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President'due south Column: What's On Our Plate

 President'southward Column

 Nov 2, 2021

What's on our plate as departments?  Similar many sectors of guild, we are facing "The Great Resignation," as it has been chosen. A year and a half of pandemic uncertainty and staring mortality in the face have prompted many burned-out workers to rethink their careers and deeply question the role of work in their lives.  If you are facing the loss of employees in your department, you are not alone.  According to many sources, close to half of the workforce is considering leaving their employment this twelvemonth.  Not surprisingly, resignations are highest in the tech and health care industries, where the pandemic-driven increment in demand led to increased workloads and burnout.  A broad range of experts from economists to psychologists have weighed in, and many are suggesting an existential crunch of sorts.  UC-Berkeley economist Ulrike Malmendier suggests that the pandemic and the rise of remote work accept changed the fashion nosotros view our lives and the earth.

Behavioral Scientist Aaron McEwan suggests that employees want to be seen equally more than than but workers, but as complex homo beings with rich, full lives.  Many people are existence driven less by appetite and advancement, searching for fewer hours, less responsibility, and less stress.  His advice to employers is to seize this one time-in-a-generation opportunity to "reconfigure piece of work and then that it'due south actually designed for this new world that nosotros find ourselves in." He argues that "[t]he way that we work, especially in offices, is leftover from the 20th century, arguably the 19th century," and suggests that "[w]e piece of work nine to five because that'southward when the sun is upwardly. We worked in offices considering chances are no ane had a calculator in their house, let alone a fax machine or whatsoever of those things." So what does this mean for our departments? How do we reply to irresolute ideas nigh the value of work and the goals of our workers?

Harvard had a terrific webinar earlier this month called "The Dandy Resignation," in which they gave the following important recommendations for holding on to your employees in the midst of this "Great Resignation:"

1. Exercise things explicitly that you would have commonly washed at the water cooler.  Meet with people to check-in, see how they are doing, empathise their burdens (work and personal) and observe out what they are excited nigh in the futurity.
2. Remind your employees of the importance of the organization'southward mission, celebrate the satisfaction and joy in its accomplishment, connect people very intentionally to the mission, and emphasize how they are personally making a departure.  This has been hard with restricted activities and reduced didactics.
3. Understand that nosotros are in a marathon instead of a sprint now and adjust appropriately.  Now that we take figured out methods to survive the challenges of the pandemic, we need to transition to do more than than survive – at present we need to take time to reflect on the beautiful, wonderful, desirable things that we accomplish in our piece of work every 24-hour interval.

Panelists on the webinar emphasized that we have all been in avoidance manner- avoiding the virus and fugitive people - and that this combined stress has been punctuated past relief at each period nosotros survive.  But at present we demand to create moments non just of calm or relief, but of real joy and satisfaction.

One of my favorite leadership quick reads is Lencioni's The Iii Signs of a Miserable Job . In his book, Lencioni identifies the three signs of job misery equally anonymity, irrelevance, and "immeasurement" and defines them equally follows:

• Anonymity: Employees experience anonymous when their employer has niggling interest in them equally people with unique lives, aspirations, and interests.
  
• Irrelevance: Irrelevance occurs when workers cannot run across how their chore makes a deviation. "Every employee needs to know that the work they exercise impacts someone'due south life -- a customer, a coworker, even a supervisor -- in ane way or another," Lencioni says.
  
• Immeasurement: This term describes the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contributions or success. Equally a issue, they often rely on the opinions of others -- usually the manager -- to measure out their success.

And so, in applying these principles to my own department, I volition be working towards combatting these three signs of misery to avert the great resignation hitting my department. For me, that means at least the post-obit:

• More face time with faculty and staff
• More time spent developing each individual equally a kinesthesia fellow member
• More emphasis on mission and how each person plays a key role in that mission
• More evaluation of key performance indicators relative to our strategic plan to make certain people feel engaged in the mission.

By taking these steps, I hope to brand sure that my faculty and staff feel valuable, connected, and engaged in meaningful work.  What exercise you see as the challenges of "The Great Resignation" to your department and how will yous respond? The demand for a vibrant and growing family medicine specialty demands that we call back hard about these questions.

Chelley Alexander, G.D.

ADFM President, 2020-2021

What else is on our Plate at ADFM? ADFM continues to benefit from extraordinary leaders who are moving our initiatives forward! Look at all of these initiatives below!

Fellowships

We have two incredible fellowships this year.  Program now to put them in your budget to continue to abound your faculty expertise.

Leadership Education for Academic Development and Success (LEADS) Fellowship

Expansion to the LEADS fellowship is underway, with support from the ABFM-Foundation and has grown to 13 fellows this year.  The fellowship has taken a big step forrard in calculation a dedicated, paid director and mentors for 2022.  The fellowship has an expanded curriculum, formal learning communities, and a new summer workshop. Applications are due Summer 2022, so plan now to identify an up-and-coming leader to apply.

Edifice Research Chapters (BRC) Fellowship

The BRC fellowship is a popular new opportunity this year, boasting 14 new fellows (the hope was to recruit 4 fellows the initial year!).  The fellowship will equip fellows with skills in leadership, research arrangement and kinesthesia evolution.  Candidates will exist modify agents for edifice their organization's chapters for producing scholarly activity.  Applications for adjacent year'due south accomplice open up in mid to tardily July 2022, and then programme at present to place a faculty member to utilize.

Family Medicine Committee on Anti-Racism (FM-Machine)

We are excited to take the side by side stride in our journeying to advance issues of anti-racism and diversity and wellness disinterestedness within Family Medicine.  The family of Family Medicine is working together to develop and coordinate the implementation of an antiracism roadmap for the specialty, including measures of success and a communication programme.   While each organisation has its ain unique plan and has fabricated progress in that regard, the FM-Machine committee will make a recommendation on issues of mutual priority within the Family of Family Medicine. The committee will be led by Danielle Jones and her team at the AAFP Center for Diverseness and Health Equity.  If you accept ideas or want to be more involved, achieve out to our representatives, Amanda Weidner and Beth Wilson.

2022 Annual Conference in Beautiful Denver, Colorado!

The agenda is shaping upwards for an incredible in-person (with safety measures) briefing with lots of fourth dimension to recall how to socialize!  If you have become somewhat feral during the COVID pandemic, register for the conference and relish the live company of your friends and colleagues!

Our opening plenary volition focus on the complicated interaction between our health and our planet'due south health (suggested reading is the book Changing Planet, Irresolute Health) . Dorsum past popular demand volition be the always enlightening leadership dilemmas workshop and we are adding a workshop for all on advocacy.  Nosotros are as well excited this twelvemonth to have a special focus on living with the tension betwixt our clinical and bookish missions, besides as ignite discussions led by our LEADS fellows.   Wait for much more particular in the newsletter!

President's Column

July 27, 2021

I would like to recall, afterward this pandemic experience, that I am better at modify - that the shock of being thrown into an apocalyptic, pandemic world with constantly changing rules and priorities has fabricated me more able to exist flexible going forward.  I similar to recall that I tin pivot more than easily, take things in stride, and perform small miracles, such as virtual visits or developing online curricula on the fly - And maybe, just possibly, in that location is some truth to that.

When our medical school last week announced a merger with our independent non-profit teaching hospital and announced the CEO of our hospital was now too our new dean, my initial reaction was but "that'due south interesting."  Possibly after the yr we have had nothing can surprise me.  Perchance the theme of the by yr (or more) has been, only, "change."

I have institute myself reviewing all of my favorite articles and books on alter lately, and I notice that Kotter'due south eight-step process for leading modify seems old fashioned in this fourth dimension of unprecedented change. The concept of "edifice a sense of urgency" seems laughably obvious – everything is urgent. Whether confronting a newly merged medical education system, an international pandemic, or maybe "new-to-you" racial inequities that horrify you, urgency is the new, pervasive normal.  Even strategic planning seems passe or naïve as nosotros are pummeled by change so chop-chop that pivoting to respond seems to be the standing guild of the twenty-four hours.

I have been searching for wisdom and, more specially, for wisdom for THIS moment.  The well-nigh comforting wisdom that I can find is simply this:

1. Nosotros are in the right field, doing the right thing.  Family Medicine physicians go on to be pioneers that tin can flex to assistance any person in any circumstance.  This is especially true amongst unpredictable, widespread change. If you think of your medical school's near immediate and effective responses to COVID-19 – testing, precautions, prevention, didactics, I bet many of them were spearheaded by family physicians. This makes u.s. invaluable and impactful, and what else can we ask for merely to go out a marking on the world, to make a difference?
2. The fundamental to leading amidst change is knowing which critical values nosotros MUST hold on to no matter the price, while recognizing what must change no matter the price. What patients need to be treated and why?  That cannot change.  How, and where - that we tin flex on.
3. Alter volition happen no thing what, and oft happens to united states without our consent.  Our choice is then whether to be open to growth in that process, to participate actively in the change process, and to endeavour to guide that change in a positive management and grow ourselves personally in the process.  Are nosotros also quondam to learn?  Will we get bitter or better?

As I piece of work through the changes in my institution over the next yr and consider the possibilities that these changes nowadays, I will effort to adhere to the newfound flexibility and openness to change that the pandemic has reminded me is possible and is critical to success and improvement in the hereafter.

I encourage my faculty regularly to stay flexible, remain committed to our values, and strive to get amend; but also to remain open to change and all the growth that comes with information technology. With this attitude, I promise nosotros tin can all successfully navigate our changes to improve the health of our communities.

Thankfully, nosotros are blessed with experienced and supportive colleagues in ADFM – colleagues who are happy to assist in an ADFM organization that is defended to supporting u.s.a. all as we experience rapid, unrelenting change.

The NASEM Report

In April of 2021, the National Academy of Medicine examined the electric current state of master care in the The states and adult an implementation plan to build upon the recommendations from the 1996 IOM report, Master Care:  American's Health in a New Era, to strengthen primary intendance services in the United States, especially for underserved populations, and to inform principal care systems around the globe.  This was the kickoff report in 25 years on creating loftier-finish master care. Their first report, put out in 1996, was instrumental in moving the needle but did not take us to where we needed to be. These reports tend to be used by payers, policy makers, and specialty organizations (such as the AMA and AAMC) to make broad policy decisions. The study has implications for ADFM's strategic plan, and for your individual departments equally well.

I am hopeful that the NASEM written report can help push forward some of the change we demand for FM to flourish in the rapidly evolving healthcare environs.  Members of ADFM had a chance to discuss the written report and its implications for our Departments on a WebEx with Co-Chair Bob Phillips, and Warren Newton of ABFM on Th, July 15 thursday .

Cardinal to the recommendations is the declaration that primary intendance should be a common good, every bit it is the only part of the health care organization that results in longer lives and more equity.  The study calls for payment reform, better financial support for primary care services and institutions, and for the training of residents in the communities we want them to work in.  It also emphasizes better Information technology infrastructure to back up primary care, a robust inquiry funding institution be established, and a coordinating Secretary'southward Council on Primary Care to enable the vision of master care captured in the committee's definition.  The discussion from the July 15 th Webinar will be used past our leadership to help determine what we every bit departments and ADFM as an system can practise to assist implement the reports' recommendations.  We appreciate all those who participated!

Open Board Positions

Now is your chance to get involved!  The board meets 4 to v times a year (twice in person, the remainder virtually) and provides leadership for the ADFM organization.  If you lot are looking for a way to get more than involved, this is a not bad fashion to do and so!  The conversation and visitor are splendid, and y'all have a chance to bear upon departments of family unit medicine around the country. The formal call for applications volition be released in the Fall, simply at present is a great time to consider joining the ADFM Board of Directors! If y'all are interested, we accept the following positions open starting in Feb 2022:  President-Elect, Treasurer, two member-at-large positions, Conference Planning Committee Chair (Chair of conference in 2025), Education Transformation Committee Chair.  Please join usa!

It'southward Time for LEADS Fellowship Applications

Accept good leaders in your section? Now is the time to send united states your best and brightest and help usa railroad train upwardly the side by side generation of leaders!  Applications are due by  August 2, 2021.  You tin encourage your faculty to apply hither https://forms.gle/kgsXZpUYZB4jUgW16  / . For more details on the program and eligibility requirements - please visit our site: https://adfm.org/programs/leads-fellowship/  or achieve out Sam Elwood ( selwood@adfm.org ).

This is role of our strategic programme/yard scheme with ABFM to take over the universe with family Physicians past preparing a large number of well-trained leaders to serve in whatsoever role our systems need leadership in.  Consider nominating 1 of your faculty and putting this in your ongoing budget to send one fellow a twelvemonth.  Help us brand that a reality!

Have Advantage of a NEW Research Fellowship!

Nosotros are besides accepting applications for our inaugural class of BRC (Building Research Capacity) fellows!  Sponsored by NAPCRAG and ADFM together, we are launching this fellowship for the 2022-2023 year. Does your section need to increase its research and scholarly output?  Practice you lot need to foster an environment of academic enquiry? ADFM in association with NAPCRG has created the Building Enquiry Capacity Fellowship to teach individuals how to build enquiry capacity within their departments and institutions.

For more information click this link: Building Enquiry Capacity Fellowship ( adfm.org/programs/building-research-capacity-fellowship/...
For those interested, here is the awarding: forms.gle/ZosPvcUzct8FuLMY9

Applications close August fifteen.

2022 Conference in Person!

Its fourth dimension to plan to nourish our 2022 conference in cute Denver, Colorado! Cake out the dates on your agenda Feb 23-26, 2022 and join us downtown in the Sheraton for fellowship and learning!

Chelley

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  President'south Column

Apr fourteen, 2021

Welcome to spring!  This year feels a bit unlike, as though life is returning not only to our trees and flowers but also to us every bit though we have been in hibernation and are just emerging into hope again. What's not on our plate?  Would probably be the ameliorate question for this column in April of 2021. This incredibly difficult year seemed to magnify everything – healthcare disparities, political division, depression and anxiety, structural racism, the importance of being seen and heard, and the importance of communion with others.  I miss laughter and hugs and family gatherings and in-person kinesthesia meetings and conferences.  But nosotros are emerging! And then at present is the time to build on the lessons learned from the past year.

Our almanac conference Feb 17-20 was appropriately themed "Crisis as a Stimulus for Lasting, Positive Alter," and it was amazing!  I am so impressed with the difficult work of Linda Speer and Amanda Weidner and the entire planning and staff teams.  To shift every bit you all did to a virtual format and provide such expert content was incredible. We so appreciate everyone continuing to back up the conference despite its virtual format.  One benefit of a virtual conference is that many of our keynote speakers take posted their slides and there is a video of all the keynotes!  If you missed any of the lectures, I highly recommend going back and listening to them equally they were insightful and impactful.  Check out the link at the fellow member website .

I thing on our plate is structural racism. The past yr has highlighted the importance of focusing on this problem and taking physical steps to dismantle historic structural racism, while also preventing the institution of new racist political determinants of health. Daniel Dawes in his keynote challenged us to address the political determinants of health; to advocate for changes that will make a difference in wellness disparities.  Now is the time to ask what will your department practice? And to explore how you can advocate for alter.  Our colleagues besides challenged united states of america to motility the needle on racial justice in medical educational activity, and to create an anti-racism programme for our department.  How will yous rise to that challenge? Need inspiration?  Check out the link at the member website . Need assist figuring out how? Let usa know at ADFM and nosotros tin adapt another session with our DEI committee to help you accept steps. Nosotros ALL must have this on our plate.  What progress can we brand before February 2022? Would honey to hear your stories at the next ADFM conference.

Also, on our plate at ADFM is appropriately the creation of an advocacy commission led past Cynthia Haq. This new committee will build on an of import foundation in office built past Hope Wittenberg. During the conference, Promise laid out critical legislation that she has helped brand progress on over the concluding several months. There is a lot of practiced potential news in this report, including a re-set of caps for rural hospitals, also equally the potential for 1,000 new residency slots!  If there are new residency slots approved, there would be an awarding procedure probably in October o f 2021 for implementation in the 2022-2023 academic year. Promise has also been working difficult on Instruction Health Center funding, Title Seven primary care training and enhancement grants every bit well equally on funding for AHRQ Heart for Principal Care Research.    We appreciate Hope's advocacy and look frontward to future updates.  Looking to make a divergence in this space?  Don't forget STFM' s Gratuitous online advocacy form – https://www.stfm.org/facultydevelopment/onlinecourses/advocacycourse/overview as a great start stride for yourself, and for your kinesthesia.  Need more teaching on current academic FM central federal issues to be constructive?  Check out this link at STFM: https://www.stfm.org/about/advancement/resourcesandissues/   On a local level, to make an bear upon, get involved with your state AAFP chapter.  No dubiety future generations will ask you what did you practise during this crisis?  How did y'all atomic number 82 to promote change? Here is an opportunity! Get involved with our new advancement commission.

Some other exciting matter on our plate is the expansion of our LEADS fellowship this twelvemonth, with 17 fellows currently participating.  So many of you are serving as mentors, and nosotros profoundly appreciate your service in this regard.  ADFM has trained fellows to be future Chairs and other senior leaders of departments of Family unit Medicine since 2009, accommodating four-8 fellows per year.  Over the past year, withal, we accept reached an important milestone in our journey of growing the fellowship, in partnership with the ABFM Foundation under the leadership of Warren Newton.  Together with financial support from AB FM, we will be expanding the curriculum, hiring a office-fourth dimension managing director, and are expanding the fellowship over the adjacent few years with the intention of having 40 fellows a twelvemonth.  The goal is to train mid to late-career family unit medicine leaders interested in pathways to leadership in a diversity of roles academic health systems and should complement rather than duplicate other leadership training programs. We would love to farther train your electric current leaders, and then be thinking almost who from your department might benefit from inclusion in the fellowship for next twelvemonth and put that in your budget.

Finally, I would say on all our plates is 'exhaustion,' and developing a culture of health. Equally we emerge from our COVID hibernation, at least at my establishment, the level of burnout is high.  Dr. Chantal Brazeau asked an important question in her presentation: What are 3 words to describe the culture you lot would similar to see in your department? She offered up important measures to tell where you are in the journey towards a culture of wellness and offered specific examples of strategies to foster the culture of health in your department.  Practise you know the drivers of wellness in your organization?  Do you accept adequate peer support? This talk can put you on the road to driving a more supportive culture of health in your section. The pandemic has put a highlight on professional burnout and depression. How can we make lasting positive change in this space? What kickoff steps can you take in your section?

Lastly, I want to highlight our new board members and thank them for their willingness to serve!  This organization is an incredible source of support and ideas, and we couldn't do it without volunteers.  New board members include Dana Nguyen, Rich Lord, Peter Catinella, Allison Arendale, Deb Clements, and Harry Strothers.  These new members join established volunteer board members John Franko, Allen Perkins, Shade Omole, Elisabeth Wilson, Peter Carek, Dave Schneider, Megan McGhean, Michelle Roett, Irfan Asif, Annamalai Ramanathan, Cynthia Haq, and Terrance Steyer.  Nosotros are also thrilled to accept our new public board fellow member, Bryant Campbell, and to be led past our amazing Amanda Weidner!

Delight note that if you are looking to get more than involved in ADFM like our volunteers above, the ADFM committees are in the every 2 -year process of reforming – so information technology is a corking time for anyone interested in getting more involved with ADFM to join (all chair and ambassador members and associate members are welcome!)  Committees will also be updating their strategic goals along with this, and then our organizational strategic work plan will be updated in the coming months.

I am hoping for lots of in-person laughter and hugs for our next almanac conference. Knowing the criticality of fellowship fifty-fifty more keenly after this past year, we may accept to add together in actress time for communing and really relish our time together.

Accept care of yourself and make a lasting, positive alter!

More than e'er, now is the fourth dimension.

Chelley

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  President's Column

October 29, 2020

Merely 5 more days left until, well, something…

Hither we are in October and, so far, what a year it has been. I don't know about you merely I am tired of Zoom meetings and talk of COVID. However….

All Things COVID

Nosotros have all entered the brave new world of telehealth thank you to COVID. There has been an interesting discussion on the listing serve regarding how telehealth visits fit into our learners training portfolio. Many of y'all are having trouble with face-to-face visits as the novel coronavirus causes patients to avert waiting rooms and in-person encounters. ADFM, every bit a convener, managed to incorporate the voices of the RRC, the ABFM, and many of you into a very interesting give-and-take regarding the significant of the number 1650. Information technology is worth remembering that the RRC sets Plan requirements and the ABFM sets the Private requirements.

Family unit Medicine Residency Plan Requirement Major Revision

Which brings us to our significant attempt of the quarter, ADFM's contribution to the upcoming revisions to FM Residency Program Requirements. Equally yous are no uncertainty aware, the RRC makes major revisions to the programme requirements only every 10 to 15 years. We have been asked to provide vision, voice, and leadership to the process and many of you have answered the call. The way the revision process works is that we, every bit a Family of Family Medicine, provide input to the RRC. They then, through a third party vendor, utilise this input to create scenarios. It is through these scenarios that the final document is created and sent for review. Nosotros were asked to be conveners and seek input from Chairs, patients, and C-suite types and we are wrapping up that process at present. I remain in awe of how thoughtful and passionate you, my colleagues, are about the specialty. I am also amazed at the loyalty and practiced feelings our patients have for the specialty. In addition, we are finding out how valued generalists are every bit systems look to improve the health of populations.

Annual Conference, Zoom style

Atlanta volition have to await a couple of years (the hotel has given us a "shop credit" to be used at a after date) simply the 2021 Almanac Conference goes on, virtually speaking. We are pleased to have Daniel Dawes equally our keynote speaker and I would encourage you to read his volume, The Political Determinants of Wellness, prior to the conference. The program committee has washed their very best to try and retain the feel of the conference as nosotros all sit in our ain personal space. Please bring together us equally we focus on how we as departments can be a resource for those fighting systemic racism in healthcare, hash out how to deliver care equitably in the time of COVID, and how to work to create lasting, positive change. Larn how not to permit a good crunch go to waste, an important lesson in these times.

Lath News

Equally we prepare for our board meeting in November, the big news is that we say goodbye to our public member. Julie Moretz has been an active member of the Board for the past 3 years. She has been an amazing add-on, providing a voice that has been incredibly valuable. As many of you know, the addition of a public member was a pilot. We take elected to continue to back up having a public member and interviews for the position are ongoing. I would say replacement but there is no replacing Julie. She will be deeply missed by the Lath and others.

The other large news is that we have received money from the ABFM Foundation to expand the LEADS Fellowship. To date, the fellowship has been small and focused on developing candidates for the Chair role. With this funding, the LEADS Fellowship will be expanded in size (the number trained will expand) and in scope (an accent on leadership in all areas of healthcare). For those that want to participate, details will be forthcoming. Nosotros anticipate building on the work of the CAFM Leadership Development Chore Forcefulness for those of you who want to read ahead.

I will close with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr equally found in Daniel Dawes' book:

It may be true that the law cannot alter the center but it tin restrain the heartless. It may be true that the constabulary cannot brand a man love me only it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty of import, also.

Stay condom, article of clothing a mask, socially distance, and don't forget to vote on, or even better, before, November 3rd.

Allen

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  President'due south Column

July 30, 2020

Welcome – and thank you for your service.

I continue to be amazed that it has been only five months since we were together in New Orleans. Sir Michael Marmot left the states with a charge to leave the Annual Conference and right societal wrongs as they became credible. Little did nosotros know how rapidly that accuse would grow in importance.

All Things COVID

Just weeks after the finish of this yr'south conference, COVID was in the headlines, and emergency rooms. I was amazed and proud of the yeoperson piece of work many of you put in to take the lead in your organizations' response. From running inpatient COVID units, setting up drive-through testing centers, setting up telemedicine, and the many other jobs y'all did, please pat yourselves on the dorsum. Without the efforts of our members, America would exist weaker still. For some in the northeast, normalcy is approaching. For others of us in the southward and the west, the difficult part may be merely beginning. Proceed all of us in your thoughts and prayers and everyone stay rubber.

Consistent with our tagline (Vision, Voice, Leadership) and values, ADFM spoke out regarding our country's ability to meet this crisis. Calling for a consistent shelter at home society, contact tracing, and adequate PPE nosotros added our vox to those calling for a alter in "business organisation every bit usual" and protection for our healthcare workers, our statement was adapted and signed onto past all of the bookish Family Medicine societies. My promise is that because of our efforts, lives were saved.

Ane good to come up from this crisis is our "hot topics" serial, which evolved from the weekly open up forum debriefs during the first weeks of the pandemic. We have been offering the hot topic sessions on a bi-monthly basis as a forum for word of all things related to the posted topic. It is a proficient opportunity to meet up with colleagues and get some perspective. For those of the states knee-deep in coronavirus, perspective is welcome. Find goes out for these in accelerate so please join in the chat.

Another good to come up out of the crisis is the ability to disseminate information accurately and apace. Jen DeVoe and Amanda Weidner worked with the Annals of Family Medicine to create a web log (Family  Medicine Instance Notes from the Covid-19 Front Lines https://medium.com/case-notes-from-the-covid-nineteen-front-lines). I encourage you lot to go and cheque it out. It contains clinically relevant data as well as data that you can tap into to provide better, more than efficient care.

George Floyd's decease, Health Intendance Equity, and Black Lives Matter

Then our attention was called to racial inequity past the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Thing movement. Reminded in February of the importance of race in life expectancy, the need for formalized efforts to combat inequity, and the need to overcome institutional inertia, our members did not stay silent. Some were afflicted by the violence, many were affected by the demand for change. Resources were shared amongst our members and ideas on how to answer were shared equally well. The Board put out a statement that can be found on our dwelling house folio and includes the following:

As an organization, ADFM asks that each of our fellow member departments and associate members serve as office models for inclusiveness and seek out and embrace opportunities to include individuals with various backgrounds, opinions, experience, skills, and capabilities for the betterment of all individuals, their institutions, our organization, and order in general.

Nosotros continue to pledge to work towards equity in all we do. Specifically, nosotros are working on a typhoon policy argument and concurrent action plan with specific commitments and timelines, which the Board will exist reviewing in early on September and we will and then share with the membership. This policy volition include what ADFM tin can do as an organization, what we can practice collectively every bit a group of departments, what we can do with our collaborative partners like AAMC, STFM, and the balance of the Family, and what we tin do as individual departments. We will be focusing in detail on our role as leaders - eastward.g. advocating inside our institutions, calling attention to microaggressions, and making sure our employees are making a living wage. To this finish we have asked a number of questions on our annual survey to help start to directly our organizational and collective actions, especially the piece of work of the Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity committee - with plans to create a template diverseness plan for departments

AFMAC: The Mechanism for Policy Change

One of the things you may not be enlightened of is that we (ADFM) in conjunction with the other bookish Family Medicine societies have a quango (the Academic Family unit Medicine Advancement Quango, or AFMAC) through which we take ideas and convert them into advocacy positions that Hope Wittenberg helps us fight for. This council has been especially decorated over the past 5 months, as you might well imagine. In improver to the usual defence of Title VII, we were able to make some progress in the fight to fund rural residency programs, take a stand (and help change) the teaching md rules effectually virtual visits, and button for a viable primary care workforce. In add-on, the quango (more often than not Hope) keeps Family unit Medicine at the table for AHRQ and other cardinal agencies. This cannot work without YOU. Delight, if you are contacted, commit to contacting your representative and voice your support for Academic Family Medicine'due south position.

Board News

The Lath met in June and addressed the following:

• Approved adding an Administrator member to the Membership Commission.
• Agreed with the creation of a taskforce to make up one's mind the feasibility of an Advancement Commission that helps push button our legislative agenda frontwards.
• Revised our strategic workplan to include the Diversity, Inclusion & Wellness Equity typhoon SMART goals -- on our website under "About United states", at the lesser of the page here: https://adfm.org/near/about-usa/
• Ratified the creation of a consultative service around clinical care, built with input from the Edifice Research Capacity Initiative'due south consultation model.

Additionally, we are actively planning for what the 2021 budget year might bring, and whether we will motion our meeting nigh based on the status of the public wellness emergency and the preferences of our membership.

Reminders:

• Delight consummate the annual survey by August 17th (if y'all take non already done so) as your feedback will be very helpful for our organizational and strategic decisions and offerings in the coming year.
• We need a public member for our Board to supplant Julie Moretz. Nominations to Amanda Weidner, aweidner@adfm.org, please. And thank you to Julie for all of her difficult work.
• Applications for the upcoming LEADS Fellowship are due by August 17. This is an outstanding opportunity for growth for a rising leader in your department. And a huge thanks to Myra Muramoto for all she does as (volunteer) fellowship director.
• We have a new ORR representative, Austin Witt, introduced elsewhere in this newsletter. Thank you to all who sent in nominations. There are some very stiff individuals in the cohort of applicants which gives me hope for our future.

One of the strengths of our organisation is our power to play well in the sandbox with others. We are seen by others as an important ally. As the CEO of AAMC said in a recent coming together with usa, the only people with power in the medical school are deans and department chairs.

We in leadership try not to abuse that trust. I hope that we are representing y'all well. Please requite us feedback if we are not.

Stay safe,

Allen

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  President'south Column

May v, 2020

Wow, only 3 months ago we were in New Orleans, listening to Sir Michael Marmot discuss the need to pay attending to disparities across our patient populations. Now, here we are, in the heart of a once-in-a-generation (I promise) pandemic. I take-home betoken from the meeting that has certainly been brought dwelling house to me is the uneven distribution of healthcare, fifty-fifty in a pandemic. Living in a majority minority city, I scout my African-American patients and their family members succumb to the affliction in disproportionate numbers, and I am reminded of Sir Michael'south call to to fight for an finish to disparities.

I assume like myself, you were somewhat taken aback by the rapid spread of the virus throughout the country. I remain grateful that none of our members seem to have contracted the virus while nosotros were together in New Orleans. I am also in awe of the incredible leadership amongst our members that, when they got back to their respective departments, presently realized that the vandals were at the gate. Many of us took leadership positions inside our parent institution. A brief review of the ADFM listserv revealed that common areas for membership date were as follows:

• redeploying faculty and residents to cover for surges (or for the possibility of a surge)
• setting up COVID-19 testing tents and community outreach
• leading telehealth efforts at the institution and across
• promoting evidence-based resources
• creating student rotations for outreach to high-chance populations, deport contact tracing, and other creative opportunities (run across blog mail service)
• gathering information on impacts and outcomes
• issues of wellness and exhaustion facing our clinicians and staff

How has ADFM served equally a resource for y'all? I hope you have engaged in our agile listserv discussions around these topics. I know that, as we pursued many of these efforts at my institution, I accept relied on you lot to help with everything from ideas to operationalizing. Many of you take been very generous in your offer (and commitment) of advice and assistance for your colleagues. If we every bit a state survive intact, it will be because of people like you. I am only glad the organization was able to match those with knowledge to those with involvement. In addition, we have been working on new ways to share information and to maintain a library of resource that is more searchable than the list-serve. To that end, we have made the website more user friendly and more than of a repository for information of a less evanescent nature. You may observe these shared resources in our Bulldoze folder. In add-on, if you have not joined our weekly Open up Forum (Fridays) I encourage you to practise so. It is an opportunity to share ideas, commiserate, and show off your Zoom skills. Lastly, we helped to found the new Register of Family Medicine weblog. If yous have not been to it, please go and take a look at the stories and other data compiled every bit a resources for y'all. It is initially focused on Covid, and, with luck, we will before long be able to turn to more mundane bug such as non-Covid learner teaching.

Additionally, nosotros took reward of an opportunity to stay truthful to our mission statement (Vision, Voice, Leadership) and weighed-in on a topic of national importance. Nosotros determined, after a long listserve word, that information technology was of import for ADFM, as an organization, to comment on the impending health crises brought nearly past COVID-19 and the lack of leadership past policymakers. Based on our word, nosotros took the lead in creating and disseminating a policy statement calling for urgent actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in gild to protect the lives and safety of the public. This policy was signed past ADFM, STFM, AFMRD, NAPCRG, and ABFM and disseminated March 27th. Although small in numbers, we can have an outsized influence.

In summary, I could not be more than proud to be a fellow member of this organization. You take made a departure in untold means both at the macro and micro level. To paraphrase a friend of mine, I am proud to call myself a family unit medicine chair because of my association with you.

Continue upwardly the good work and stay safe,

Allen

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President's Column

Feb iii, 2020

Welcome all to 2020 - a new decade for ADFM!

The well-nigh of import affair on our plate is having a smooth (and then far successful) transition in Executive leadership from Ardis Davis to Amanda Weidner. Ardis Davis and Jeff Borkan have a commentary coming out in this month'southward Annals of Family Medicine well-nigh ADFM's growth and evolution over the past 15 years under Ardis' tenure as Executive Director and last month Amanda Weidner nicely articulated for us her firsthand vision for ADFM in areas of membership, communication, and data.

To help with this transition, we are streamlining our advice efforts starting with this column. You volition notice that the "What's On Our Plate" Presidential comments are at present incorporated into a regular Presidential cavalcade which volition come out quarterly in the ADFM Newsletter.

Equally we start off this new year, below are a few highlights regarding what is on ADFM'south plate as we enter into this new decade.

Highlights from the November Lath Coming together

To continue the plate illustration, the November ADFM Lath coming together was the meat and potatoes of the quarter. Central activity of the Lath included establishing a 3-twelvemonth, renewable term for a Public Member on the Board (pending member approval) and formation of a standing strategic committee devoted to Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity. Much Board attention was devoted to our strategic directions which you lot all will hear more about over the coming months in the class of webinars (e.chiliad. this month's webinars on telehealth), our Annual Conference (where we will characteristic our work on a Best Practice Guide for Student Option of Family Medicine), an "opt in" consultation service around healthcare commitment efforts, expansion and revamping of our successful ADFM Leadership Education for Bookish Evolution and Success (LEADS) fellowship with support from the American Board of Family unit Medicine Foundation, and growth and continued development of our Physician Scientist Pathway (PSP) programme, in collaboration with the American Board of Family Medicine.

ADFM is Growing!

On our plate equally well is making sure that our membership reflects the changing educational environment. The unit of measurement of Membership in ADFM is the Department and we are excited that we take received new Departments requesting to join ADFM in 2020. If all Departments from last year renew their dues for 2020 and all of the new Departments currently in the awarding process join, we will exist at around 155 fellow member Departments in 2020. There is a new policy taking effect this year which requires Department'south to pay their Chair, Administrator, and Associate member almanac dues prior to the Almanac Conference, in order to open up up registration for each category. This will aid streamline both the dues and registration processes.

Our growth will increase the diversity of thought and experience present at our Almanac Briefing. In this vein, ADFM is working closely with the Quango of Bookish Family Medicine (CAFM) to be intentional about increasing our diversity in leadership in academic family unit medicine.  All of the CAFM organizations have agreed to use their Member Profiles as a ways to rail diversity – y'all will note some variables we are tracking when you login to your contour to renew your Section's Membership (with Chair, Administrator, Associate categories). These data will assist us rail our progress as nosotros go on to move frontwards with CAFM around this leadership initiative.

CAFM Education Inquiry Alliance (CERA)'s Data Clearinghouse

As a reminder, in improver to the ability to submit questions for any of the CERA surveys (learn more here), ADFM Chairs and Administrators accept access to the CERA Clearinghouse of data for utilise in promoting scholarly activity within each of your Departments. This is a direct benefit to ADFM every bit a member of CERA. Yous can access this Clearinghouse from the CERA webpage at stfm.org under "By Topics and Data". Data which have non been published from by surveys of Program Directors, Chairs, and Clerkship Directors are available for your scholarly work. New in 2020 will exist data from surveys of residents and students.

External Reviews for Promotion

Always on our plate is helping you in your job every bit department Chair. You may retrieve the chat thread in 2019 on our ADFM listserv regarding external reviews for promotion. The ADFM Executive commission discussed this in depth, as did CAFM (Quango of Academic Family unit Medicine) and STFM (Lodge of Teachers of Family Medicine). In that location will be a breakfast session at the 2020 Almanac ADFM Briefing in New Orleans for those which wish to talk over further.

In the meantime, the Executive Committee has summarized the following as advice to those who are looking for Chairs and other Senior Faculty to assist with writing letters for Promotion:

1) While ADFM does not directly facilitate finding reviewers, the best way to find reviewers is through networking at our annual meeting and being a member of one of our committees. While we realize this is playing the long game it does pay off with time.

2) In the short term information technology is helpful to develop relationships with colleagues at peer institutions of equal size and who have equivalent measures of scholarly action (this may exist a list that ADFM can put together). Finding external reviewers requires not merely an equivalent rank just institutional equivalence as well.

3) Lastly, equivalency should take into business relationship bookish pathway. Be enlightened that what is chosen a clinical professor in i establishment may well exist an educational track in another (equally one instance).

Resources bachelor to ADFM every bit Inaugural Fellow member of Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM

In Feb 2019, ADFM joined the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM. We are the just family medicine organization every bit yet to have to do so.  As a effect, we will have access to resources fabricated available to "members merely" earlier going public.  Equally of at present, the resources center generally around drafting organizational policies (e.g. honors and awards policies) – just nosotros await the list of resource to grow over time.  We will keep y'all all informed as to useful policies and resources we encounter through our participation in this important work.

Nominations Committee Appointment.

Just earlier the holidays, the ADFM Board approved the appointment of Amy Keenum, DO, to the Nominations Committee. The current limerick of the Nominations committee is:

Chair

Kevin Grumbach, MD

Members

Deborah Clements, MD

Joseph Hobbs, MD

Amy Keenum, DO

Gary Shokar, MD

Barbara Thompson, Doc

Liaison/By Commission chair

Valerie Gilchrist, Md

Staff (Ex-Officio) Amanda Weidner, MPH

ADFM and Advancement around social issues.

We enter into this 2020 election year with much segmentation within our communities. I desire to remind you again that ADFM is ideally positioned to amplify the academic and young man specialty organizations' (e.g. AAFP, AAMC) positions on issues germane to the broader health of our patients (eastward.g. gun condom, separation of families, climatic change equally a public health concern).  Nosotros will continue to "button out" communications about these problems. Nosotros do this for ii reasons: a. To facilitate conversations among faculty and staff in your departments; and b. to help y'all and your faculty to engage students through your FMIGs. Medical students are at present concerned nigh social justice. Family Medicine'south engagement in bug impacting the health of our communities is wide and deep. Please make sure students are made aware of this   In his meeting with the Lath, Scott Shipman of the AAMC informed us of the importance of these problems going forward. He chosen our attention to the thoughts of AAMC CEO, David Skorton regarding healthcare implications of terminating DACA and gun violence.  We volition take a session on how to incorporate and facilitate challenging conversations inside your Departments around polarizing bug that touch our patients' health at the 2020 Annual Briefing.

Speaking of the Almanac Conference, don't forget to make reservations at your favorite New Orleans restaurant, bring your dancing shoes for Ardis Thursday, or read The Health Gap for Sir Michael Marmot's talk on Friday.

I am looking forward to seeing many of you lot in New Orleans!

Allen Perkins, Physician, MPH

President

ADFM

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Source: https://www.adfm.org/resources/presidential-column/

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