantial way to the education of our future physician workforce. |
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean and Designated Institutional Official (DIO)
Professor
Institutional Review Committee |
The experience has been phenomenal. I have had the opportunity to learn from many incredible leaders in my field and in GME. I also had the unique opportunity to participate in a joint ABMS-ACGME symposium representing our field, PM&R, and learn/share ideas regarding the implementation of competency-based medical education. As a trainee, one is also part of the Council of Review Committee Residents which is partly composed of current resident members of the ACGME Board and the Review and Recognition Committees in which I have had the opportunity to discuss trainees’ ideas and concerns that then get presented to the ACGME Board of Directors. |
Brian M Cervoni Rosario, MD
|
Who would you recommend participate on a Review Committee?
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You have to have a fairly robust knowledge of the RRC requirements for your specialty for the workload to be manageable. I would recommend PDs from either residency or fellowship who have at least 3 years of experience but ideally more who also feel knowledgeable about details in program requirements and participate actively in ADS updates each year. I think it is helpful if you have also experienced some changes in requirements over the years as context for some of the rules and discussions but that is less important.
|
Heather McPhillips, MD
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Program Directors of either residencies or fellowships, and ideally active PDs with many years of experience, should consider participating on their specialty’s RC. It is important to recognize the commitment, which is involved and long. Over a six-year period, members meet for three separate meetings per year. In advance of each meeting, each member is given a stack of programs to review, and the process relies on close scrutiny of the provided materials. Because of continual changes in the program requirements, the job has never become comfortable or easy, but the value is undeniable.
|
Teresa Chapman, MD, MA
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I would recommend any of our program directors to volunteer on their RC if they are asked to participate. It is an effective way to learn more about the ACGME requirements and to improve your own program, not only by understanding the policies – and contributing to making policies but by understanding the reasons behind the rules. |
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
|
What are the benefits of participating in a Review Committee?
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1. Makes you a better Program Director 2. Networking with other PDs around the country and getting to work with and know the ACGME professional staff 3. Gain a deep understanding of the ACGME regulations 4. Impact the training of the next generation in your field 5. Trips to Chicago (I love Chicago) 6. RRC dinners (none during Covid however). |
Fuki Hisama, MD
|
Clearer understanding of the needs both of programs and the accrediting entity. Also, possibility of improving the process mainly for programs.
|
David Lewis, MD
Section Chief, Nuclear Medicine
Professor
Nuclear Medicine Review Committee |
The two-way benefits for improving the learning environment: I bring my experience in program leadership to the national level, and I bring lessons learned from the RRC back to my program, and all benefit.
|
Jeff Friedrich, MD, MC
|
Volunteering as a Review Committee member is a lot of work. It requires patience and persistence and many hours of reading and reviewing other programs’ applications of the ACGME requirements to their learning environments. It teaches your that there are many ways to apply the rules. |
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA |
a) Learn a lot about GME and one’s specialty when it comes to how programs are reviewed and accredited.
b) Networking with various leaders in our field.
c) Opportunity to voice trainees’ perspectives and concerns which could shape how training requirements.
d) Although COVID-dependent, travel to Chicago! |
Brian M Cervoni Rosario, MD |
Big thanks to our colleagues who contributed to this blog post and we thank them for their service and leadership at the ACGME. Review Committees have members with expertise in specialty/subspecialty areas or other relevant expertise, resident/fellow members and public members. If you’re interested in learning more, visit the ACGME’s page on Committee Members and Selection Process.
Thank you,
Cindy and Amanda
|
|
Cindy Hamra, JD, MA |
Amanda Easton |
Associate Dean, Graduate Medical Education |
Program Manager, Ops & Admin |
NAME |
REVIEW COMMITTEE |
Brian M Cervoni Rosario, MD |
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation |
Tess Chapman, MD, MA |
Radiology |
Seine Chang, MD |
OB-GYN |
Richard G. Ellenbogen, MD, FACS |
Neurological Surgery |
Jeffrey B. Friedrich, MD, MC, FACS |
Plastic Surgery |
Fuki Hisama, MD |
Medical Genetics and Genomics |
Byron D. Joyner, MD, MPA |
Institutional Review Committee |
David Lewis, MD |
Nuclear Medicine |
Heather A. McPhillips, MD |
Pediatrics |
Kristen K. Patton, MD |
Internal Medicine |
Gautham Reddy MD, MPH |
Radiology |
**Did we inadvertently leave you off this list? Please contact Amanda Easton (amande@uw.edu) and we’ll update!
by amande | Sep 21, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
Latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month started on September 15 – an opportunity to celebrate the Latinx and Hispanic members of our community. This article in the Huddle has more information and resources.
We have some additional reasons to celebrate – first, UW Medical Center was named the top hospital in Washington state and the Seattle metropolitan area for the 11th consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, Forbes ranked UW Medicine a top healthcare employer in Washington and third best in the state.
The GME News and Notes for September is very full, including information about our revised Policies and Procedures page, lots of interesting events, information on where to go with questions about your pay or benefits. Please also remember that any member of our community can raise concerns confidentially (and anonymously) via GME’s Report a Concern tool.
Many thanks to those who reached out with information to share. Please continue to do so by sending to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- The Policies and Procedures page on the GME website has a new look! The page has been redesigned as a searchable table and includes policy summaries, flags for program-required policies, and the option to filter on applicable programs (ACGME, CODA, non-ACGME). These changes were made in response to feedback we received from programs and trainees.
- Revisions to the GMEC-Approved (Non-ACGME Accredited) Fellowship Programs Committee Charge: include changes that reflect the evolving role of the subcommittee, support of the Sponsoring Institution’s oversight of the new ACGME Non-Standard Training (NST) Program Recognition Requirements, inclusion of the UW Educational Standards for Non-ACGME Fellowship Programs, and the subcommittee’s role in recommending approval of new non-ACGME fellowship programs to the GMEC.
- UW Medicine is requiring that all employees, except for those in non-clinical roles in the School of Medicine, receive the latest COVID booster or complete an online declination. UW Medicine employees can schedule their booster through our online portal. Non-clinical employees in the School of Medicine should schedule by calling 844.520.8700.
- Our Clinical Learning Environment Webpage has been transformed and will track metrics for all of our CLER domains as well now houses resources for trainees and faculty looking for resources for QI work, QI data access, and curricular resources for our training programs.
- Welcome New Program Administrator:
- Gretchen Lindenstein, Radiation Oncology
- Jaime Williams, Medical Physics
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; all appointments await ACGME confirmation:
- Jeffrey Forris Beecham Chick, Independent & Integrated Interventional Radiology
- Stephen Kennedy, Orthopaedic Surgery
- Manoj Menon, Hematology Oncology
- Jaclyn Omura, Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine
- Alireza Torabi, Hematopathology
- The GMEC has approved the following non-ACGME program director changes:
- Felix Chew, Musculoskeletal Radiology
- Christopher Lee, Breast Imaging
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org
Events of Interest
- GME Lunch & Learns
- September 15th: Visas and International Medical Graduates, slides and recording now available
- October 20th: Interpreter Services
- GME Meet & Greet: October 2022 on October 17th from 3:00 – 4:00pm on Zoom. Join in meeting some of our GME Office staff, learning about their roles and responsibilities. This is highly recommended for new Program Directors and Program Administrators but welcome to all.
- Family Planning & Fertility for Resident Physicians on October 24th from 6:00-8:00pm on Zoom. Please join us at this educational event intended for all GME trainees and their guests or partners, no matter your current or future family plans. Regardless of your vision for your future we hope the ability to become better educated on a variety of fertility considerations, and to hear from colleagues about their own experiences will be of interest.
- GME Outreach Event for trainees at SCH on October 6th from 11am to 1 pm. We encourage trainees to stop by to say hello, meet our GME team members and take a packed lunch. Please look for an email closer to the event with specific room details.
- ERAS Drop in Session on September 22nd from 1 to 2 pm. We are holding an ERAS drop-in session for program administrators to ask questions and share best practices. This is intended as a forum for discussion and is not a formal training session. Questions? Contract Gabrielle Pett at nathangl@uw.edu.
- The Department of Medicine is partnering with the Institute for Common Power to sponsor a lecture by Dr. Quinn Capers from UT Southwestern, “Unequal Treatment in Cardiovascular Care: Evidence for Racial Bias and the Way Forward.” Dr. Capers will review current evidence and studies from the recent past detailing Black-White disparities in cardiac care, and strategies to reduce or eliminate racial disparities in care. Dr. Barabara Jung will join Dr. Terry Scott from Common Power for a Q&A after the lecture to discuss how we engage in EDI goals and objectives, increase engagement, and move initiatives forward. The event is on Tuesday Oct. 11, 12-1:30pm PST and everyone is invited. Sign up and further information can be found on the Department on Medicine news site.
- Another round of UW community support and skill building sessions aka “Got Burnout” will be running from late August through mid-October. These sessions are focused on the impact that working in healthcare has on us, similar to Schwartz Center Rounds, but think impromptu and theme based. Please see the event flier for more details.
- The Fall Series of Well-Being and Resilience starts on September 15th and runs through December 15th. The series is designed to support a team’s well-being during the transitions and challenges of the coming year. Please see the event flier for more details.
- 17th Annual Latino Health Forum: Call for Posters: The LHF poster session is a great opportunity to foster the dissemination and discussion of best practices, research and innovative projects to address health care access, health equity and community engagement among Latinos. The topic of a poster would address an issue that affects Latino health and behavioral health and would fall under one of four categories: clinical services, advocacy/policy, research or community-based health and behavioral health promotion. If you are doing research, this is a great opportunity to connect with other professionals and community members who share your interests. The “Become a Poster Presenter” document features basic information about the poster session and guidelines for participation. Deadline to submit your poster abstract is Saturday, October 1, 2022 by 11:59PM.
- Thank you to the Network for Underrepresented Residents and Fellows (NURF) for hosting the September 1st Diversity Town Hall. This was the third year for this event and there were over 300 virtual participants! NURF hosted a success event and assembled a diverse panel of representatives from across the GME community and there were impressive presentations. Stay tuned for more information regarding the NURF Second Look (exact date TBD).
- Other GME Events including AY23 can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- Trainees, questions about your paycheck? Please check the following resources:
- The UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety is proud to announce the (re)-launch of QI Match, an online web platform to match collaborators to quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across UW Medicine. Get started today.
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for two roles:
- GME Float Administrator – the Float Administrator provides continuity of key operations of UW ACGME residency and fellowship programs during program administrator vacancies, may assist in assessment of program operations including making recommendations for operational/quality improvements, works on special projects in the GME Office, and may also support non-ACGME fellowships. The job posting is on UW Hires (Req# 210821).
- GME HR Manager – this new position on the Operations & Administration team will provide HR support for trainees and programs regarding leave of absence, accommodations, etc. This position is a great opportunity to work with both the GME community and with other departments in the School of Medicine. The posting is on UW Hires (Req. # 212471).
People
- Alwiya Ahmed, (resident, Internal Medicine) is quoted in “More Black People Eligible for Lung Cancer Screening Under New Guidelines [bit.ly]” in Real Health.
- Joseph Bellairs (Otolaryngology Resident) won a poster blitz award at the meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) in February 2022 for “Development of an In Vivo Biomarker for Evaluating the Biologic Characteristics of Ototoxic Drugs and Novel Therapeutics that Mitigate Ototoxicity.”
- WebMD annually recognizes individuals who work to improve the mental health of medical professionals, veterans, first responders, and older adults. Justin Bullock, fellow (Nephrology) is recognized for speaking out about suicide and mental health in medicine, using his own personal struggles to help others overcome the stigma. Learn more on WebMD[wb.md].
- Harrison Cash (Otolaryngology Resident) under the mentorship of former Oto assistant professor Jeff Houlton presented on Feb. 25, 2022, at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium: “A Novel Intratumoral Microdosing Approach for Simultaneously Evaluating Multiple Drugs and Combinations in Patients with Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC).”
- The Latinx Health Pathway (LHP) was one of the first Pathways established in 2008 to help medical students provide culturally humble care for Latinx communities. Daniel Cabrera, clinical associate professor (General Internal Medicine), assistant program director, assistant student clerkship director and interim associate chair for DEI, has directed the pathway since 2016. Read the full story from UW Medicine.
- Eve Champaloux (Otolaryngology resident) is lead author in a recent article published in Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology. The study, titled “Otolaryngology residents’ experiences of pregnancy and return to work: A multisite qualitative study,” was designed to “understand the experiences of childbearing otolaryngology residents and support them during this major life event.”
- Sherise Epstein (Otolaryngology Resident) was lead author (with UW Oto professor Kathy Sie, and others) on an article published in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology titled “Sensitivity to Deaf Culture Among Otolaryngology and Audiology Trainees.”
- Some important innovations in the Otolaryngology recruitment efforts over recent years have been reported and analyzed in an article by resident Sherise Epstein and resident Neeraja Konuthula and others. The article, titled “Implementing a ‘Distance Travelled’ Question to Improve Resident Diversity: Process and Feasibility,” was featured in Oto Open, the Official Open Access Journal of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, and describes efforts to increase diversity in the physician workforce through a more holistic review of applicants to the residency program using a “distance travelled” metric.
- Neal Futran (Chair, Department of Otolaryngology) delivered a talk on advances in midface reconstruction at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Israeli Society of Otolaryngology-HNS, held in March 2022.
- Whitney Harper, program specialist (IM Residency), is co-author of “AAIM Recommendations to Promote Equity and Inclusion in the Internal Medicine Residency Interview Process” in the American Journal of Medicine.
- Congratulations to the Housestaff Quality and Safety Committee on their recent publication of HOUSE!
- Ian Humphreys (Rhinology Program Director) made a recent guest appearance on the podcast, The Original Guide to Men’s Health. In this episode, Dr. Humphreys spoke to Dr. Richard Perlman about a range of basic ENT health issues, including chronic irritation of the sinuses, disordered smell, ringing ears, hearing loss, swallowing problems, vocal cord issues, and oral cancers.
- Ellora Karmarkar, fellow, is lead author and Sylvia LaCourse, assistant professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is senior author of “Report: A pox presenting without pox [bit.ly]” in Sexually Transmitted Diseases. DOM co-authors are Desta Russom, Alwiya Ahmed, Maria Amoreth Ramiro Gozo, Anna Cogen, Steven Disharoon and W. Conrad Liles.
- Congratulations to Nicole Kim, fellow (Gastroenterology) who received an Advanced/Transplant Hepatology Award and Philip Vutien, assistant professor (Gastroenterology) who received the Clinical, Translation and Outcomes Research Award in Liver Diseases for his project “Development and validation of models that estimate risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and cured hepatitis C virus infection” from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) Foundation. Their mentor is George Ioannou.
- Jimmy Ma, fellow (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is lead author and Mari Kitahata, professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is senior author of “Current Antiretroviral Treatment Among People with Human Immunodeficiency Virus in the United States: Findings from the Centers for AIDS Research Network of Integrated Clinic Systems Cohort [bit.ly]” in Clinical Infectious Diseases. DOM co-authors are Drs. Robin Nance, Bridget Whitney and Heidi Crane.
- Linzee Mabrey, fellow, is lead author, and Pavan Bhatraju, assistant professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is senior author of “Presence of Antibodies to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 on Admission Is Associated With Decreased Mortality in COVID-19 Critical Illness [bit.ly]” in Critical Care Explorations. DOM co-authors are Leila Zelnick, Eric Morrell, Mark Wurfel and Conrad Liles.
- A poster titled “Exploring Female Otolaryngologists’ Experiences with Gender Bias and Microaggressions” has been accepted for presentation at American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery’s 2022 annual meeting in Philadelphia in September. The poster reports on a project funded by AAO–HNS’ Governing Council of the Women in Otolaryngology (WIO) Section which sed survey tools and a qualitative interview process to explore how female otolaryngologists manage gender bias in the workplace. It revealed strategies and tools that women (and all individuals) can employ to not only survive, but thrive, in surgical specialties. Tanya Meyer (Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Program Director) was co-investigator and mentor for the project with PI Amanda Hu.
- Congratulations to our Otolaryngology residents and fellows for awards received at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ASPO) held this past May in Dallas, TX.
- “What is earwax?” asked 8-year-old Helen E. For a very thorough answer, read the interview with Henry Ou, (Pediatric Otolaryngology – Program Director), in the “Curious Kids” section of The Conversation, a nonprofit independent online news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.
- Judith Pauwels is lead author of “Rural Graduate Medical Education: Choosing the Road “Less Traveled By” in Academic Medicine. Judy is a professor emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine and a consultant, Health Resources and Services Administration Rural Residency Program Development—Technical Assistance Center.
- The Huddle recently featured a profile “Get to Know: Peter Tarczy-Hornoch, Chief Data Officer.” Peter is the Chair of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
- Neurology resident Jamie Wright was featured in a story on the UW Medicine newsroom.
by amande | Sep 9, 2022 | Announcements, News
This month, I’ve invited Olivia Frederiksen, GME Accreditation & Regulatory Specialist, to share the GME team’s incredible work surrounding Workplace Health & Safety.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
I am excited to share the efforts that our GME team has diligently been working on to improve and enhance the safety of our residents, fellows, and faculty. Safety is our top priority in the working and learning environment.
Over the last year, we have launched in systematic efforts to effectively improve the workplace health and safety of trainees and faculty at clinical learning environments. To identify the main areas of focus, we collaborated with the leaders of participating and closely affiliated sites to analyze health and safety issues and enhance security measures.
While evaluating, we learned:
- Participating sites, including UW Medicine sites, have their own protocols in how incidents should be reported.
- Participating sites, including UW Medicine sites, have varying ways of tracking, monitoring, and ensuring workplace safety.
- Property theft, which most often is a bicycle, is the most prevalent crime across UW sites. In some instances, UWPD can assist in obtaining security footage.
- UW has numerous safety and security programs.
In response to our findings, we implemented several mechanisms to improve the workplace health and safety of our community:
- Creation of the Workplace Health and Safety webpage on the GME website that centralizes useful resources across all primary training sites. This aims to provide both trainees and the GME community with a wide variety of workplace safety resources, such as how to report an incident, what may happen once reported, commuting safely, and health and safety data. I highly recommend programs and trainees familiarize themselves with this resource!
- Standing representation on the monthly UW Medicine’s Health & Safety Committee. This committee is responsible for reviewing and evaluating health and safety data and recommending actions to resolve health and safety concerns.
- Collaboration with leadership of participating sites to enhance security measures. A comprehensive update on site improvements will be presented to the Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC) annually. This includes bicycle security, surveillance, parking, etc.
- Collection and analysis of health and safety data, including incident reports, data from security offices at participating sites, Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) reports, and annual security reports. Pertinent information within these data and/or UW Medicine’s Health & Safety Committee monthly meetings is included in a newly established standing monthly report of health and safety data during our monthly GMEC meeting.
- Established a workgroup within the GME Office that is tasked with monitoring workplace safety data and responding to any workplace safety issues that occur in the learning environment. The workgroup responds immediately to any incident reported by trainees and meets monthly to promote initiatives that enhance workplace safety. Incidents and issues brought forward to the workgroup are also included in the standing monthly report to GMEC.
We welcome all opportunities to improve the health and safety of our community. We greatly appreciate your partnership in these efforts. If you have any areas of concern, suggestions, or general feedback, please send to ofred@uw.edu or submit through Report a Concern so we can address in a timely manner.
Thank you for all you do. Continue to keep yourself, and others, safe!
Best,
Olivia Frederiksen
Workplace Health and Safety
Accreditation & Regulatory Specialist
by nybrady | Aug 19, 2022 | Announcements, News
The Association of Hospital Medical Education (AHME) has designated August 19, 2022 as GME Professionals Day.
GME Professionals Day is an opportunity for ACGME Sponsoring Institutions and Residency and Fellowship programs to celebrate the important contributions made by the GME Professionals who staff their programs and central GME offices. As defined in the ACGME Common Program Requirements (CPRs), program administrators manage the day-to-day operations of the program and serve as an important liaison with learners, faculty, other staff members, as well as the ACGME. They serve as members of the leadership team, are critical to the success of the program, must possess skills in leadership and personnel management, and are expected to develop unique knowledge of the ACGME and Program Requirements, policies, and procedures. Sponsoring institutions and programs are highly dependent on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes GME professionals possess, and the dedication they exhibit in supporting the learning environment of the institution, their programs, and the success of their trainees.
We in the UW GME Office would like to take this time to recognize the immense dedication of each of you who make up the 110+ ACGME program administrators, dental residency program administrators, non-ACGME program administrators, and numerous additional program staff that support our 200+ training programs. You are key to our success.
Every year brings new requirements and challenges to navigate. During the last year you have continued to navigate management of your programs and support of your trainees through COVID-19, felt impacts of staffing challenges across the institution, and found new opportunities to effectively manage your programs.
We have also welcomed 20 new program administrators to our GME community. Thanks for all that you do!
We recognize this work and realize that it supports the mission of this institution, the education and wellness of our trainees. Your work does not go unnoticed, and we want to thank you for being such an important part of our GME community.
The UW Graduate Medical Education Office Team
by amande | Aug 18, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
This Friday, August 19, is GME Professionals Day! Please thank the program managers, administrators and coordinators who work tirelessly on behalf of residents and fellows.
It is exciting to be part of such a dynamic graduate medical education community and it has been inspiring to see how our community has risen to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and impactful social issues. While these efforts and accomplishments stand on their own, it is always wonderful when our sites and programs are recognized. UW Medical Center has been named as the top hospital in Washington state and the Seattle metropolitan area for the 11th consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to being the best hospital in the state, UW Medical Center received top-50 rankings in seven specialties as well as “high performing” designations in four specialty areas and 16 common adult procedures and conditions.
Our community is always growing and evolving. I look forward to seeing the impact of the newly launched Digital Health Office and Digital Front Door not just for patients but for our physicians and healthcare providers. Dr. Tim Dellit and Lisa Brandenburg noted in their launch email “The Digital Front Door will link access to all UW Medicine services, virtual care delivery programs, in-person care services and care management. The goal is to create a seamless, consistent patient experience and build better efficiencies and equity across the UW Medicine system.”
The August GME News and Notes contains great information about policies & processes, awards, publications, resources, new leadership team members, etc. Please also remember that any concerns can be raised (including anonymously) via GME’s Report a Concern tool.
Many thanks to those who reached out to me with information to share here. Please continue to do so by sending to me at hamrac@uw.edu.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- Our Clinical Learning Environment Webpage has been transformed and will track metrics for all of our CLER domains as well now houses resources for trainees and faculty looking for resources for QI work, QI data access, and curricular resources for our training programs.
- Exceptions to All-Virtual Interview Season for Small, Non-ACGME-Accredited Fellowships: In his August 2nd email, Dr. Byron Joyner noted that UW Medicine and the GME leadership have decided to entertain exemptions to the all-virtual interview policy for non-ACGME programs with faculty-appointed fellows programs during the 2022-2023 recruitment season. The email details the requirements for consideration and outlines the process for applying for an exemption. The deadline for submission of applications to be considered for an in-person interview exemption this recruitment season is August 25, 2022. Please send requests to Tammy Ramirez (tkh971@uw.edu). Not all programs that apply are guaranteed to receive an exemption.
- Updated Quarantine, Leave and Telework Guidelines posted on Covid-19 Updates: GME Community Website.
- Welcome New Program Administrator:
- Kayleen McGinley, Clinical Informatics
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; all appointments await ACGME confirmation:
- Markus Boos, Dermatology
- Jose Mantilla, Surgical Pathology
- Rebecca Petersen, General Surgery (Interim)
- Paul Swanson, GI/Hepatic Pathology (Interim)
- The ACGME has a weekly e-Communication. If you wish to receive it, email ACGMECommunications@acgme.org
Events of Interest
- GME Outreach Event for trainees at UWMC-ML on August 25th from 11am to 1 pm in Room AA-504. We encourage trainees to stop by to say hello, meet our GME team members and grab a packed lunch (which must be taken to the appropriate breakrooms / lunch areas to be eaten in accordance with the current infection prevention guidelines).
- ADS Annual Update Office Hours on August 23rd from 10 to 11:30 am. Join the GME Accreditation Team to get your ADS Annual Update questions answered. No registration required. See the reminder email from Hadar for Zoom details.
- Life After Residency Seminar is on Saturday August 27th. This event is intended to educate and support graduating trainees on their transition to independent practice, addressing topics such as writing cover letters, negotiating salary and benefits, how to read your employment contract and more. Trainees of all levels are invited to attend.
- ERAS Drop in Session on August 23rd from 2 to 3 pm. We are holding an ERAS drop-in session for program administrators to ask questions and share best practices. This is intended as a forum for discussion and is not a formal training session. Questions? Contract Gabrielle Pett at nathangl@uw.edu.
- Chief Resident Listening Session on August 31st from 5:00 to 6:00 pm at UWMC-ML and Zoom. This event is for appointed Chiefs only. Please see the 7/26 email from Cindy Hamra for complete details.
- GME Lunch & Learn on September 15th: IMGs and Visa Sponsorship.
- The University of Washington Network of Underrepresented Residents & Fellows (UW NURF) welcomes your participation in their Virtual Diversity Recruitment Town Hall on Thursday, September 1st, 2022, from 6:00 – 8:00pm PDT. This event welcomes prospective applicants from underrepresented and/or disadvantaged backgrounds with the goal to introduce them to the University of Washington and spark interest in our outstanding residency and fellowship programs in preparation for their interview season. The Zoom link will be provided via email closer to the event date. If your program would like to participate, please complete this survey.
- Agenda:
- 6:00pm – Welcome, logistics, land acknowledgement, agenda setting
- 6:10pm – Info about UW Network of Underrepresented Residents and Fellows
- 6:20pm – Info about UW Graduate Medical Education
- 6:30pm – Info about UW Office of Healthcare Equity
- 6:40pm – Panel Q&A on Top Applicant Questions
- 7:30pm – Program-Specific Break-Out Sessions
- Other GME Events including AY23 can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- The GME Office is currently recruiting for a second GME Float Administrator. The Float Administrator provides continuity of key operations of UW ACGME residency and fellowship programs during program administrator vacancies, may assist in assessment of program operations including making recommendations for operational/quality improvements, works on special projects in the GME Office, and may also support non-ACGME fellowships. The job posting is on UW Hires (Req# 210821).
- The GME Office is accepting nominations for the 2022 Bruce C. Gilliland Award for Excellence in Teaching of Residents and Fellows. The award recognizes outstanding teaching in graduate medical education in any specialty and at any UW Medicine or affiliated training site. Nominations are due by 5 p.m. on August 19, 2022. Nominations can be submitted by faculty and trainees involved in UW graduate medical education programs. If you have questions or need a copy of the materials, please contact Tammy Ramirez in the GME Office at tkh971@uw.edu.
by amande | Aug 4, 2022 | Announcements, News
This month, I’ve invited Dr. Lindee Strizich, GME Director of Quality and Safety to share her incredible work surrounding trainee education and engagement in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO
Most of us are likely familiar with the seminal publication, “To err is human,” which estimated that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US. While humbling, this paper catalyzed a movement in medicine to improve the safety of the care we provide to our patients. One result was that both the ACGME and the AAMC identified quality improvement and patient safety skills as core competencies for physicians. Guided by the ACGME’s Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) program’s feedback, GME programs across the country have been working tirelessly to ensure that our trainees’ clinical learning environments provide them this key aspect of their education. This work appears to be paying off as a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the rates of adverse events for hospitalized patients has decreased significantly from 2010-2019.
As your GME Director of Quality and Patient safety, I have the distinct honor of occupying a position known as a bridging leader, which means that I work at the intersection of our GME community and medical center leadership and am fortunate to have both a GME community with so many passionate trainee and faculty leaders in QI and patient safety, and health system leadership fully committed to trainee education. Together we have improved trainee engagement in our culture of safety, as evidenced by increased patient safety event recognition and reporting, increased participation in intensive reviews (>70% of intensive reviews at UW Montlake have had trainees present!), multiple medical center QI/PS committees with trainee representation, the continued success of our Housestaff Quality and Safety Committee, and multiple trainee led quality improvement projects.
While we have made tremendous strides in improving trainee education and engagement in QI/PS within our medical centers, as with any good QI project there are always opportunities for continued improvement. I am excited to share several resources that we have been working on over the past year to further support trainee engagement in UW Medicine quality improvement and patient safety work and bolster education in this area across our community.
- QI Match – this home-grown tool has officially launched and provides a platform for trainees and faculty to find QI projects to participate in or post QI projects they are trying to build a team to complete. Thanks to Dr. Nicholas Meo for his tireless efforts in creating this resource!
- Intensive reviews – we are excited to announce that as of July 2022, UW-Montlake Intensive reviews (previously termed event reviews) will be posted on QI Match so trainees who wish to participate in an intensive review of a patient safety event will be able to find upcoming reviews to attend on this platform. We will continue to send invitations for trainee participants for adverse event reviews directly to programs directors.
- GME Quality and Safety Foundations Course – we have collaborated with the Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety to offer our first ever GME wide educational curriculum in QI/PS. The goal of this program is to provide a resource for our training programs to deliver basic QI/PS education to our trainees and jumpstart faculty development in this area.
- Clinical Learning Environment Webpage – our CLER webpage has been transformed and will track metrics for all of our CLER domains as well now houses resources for trainees and faculty looking for resources for QI work, QI data access, and curricular resources for our training programs.
- GMEC CLER Subcommittee – our CLER Subcommittee continues to meet monthly to coordinate QI/PS activities and educational initiatives between GME and administration and includes representation from trainees, program directors and faculty, patient safety leadership, and medical center leadership. Updates regarding committee meeting agendas will be included on the Clinical Learning Environment Webpage.
None of our progress could have been achieved without the dedication of all those who contribute to our GME community. As always, your feedback is critical to our improvement process and I welcome all feedback about how our work is impacting the University of Washington’s clinical learning environment.
Sincerely,
Lindee Strizich, MD, MSc
GME Director of Quality and Patient Safety
by amande | Jul 22, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Associate Dean, GME
It’s the start of the new academic year and we welcome our new residents and fellows. News & Notes is a monthly blog post from the GME Office sharing useful information.
In this month’s issue, you’ll find information about new policies, several upcoming events, and awards and honors for members of our community. Please also remember that any concerns can be raised (including anonymously) via GME’s Report a Concern tool.
As usual, if there’s anything you’d like to see included in next month’s News & Notes, please let me know.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- Rapid antigen tests are available: UW is making FDA-authorized, over-the-counter rapid antigen self-test kits available to UW students and personnel at no cost. Distribution and use of these kits is not part of any research study. More info is available at the UW COVID-19 testing website.
- Quality and Safety Foundations Course: The COVID-19 pandemic, financial crises, and overdue calls to enhance the equity of all we do have created unprecedented professional and personal strains. As we partner to overcome these challenges, it is vital that we undertake activities directed at improving the quality, safety, value, and equity of our work.
- The 2022-2023 academic year introduces a number of changes within our community. Program Directors and Program Administrators should be sure to review:
- The door code to the UWMC-ML Housestaff Quarters (the “Crow’s Nest”) changed on June 7. Please see the same day email from Cindy Hamra for complete information.
- Welcome New Program Administrator:
- Elsa Hagos, Interventional Radiology (Integrated and Independent)
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; all appointments await ACGME confirmation:
- Jonathon Cogen, Pediatric Pulmonology
- Application for ACGME Recognition of Sponsoring Institution with Non-Standard Training (NST) Programs for J-1 Sponsorship: At the July GMEC meeting, the Committee reviewed the application for ACGME Recognition of the UWSOM as a Sponsoring Institution with NST Programs for J-1 Sponsorship. The new requirements apply to all non-ACGME accredited clinical training programs that plan to have fellows on an Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG)-sponsored J-1 starting July 2023. Please direct questions to Gabrielle Pett (nathangl@uw.edu).
- The Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC) approved revisions to several policies at the July meeting. All are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website.
- Clinical Competency Committee (CCC) Policy: The policy was updated to reflect the current ACGME requirements. Revisions include adding a policy purpose statement; updating the language to reflect current requirement for CCC membership and functions of the CCC; adding recommendation for EDI, feedback, and remediation training for CCC members; updating the language for documentation and confidentially of CCC meetings and updating ACGME resources for CCC to the current ones.
- Eligibility, Recruitment, and Selection Policy for Non-ACGME Programs: new policy for all non-ACGME accredited clinical fellowship programs, requiring programs to define eligibility criteria and communicate to applicants in a program-specific eligibility and selection policy.
- GMEC Approved (Non-ACGME Accredited) Programs Policy: policy revised to incorporate the new ACGME NST recognition requirements and remove program requirements and standards which have been folded into the revised Educational Standards for Non-ACGME Programs (separate document).
- New Program Director Appointment Policy: Revisions were made to include non-ACGME programs (including Non-Standard Training (NST) Programs) in the scope; adding a policy purpose statement; and outlining the procedure for GMEC approval of PDs of non-ACGME programs.
Events of Interest
- GME Lunch & Learns
- July 21: ADS Annual Update, recording and slides available
- AY23 schedule posted
- July GME Meet & Greet on Tuesday July 26 from 2 – 2:45pm PT! At these quarterly events we welcome new Program Directors and Program Administrators (<1 year) into the community, introduce you to a few key GME staff members and share more about our areas of work. This is an informal, introductory event for our newest colleagues to meet each other and the GME team.
- GME Program Administrators Meeting: Tuesday, August 9, 8:30 to 10:30 am. Dipti Chrastka, Director, GME Wellness Service will facilitate the session focused on PA Wellness.
- IMGs and Visa Sponsorship: Thursday, September 29, 3-4pm
- Life After Residency Seminar is on Saturday August 27th. This event is intended to educate and support graduating trainees on their transition to independent practice, addressing topics such as writing cover letters, negotiating salary and benefits, how to read your employment contract and more. Trainees of all levels are invited to attend.
- Other GME Events including AY23 can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- GME’s Chief Resident and Chief Fellow Resources webpage contains many resources to guide Chief Residents and Fellows through their appointment.
- The UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety is proud to announce the (re)-launch of QI Match, an online web platform to match collaborators to quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across UW Medicine. Get started today.
- The American Medical Women’s Association hosted a 1-hour Program, Guiding Challenged Residents in Challenging Times featuring Dr. Chris Bundy, Executive Director, WPHP. Recording here. Please feel free to distribute.
- The General Surgery Resident Room at HMC celebrated its grand opening on June 15th.
People
- Welcome to new NURF leadership for AY23!
- President: Dr. Gabriel Mendoza, Pediatrics (incoming Allergy and Immunology Fellow)
- Vice President: Dr. Sherise Epstein, OTO (incoming PGY5/R4)
- Secretary/Treasurer: Dr. Eric Robles, Pediatrics (incoming PGY2)
- Education Chair: Dr. Ivonne Beltran, Family Med (incoming PGY2)
- Community Outreach Chair: Dr. Andrea Diaz, Internal Med (incoming PGY2)
- Medical Student Outreach Chair: Dr. Adil Malik, PM&R (incoming PGY3)
- Social Media Chair: Dr. Osayd Assad, Internal Med (incoming PGY2)
- HQSC Liaison: Jessica Sher, PM&R (incoming PGY2)
- Welcome to new HQSC leadership for AY23!
- Vickie Hau, Anesthesiology, Co-Chair
- Karly Williams Silva, Internal Medicine, Co-Chair
- Brianne Caoyonan, Anesthesia, Squirrel
- Spencer Pecha, Anesthesia, Squirrel
- Omar Bayomy, Pulmonary and Critical Care, Chair of Development
- Jessica Pinot, Internal Medicine, Chair of Publications
- Andrew Barbour, Radiation Oncology, Chair of Equity and Diversity
- Juri De Jong, Internal Medicine, Chair of Sustainability
- Recent graduates of the UW internal medicine residency, Ryan Abe, Lynsey Bernfeld, Anna Morenz, and Hasib Yousufzai, have received a $20,000 grant from leading internal medicine organizations to build a longitudinal Health Equity and Anti-Racism (HEAR) curriculum within the internal medicine residency and thus help develop a more trustworthy health care system. Read more on the Department of Medicine news site.
- Justin Bullock, fellow (Nephrology) talks about Pride and Intersectionality in the latest issue of Med.
- Eric Chow, fellow, is lead author, and Helen Chu, associate professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is senior author of “The Clinical and Genomic Epidemiology of Rhinovirus in Homeless Shelters-King County, Washington” in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
- Ruth Deya, R1 (Medicine), is lead author, and Susan Graham, professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is senior author of “Yield and Coverage of Active Case Finding Interventions for Tuberculosis Control: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” in Tuberculosis Research and Treatment. DOM co-authors are Linnet Masese and David Horne.
- Callistus Ditah, Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellow, provides his insights in the “New Beginnings for Heart Failure Patients” feature in the Spring Surgery Synopsis.
- Lauren Feld, fellow (Gastroenterology) is senior author of “On the Importance of Safe Access to Reproductive Options for Adolescents and Women with Liver Disease” in Gastroenterology.
- Whitney Harper, program specialist (IM residency) is co-author of “Emerging from the Pandemic: AAIM Recommendations for Internal Medicine Residency and Fellowship Interview Standards” in the American Journal of Medicine.
- Duncan Hussey, R3 (Internal Medicine), has received the 2022 Harborview Housestaff Achievement Award for Clinical Ability and Humanitarian Concern. This award is bestowed by Harborview faculty to a graduating resident (selected from all the residency programs) who has demonstrated excellence in patient care and exceptional humanism in line with the Harborview mission.
- The Internal Medicine Residency Program staff are inaugural recipients of the Gender Equity Trailblazer Award. This team (Andréa Campbell, Kelli Corning, Gevelle Cullen, Keli Lock, Brian Valentine) has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to promoting a culture of inclusion – within that core value is a commitment to increasing equity for women and gender minorities in our department – and they have been trailblazers in recruitment, policies and practices, leadership diversity and communications. Read more on the Department of Medicine news site.
- The GME Office is pleased to welcome Jennifer Johal as our new Learning Environment Specialist on the Accreditation and Education team. Her first day with GME will be August 1, 2022. Jenn is joining us from Virginia Mason, where since 2020 she has served as Program Coordinator for Internal Medicine, Preliminary Medicine and the Transitional Year Residency Program. Prior to that role, she also worked as Hospital Development Coordinator at LifeCenter Northwest. Her background includes a BA in Early Childhood and Family Studies from the UW as well as a double masters degree in Health Advocacy and Child Development from Sarah Lawrence College.
- Whitney Kiker, fellow (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is lead author of “Prognosis Predictions by Families, Physicians, and Nurses of Patients with Severe Acute Brain Injury: Agreement and Accuracy” in Neurocritical Care. DOM co-author is J. Randall Curtis.
- Alex Lois, former Surgical Outcomes Research Center T32 NIDDK post- doctoral research fellow & current general surgery R4, led a research team conducting a national study of peroral endoscopic myotomy that was published in JAMA Surgery: “Use and Safety of Per-Oral Endoscopic Myotomy for Achalasia in the US.”
- W. Robb MacLellan, professor and head (Cardiology) has accepted the newly created position of Department of Medicine Executive Vice Chair, effective July 1, 2022.
- Jacob Mayfield, fellow, is lead author and Catherine Otto, professor (Cardiology) is senior author of “The Young and the Breathless” in the New England Journal of Medicine. DOM co-authors are Danelle Hidano, Alexander Torres, and Mathilde Pioro.
- Blake Murphy (Vascular Surgery R1) was selected by the Society of Vascular Surgery Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) as the inaugural recipient of the Jack Cronenwett MD Fellowship in Training (SVSFIT) Program.
- Lara Oyetunji (UW Cardiothoracic Surgery graduate, Section Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the VA, physician at UWMC-ML) is the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Patricia L. Dawson Endowed Faculty Fellowship award.
- Joshua Rosen, Research Resident, published “Unrealistic optimism about treatment risks for acute appendicitis” in the British Journal of Surgery.
- Melissa Upton (Emeritus Professor of Pathology) will serve on the Joint Capstone Advisory Committee for the CMSS & ACGME joint ACGME Equity Matters™ project which aims to drive measurable improvements in equity, diversity, and inclusion in Medicine.
- Denzel Woode, General Surgery R3, published “Asa G Yancey: The first to describe a modification of the Swenson Technique for Hirschsprung disease” in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery.
by amande | Jul 6, 2022 | Announcements, News
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Welcome!
We are excited that you are here to begin your new journey with us. Many of you have traveled from around the country – and from around the world to be at the University of Washington School of Medicine. We welcome your eagerness to learn and wide-eyed curiosity about this next chapter in your life.
We have all faced challenges and uncertainty, especially the last 3 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest. Many of you are wondering what life will be like in Seattle. Many of you have never been to Seattle and you are trusting that this will be the right home for you. As you start your new journey, we want you to know that we are here for you. A world-class faculty and staff are committed to teaching you and to helping you along the way. We want you to gain all of the experiences and have all of the learning opportunities you need to do your work. We want you to feel that you are working in a diverse learning environment, one that is inclusive and equitable.
There will be uncertainty during your training, not only because of the unpredictability of COVID-19, but because you will be – and should be – learning new things about your chosen specialty. You will meet your colleagues and find new friends. You will encounter new interdisciplinary teams with whom you will learn to take care of patients, and, along the way, you will learn more about yourself.
Matriculating now into your new residency or fellowship program should be an adventure – even for those of you who are UW alumni returning as subspecialty fellows. Our top priority is to offer you the best and safest clinical learning environment so that you can develop the skills, behaviors, and attitudes you will need to be successful, independent doctor.
You are one of the amazing high-caliber physicians-and dentists training in one of our 127 residency or fellowship programs that sets UW apart from other institutions. The new wave of 450+ residents and fellows joining us over the next 3 months only highlights this point. You represent an exceptional, diverse, and exceedingly qualified class who will enrich each other’s lives and learning experiences.
Who you are
Exceptional.
- In total, you are 471 incoming residents and fellows
- You are pursuing 117 different specialties
- 287 of you are first-year residents
In some cases, nearly a third of all US medical school graduates going into your specialty applied to your UW program, and you are among the select few to be admitted to these very competitive programs.
Diverse.
- Altogether, you were born in 29 different countries
- 14% of you were born outside of the United States
- 15 of you graduated from a medical school outside of the United States.
- You span generations – you are Gen X, Y and Z.
This is no accident. Diversity and inclusion are core values of UW Graduate Medical Education.
Qualified.
77 of you have achieved other graduate degrees. To name a few, these include:
- 18 PhDs
- 16 MPHs
- 3 MBAs
- 22 MSs
Where you are
Graduate Medical Education (GME). GME programs sponsored by the UW School of Medicine are designed to train skillful physicians with ingrained habits of life-long learning and well-formed ethical and professional modes of practice.
UW Medicine. Among nearly 860 institutions, UW Medicine ranks sixth in the number of programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and 9th in the number of trainees. The UW School of Medicine offers over 121 residency and clinical fellowship programs accredited by the ACGME, two Board-approved fellowship programs, and over 80 non-accredited clinical fellowship programs.
For more information about each of our accredited programs, see our list of the Residency and Clinical Fellowship Programs.
WWAMI. UW Medicine, through its School of Medicine (SOM), is by far the largest sponsor of GME programs in the five-state region of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (WWAMI). We have a very important role in building physician workforce capable of meeting the requirements of a rapidly-evolving healthcare environment for rural and underserved areas in our region.
In addition to Seattle-based training, there are three distinct models for Graduate Medical Education across the WWAMI region – Community Based–UW Affiliated, Regional Training Tracks, and Regional Resident Rotations.
Who we are
GME Leadership. We are responsible for the administrative oversight and academic quality of UW’s residency and clinical fellowship programs. Most importantly, we are here for you. Please contact any of us with questions, comments, or concerns.
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA, Vice Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Designated Institutional Official
Jennifer Best, MD, Associate Dean, GME Education & Accreditation
Cindy Hamra, Assistant Dean GME Operations & Administration
by amande | Jun 24, 2022 | Announcements, News, Sticky
This year, UW Medicine Graduate Medical Education is welcoming 471 new trainees. Each year, UW Medicine sponsors over 1,500 residents and fellows, which means that about one in six physicians is a trainee — making up a significant part of our physician population.
“Our residents and fellows play an important role in caring for our patients at UW Medicine, from providing exceptional care to contributing to our research and education efforts,” says Tim Dellit, MD, chief medical officer for UW Medicine, executive vice dean for clinical affairs in the UW School of Medicine, and president of UW Physicians. “We are excited to welcome our incoming trainees.”
Read more >
by amande | Jun 24, 2022 | Announcements, Events, GME News & Notes, News
Dear GME Community,
Cindy Hamra Assistant Dean, GME
We’re all experiencing the changes that typically come in June each year – we say good-bye and thank you to our graduating residents and fellows, and welcome the new group. At Orientation this week, GME welcomed many of the 471 new trainees joining us this year.
In June we also celebrate the Juneteenth holiday and Pride month – both are opportunities to celebrate the diversity in our UW Medicine and GME communities. Other opportunities to celebrate include welcoming our new, fourth wellness counselor, Howard Schaefer. Finally, this Huddle article highlights the great work of our Boise-based training programs in Internal Medicine, Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. We also enjoyed meeting many of you at our Outreach event at Harborview yesterday.
On a more serious note, I want to highlight this Message from Dr. Thomas J. Nasca, president and CEO of the ACGME, following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: “This calls for a response from the medical community. We must approach violence and incivility with the same selflessness and generosity of spirit as we have for those afflicted with COVID-19. We are confronting a disease of the spirit manifested by isolation, disrespect, and hatred. This must be countered with community, courtesy, and kindness. As members of the healing community, this is a prescription we can deliver.”
The June 2022 issue of GME News & Notes includes reminders for programs regarding changes taking effect in AY23, ACGME resources and opportunities and many celebrations and awards for members of our community. As usual, if there’s anything you’d like to see included in next month’s News & Notes, please let me know.
Thank you,
Cindy
Policies and Processes
- The 2022-2023 academic year introduces a number of changes within our community. Program Directors and Program Administrators should be sure to review:
- Structured Interprofessional Bedside Rounding onboarding module now available. Check out this resource and many others from our Spring PDDS on Teaming and the Milestones.
- Starting on Friday, July 1, a fully subsidized U-PASS will be provided to all employees paid by the University of Washington. If you previously were paying for an annual or quarterly U-PASS, you do not have to take any action to stop payments. They will stop automatically with the pay period ending June 30, 2022. The new benefit does not apply to undergraduate student employees, graduate research student assistants, unpaid academics, affiliates or other appointees who are not paid by the University of Washington. For more information on eligibility, see the Human Resources U-PASS benefit page.
- The door code to the UWMC-ML Housestaff Quarters (the “Crow’s Nest”) changed on June 7. Please see the same day email from Cindy Hamra for complete information.
- Starting on Tuesday, June 21 all shuttle stops on the north side of the UW Medical Center are being relocated due to work on the UW Medicine Membrane & Landscape Replacement project. A complete scope of the changes is available for review.
- The GMEC has approved appointment of the following new program directors; all appointments await ACGME confirmation:
- Rebeca Alvarez, Breast/Gynecologic Pathology (Interim)
- Manjiri Dighe, Abdominal Radiology (Interim)
- Sarah Golub, Adolescent Medicine
- Christina Lam, Medical Biochemical Genetics
- Bahar Mansoori, Abdominal Radiology
- Elina Quiroga, Vascular Surgery – Independent & Vascular Surgery – Integrated
- David Siebert, Sports Medicine
- The GMEC-Approved (Non-ACGME Accredited) Fellowship Programs Committee (GAF) recently approved two new non-ACGME fellowships:
- Emergency Medicine: Advanced Emergency Medicine Ultrasonography (July 2023)
- Laboratory Medicine and Pathology: Pathology Informatics (July 2022)
- The Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC) approved revisions to several policies at the June meeting. All are posted on the Policies and Procedures page of the GME website.
- Institutional Clinical and Educational Work Hours Policy: Revisions include updating the policy scope to include fellows in ACGME Non-Standard Training (NST) Programs and adding a definition of NST programs; adding a policy purpose statement; adding relevant clinical and educational work hour requirements for NST programs; addressing applicability of program policies for boarding residents; and addition of considering work hour non-compliance when recommending programs for Special Reviews.
- Telehealth Policy: Added a purpose statement which includes expansion of policy beyond telehealth training. Added relevant telehealth related definitions from the telehealth training for providers, updated section on supervision to include ACGME Requirements on Direct Supervision Using Telecommunication by Specialty and added new section on out-of-state licensing requirements for telehealth, which includes restriction on obtaining out-of-state licenses solely for telehealth and allowable telehealth activities for out of state activities (educational vs consultative activities). New licensing language in policy is in-line with UW Physicians (UWP) and Children’s University Medical Group (CUMG) requirements. VA exception for out-of-state licensure
Events of Interest
- GME Lunch & Learns
- April GMEPAC Process for AY24, recording available and application posted (deadline is July 25, 2022)
- May 19: MedHub Procedure Certification, recording and slides available
- June – cancelled
- AY23 schedule posted
- GME Program Administrators Meeting: PA Wellness Workshop; Tuesday, August 9, 8:30-10:30am
- Seattle Pride Parade: Sunday, June 26, 2022, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Fourth Avenue, Downtown Seattle Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year we are limited to 200 participants, and we will fill the spots on a first-come, first-served basis. Please RSVP to let us know that you’re interested in volunteering and/or participating. All participants will receive a UW Medicine Pride t-shirt (while supplies last).
- The Life After Residency Seminar is on Saturday August 27th (registration will open in July). This event is intended to educate and support graduating trainees on their transition to independent practice. Featured speakers typically discuss topics such as writing cover letters, negotiating salary and benefits, how to read your employment contract and more. Trainees of all levels are invited to attend.
- Other GME Events including AY23 can be found on our calendar.
Projects and Resources
- UW Medicine has launched a multi-phase, multi-year renovation project to protect important clinical areas located below ground level from water intrusion at UW Medical Center – Montlake and the Health Sciences Building. For details, visit our website or read staff FAQs.
- Starting June 21, shuttle stops at UWMC change. In the next few weeks, crews will install fencing screens to contain the work areas in the front entry and patios. At that time, the third floor BB entrance will be closed but the main entrance to the hospital will remain open throughout this phase of the construction. While all shuttles to our Montlake campus will continue to operate, stop locations will change starting June 21. Please plan additional travel time. For details, read the shuttle stop change update.
- On May 23, Dr. Joyner emailed the GME Community with a Recruitment Season 2023 Update. In line with the AAMC recommendation, we are requiring now that all of our programs have a virtual-only interview format for this recruitment cycle. In-person and “blended” (virtual and in-person) interviews will not be allowed this year including for UW medical students and candidates performing sub-internships at UW. Please see email for more details.
- Over the last year, the GME Office has transitioned from a live Chief Resident and Fellow seminar to a webpage chock full of resources that will guide Chief Residents and Fellows through their appointment. Please review the resources available on our Chief Resident and Chief Fellow Resources webpage. Our intent is to regularly update this page and fill it with not only what we think Chiefs should know, but also what they want to know, and Chief recommendations for peers as they enter their Chief year.
- Grant Funding is Available for Projects to Improve Patient Care Delivery: Apply Now for Up To $50K. The UW Medicine Patients Are First Innovation Pilots recognize and empower faculty and staff to collaborate and explore solutions with grants for projects addressing patient care experience, clinical outcomes and/or delivery of care. Learn more and submit your project application by June 21.
- The UW Medicine Center for Scholarship in Patient Care Quality and Safety is proud to announce the (re)-launch of QI Match. QI Match is an online web platform to match collaborators to quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across UW Medicine. Projects get posted to the site and any faculty, student, staff, or trainee can notify the project lead of their interest. Projects that are posted to QI Match may be a single event (such as a patient safety root cause analysis or a QI focus group) or longer term QI projects. Get started today.
- Please see a recent highlight of ACGME resources and opportunities:
- The ACGME is offering additional self-directed ACGME Equity Matters content in Learn at ACGME. The latest release includes modules about racial and ethnic experiences, as well as identities and populations. These educational resources provide diverse perspectives while raising historical and current injustices in the medical education system in an organized and intentional way. The materials are designed for organizations with leadership support, as well as resources and infrastructure commitments to equity for making meaningful change. (Note: A free account is required to access content in Learn at ACGME.)
- ACGME Coordinator Advisory Group Call for Nominations: The ACGME is accepting nominations for the next cohort of the Coordinator Advisory Group, which serves as a consultative body concerning coordinator, graduate medical education, learning environment, and accreditation matters. Members will serve three-year terms, from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026. Additional information, including the group’s charge, information about the nomination process, the nomination form, and the disclosure form, can be found on the Coordinator Advisory Group page of the ACGME website. Completed nomination packets are due August 15, 2022. Please contact Amanda Easton by Friday, August 5, if you are a Program Director interested in nominating a Program Administrator or if you are Program Administrator interested in joining the Group and need DIO assistance with the nomination form.
- 2022 – 2023 ADS Annual Webcast and Q and A: The webcast on the ADS Annual Update from May 26, 2022 is now available to view in the ACGME’s online learning portal, Learn at ACGME. The session provided an overview of the changes made to questions in the ADS Annual Update regarding Common Program Requirements and programs’ experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, a third part to the COVID-19 questionnaire with questions for program directors will not be introduced this year as originally planned. The ACGME has created an accompanying Q and A document, available in the ADS Help Desk and Learn at ACGME. A free account is required to access Learn at ACGME. Email questions about the webcast to accreditation@acgme.org.
- Revised Milestones Available: Updated versions of more than 20 Milestones are now available. Programs will officially start using the new Milestones in July 2022, with the first reporting in January 2023. See the Milestones page of the ACGME website.
- Meeting and Agenda Closing Dates Posted: Meeting dates are listed on the overview page of each specialty section on the ACGME website. While many specialties have already updated their information, updates may continue until July 1, 2022.
- Milestones Year End Reporting: The Milestones reporting window is now open and closes Friday, June 24, 2022. Milestones assessments can be submitted via ADS.
- Please remember to check the GME website where many current forms, policies, processes, and educational resources are posted. We also appreciate your feedback about what else we can add to make it more useful. The GME Report a Concern form is a way for community members to report concerns to the GME Office (including the opportunity to report confidentially).
People
- Nauzley Abedini, assistant professor (Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine) is the new Assistant Program Director for Wellness in the Internal Medicine Residency Program, co-leads the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence’s (CPCCE) Global and Cross Cultural Palliative Care Initiative, is a consultant to the Cambia Palliative Care Training Center, and is a member of the CPCCE’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. She is also a co-director for the upcoming 2022 Pacific Northwest Palliative Care Conference on June 13, “Lifting Voices & Building Bridges: Working Towards an Inclusive Future for Palliative Care.” Read more about her on the Department of Medicine news site.
- Alwiya Ahmed, R2 (Medicine), is quoted in “Nearly half of patients at high risk for lung cancer delayed screening follow-up” in Medical Xpress.
- Mariam Alam and Caitlin Crimp will co-lead a project titled, “Mitigating Bias and Burnout Through Patient-Centered Narrative Medicine,” focused on developing a narrative medicine curriculum for dermatology residents, with the aim to improve residents’ understanding and connection to patients and mitigate both bias and resident burnout. Dr. Andrea Kalus, Associate Professor, and Dr. Michi Shinohara, Associate Chief for the Division of Dermatology, will both serve as faculty mentors for the project. This project was awarded funds from the ACGME Back-to Bedside initiative.
- Priyanka Anand and Hao Tong were winners at the Washington Chapter American College of Physicians Spring Scientific Scholarship Day. Dr. Anand won the Oral Abstract Resident Presentation: “Online Patient Portal Use Among Marginalized Groups at a Safety Net Hospital” and Dr. Tong was Top Poster Winner: “Care for Patients Receiving Comfort Measures Only: Experiences of Bedside Nurses.”
- Omar Bayomy, fellow (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) has been selected as the new Chair of Development for the University of Washington Housestaff Quality & Safety Committee (HQSC) leadership board for the 2022-23 academic year. The HQSC is a trainee-led organization chartered under UW Graduate Medical Education and the UW Patient Safety & Quality Coordinating Committee that strives to engage trainees in the quality and safety work pursued everywhere throughout UW Medicine.
- Omar Bayomy, fellow (Medicine), and his mentors, Kathleen Ramos, assistant professor and Christopher Goss, professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine), have received funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for their project: Hemoptysis and serious outcomes in cystic fibrosis.
- Ermias Diro, R3 (Medicine), is lead author of “Adherence to chronic hepatitis B screening guidelines for persons from intermediate to high prevalence countries” in the Journal of Community Health. DOM co-authors are Maria Corcorran, Ayushi Gupta, Kristine Lan and H. Nina Kim. This work was made possible with the support of the AID/DOM Research Collaboratory.
- Chronic Hepatitis (Hep) B infection disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries such as those in South East Asia and Africa. The CDC recommends a single blood test for Hepatitis B virus for anyone born in a region with 2% or greater prevalence. This screening guideline is relevant for a large immigrant population in Seattle. Together with H. Nina Kim, Ermias Ejara, R3, performed a retrospective study of guideline adherence among adults treated within UW affiliated primary care clinics between 2016 and 2019. A study of local medical records showed low likelihood of guideline-concordant screening for Hepatitis B and high prevalence of infection among those screened. This research highlights a need for new strategies to meet this important care gap for communities like the East African community in Seattle, to which Dr. Ejara belongs.
- Mary Ezeanuna, fellow (Medicine), is lead author, and Namrata Singh, assistant professor (Rheumatology) is senior author of “Association of rheumatoid arthritis with mortality in chronic kidney disease: a cohort study” in Clinical Rheumatology. DOM co-authors are David Prince and Nisha Bansal.
- Seth Judson, R3, is lead author of “COVID-19 data reporting systems in Africa reveal insights for future pandemics” in Epidemiology & Infection.
- Seth Judson, R3 (Medicine), is the editor for a recently published collection of articles called Ecology and Evolution of Coronaviruses: Implications for Human Health. He is also lead author of the editorial “Ecology and Evolution of Coronaviruses: Implications for Human Health” in Frontiers in Public Health.
- Barbara Jung, professor and chair of Medicine, is quoted in “CRC Screening: Blood Test Accuracy Compared to Colonoscopy” in Medscape.
- Mike Leu is recipient of Physicians in American Medical Informatics Association’s 2022 Innovator of the Year award for creating the first electronic match for clinical informatics fellowship programs.
- G. Burkhard Mackensen will serve as Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, beginning June 16th. Permanent Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. He has served as the department’s interim chair since November 2020.
- George Mo, R1 (Medicine), was selected to receive a 2022 Hematology Opportunities for the Next Generation of Research Scientists (HONORS) Award from the American Society of Hematology (ASH). This award supports medical students and residents conducting hematology-related research and provides them with the opportunity to attend annual conferences. Dr. Mo is researching cell phenotypes in CAR T cell therapy with Dr. Brian Till, associate professor.
- Preethy Pankaj (Neurology) participated in the recent Harborview Medical Center The Joint Commission (TJC) Review Stroke Survey. The TJC representatives were very impressed with her work with Interpreter Services on a review of stroke symptoms. Natalie Weathered (Neurology Program Director) and Preethy summarized her work as follows: As a resident running stroke codes Preethy realized that non-English speakers have significant delays in their acute stroke evaluations. Given that an estimated 1.9 million neurons die per minute in each minute1, each minute of delay has potential to significantly impact the outcome in those individuals. While probably all staff know that involving an interpreter causes critical delays, Preethy didn’t just accept that as the status quo. Rather, she has designed a series of interventions to help. The first, is that she coordinated with our translator services to create a phone number that we call during a stroke code that bypasses all of the initial questions regarding patient demographics. The number also connects us more rapidly with an interpreter. The next intervention is that the interpreters who participate in this program have been educated as to what a stroke is, why there is urgency in our evaluation, and what our evaluation consists of. The interpreters are also educated about the NIH stroke scale itself. In addition, Preethy is now trialing more commonly used English words in an attempt for the provider to assess dysarthria . This education will hopefully aid them in helping us in a more timely fashion because they will better understand our process and goals. The education that is given to the interpreters is accomplished through a 10 minute video that Preethy created herself. Dr. Weathered noted “ Preethy is one of those special people who was simply meant to be a doctor. I have no doubt that she will continue to help patients from all walks of life and is going to continue to make UW proud.” [1Saver JL. Time is Brain – Quantified. Stroke. 2006;37:263-266.]
- Anneliese Schleyer, professor (General Internal Medicine) will take on new leadership roles as interim chief medical officer of UW Medicine and interim vice president for medical affairs University of Washington, effective July 1. As interim chief medical officer, Schleyer will oversee more than 4,500 clinicians, provide strategic guidance on the integration of clinical practice with education and research activities across all UW Medicine sites, and is responsible for physician led activities to improve the quality of care and clinical practice transformation. Read more from The Huddle.
- Chenwei Wu has been awarded the 2022 Gene Peterson Award on behalf of the University of Washington Housestaff Quality and Safety Committee. The Gene Peterson award was named after Dr. Peterson, who had a great appreciation for the involvement of trainees in the fields of quality improvement and patient safety, and for the unique perspective they bring at the University of Washington. HQSC members cited Dr. Wu’s tireless commitment to fostering productive discussions regarding trainee reported PSNs at Squirrel meetings, his mentorship of numerous housestaff led quality improvement efforts, and his leadership in many QIPS educational endeavors. HQSC members additionally spoke of his ability to empower leadership and ownership amongst housestaff in their QIPS projects.
- Jay Yao (R4) has been selected and granted a scholarship to participate in the Orthopaedic Research Society’s Clinician Scholar Career Development Program.
- Congratulations to the 2022 Radiology Graduates!
- The American Society of Hematology (ASH) Hematology-Focused Fellowship training Program (HFFTP) is an exclusive pathway that offers physicians the opportunity to pair comprehensive classical hematology training with career-enhancing education in transfusion medicine, sickle cell disease, hemostasis/thrombosis, as well as fields like medical education, systems-based hematology, outcomes research, health equity research, global health, safety/quality improvement, lifespan hematology, and more. Funded entirely by ASH, 10 new hematology-focused fellowship tracks have been created within existing hematology-oncology programs at nine rigorously selected institutions accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) across the United States. HFFTP aims to strengthen the next generation of hematologists, with the goal of producing 50 new academic hematologists by 2030. The UW HFFTP will be led by Hematology Professors Mike Linenberger, program director, and David Garcia, associate program director.
by amande | Jun 9, 2022 | Announcements, News
Please join us in welcoming Howard Schafer, our new GME Wellness Counselor! Howard starts with us Monday, June 27. Howard is a marriage and family therapist, with over 20 years of experience. He has worked in multiple medical settings with a diverse population. His strong clinical skill set, a sense of compassion, deep respect and commitment to health and wellness will enhance our team and serve our trainees well. We are thrilled to have him on board! Look for Howard’s schedule to open on Schedulicity soon – more details to follow.
Below is Howard’s welcome message to the GME community:
In the midst of the winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.
~Camus
A bit about me…
I have been a marriage and family therapist for over two decades, working as a counselor and guide for hundreds of clients over the years. It’s been an honor and privilege to call this my life’s work. But this is just the beginning of my story…
I am inextricably connected to my professional skills, bringing my own life experiences marching from the beat of a different drum. Beginning with an AB degree in Literature and Cross Cultural Communication that took me around the world; to an MA in English Literature; to a college instructor teaching English as a Second Language; then an MS in Psychology and the true start of my avocation. Life has always had its winters but it’s always taken me to the place I needed to be at that time.
This mosaic of experiences has brought to my practice a healthy sense of humor, successes and failures and a respectful reverence for the art and mystery of this work which in turn has fortified my commitment to the health and wellness community. I have worked in multiple medical settings with a diverse population focusing on stress and crisis management, depression, anxiety, grief, mood and eating disorders, in addition to LGBTQ+, academic, and work related issues.
My role as a therapist is as a compassionate ally and guide. My approach provides each individual a safe environment as they rediscover their own language and re-chart or re-author their lives in order to find meaning and balance in a world that sometimes feels out of control. My solution-focused approach incorporates motivational interviewing, mindfulness and narrative practices.
I believe in the importance of holding hope when things are really bad, and when they continue to get worse. I hold onto the hope that people can change, circumstances can change and despite where you are now, the power of human persistence and perseverance will prevail.
But this isn’t the end of my story…
The beauty of the PNW has been inspirational since we moved here 30 years ago…the forests…the beaches…the green, and, even the rain.
The arts are a big part of my life. As are peaceful trips to the Oregon Coast and hikes in the forest. But the moments that provide the greatest pleasure are having a great conversation with friends over an amazing meal, or just hanging out with my wife and cats (yes, Henri has a sister)…and a dose of daily meditation and exercise doesn’t hurt.
A bit about my assistant Henri…he’s a slow typist and takes a few too many naps. He’s also easily distracted by a seemingly “empty” belly. But he’s an affable chap and a reliable friend and ally.
I am excited to embrace a new path in my life as I join the GME Wellness team. This is an incredible opportunity to help support the UW medical residents, fellows and their partners during this challenging and rewarding time in their career.
by amande | Jun 7, 2022 | Announcements
Dear Graduating Residents and Fellows,
This has been yet another unusually challenging year, with continued loss of human life from COVID-19 and gun violence, social and economic disruption, and dramatic disparities in healthcare. You have completed your training amidst all these crises – and so much stress.
We want to thank each of you for being present on the front lines and helping care for our patients. Thank you for your commitment to learning and teaching. Thank you for trusting UW Medicine with your development. Despite all the chaos and the unknown, we hope that your learning environment has been safe and your education memorable.
Some of you have been with us just a short time, some much longer. Thanks to each of you for your efforts in supporting the UW Medicine mission: “to improve the health of the public.”
As we say goodbye to you, those graduating, this time of the year is both joyful and bittersweet. For the first time in 2 years, though, we hope you will be able to celebrate your success at an in-person graduation event. For those of you who have alternate virtual graduation plans, we hope that you can celebrate in the way you feel most comfortable.
Our hope is that you have become better a doctor/dentist because of being here. Our community is certainly better for having had you with us. We are proud of you and look forward to the contributions you will make to the field of medicine/dentistry as a representative of the University of Washington.
Congratulations and best of luck!
Cindy Hamra, JD, MA
Assistant Dean, Operations and Administration
Jennifer Best, MD
Associate Dean, Accreditation and Education
Byron Joyner, MD, MPA
Vice Dean for GME and DIO