Invitation only

This annual session provides an opportunity for affinity group chairs and chairs-elect to engage in dialogue with one another and with the AAMC president and CEO and AAMC Board chair.

Separate registration required

In this workshop, participants will brainstorm research ideas, write, and refine a measurable research question. They will discuss when IRB approval is required for their study. The basics of research design will be discussed and applied to their selected research question.

Separate registration required. Register Today

The Academies Collaborative fosters and champions teaching academies and similar organizations to develop and recognize educators’ excellence in the health professions. This annual meeting is designed to foster collaboration, share best practices, and generate new ideas among health professions teaching academies who share a commitment to educators and excellence in teaching in the health professions.

AAMC Affinity Group members only

Biannual business meeting for the GSA's Northeast Group on Student Affairs (NEGSA). Business will include committee reports, recognition of outgoing committee members, and discussions around pressing issues and hot topics in student affairs that are affecting the northeast region.

AAMC Affinity Group members only

Biannual business meeting for the GSA's Western Group on Student Affairs (WGSA). Business will include committee reports, recognition of outgoing committee members, and discussions around pressing issues and hot topics in student affairs that are affecting the western region.

Invitation only

Closed meeting for those who have participated in the StandPoint Surveys.

Separate registration required

This workshop is intended for physicians and generalists in medical education, as well as faculty and staff involved in student affairs, who wish to develop perspectives and skills for collecting qualitative data, such as data from focus group discussions, interviews, observation field notes, and responses to open-ended questions. Such data may be used in admissions processes, program development, curriculum evaluation, needs assessments, performance evaluation, and various scholarship and research applications.

AAMC Affinity Group members only

Annual business meeting of the Group on Student Affairs (GSA). Open to all members of the GSA. Business covered will include AAMC's Student Affairs and Programs report, GSA national committee reports, leadership transitions, recognition of outgoing committee members, and presentation of the Exemplary Service Award.

Closed business meeting (confidential)

Closed meeting for senior leaders in medical education.

Open to all

The Society of Ultrasound in Medical Education (SUSME) will meet to review the organization’s major events and progress on ultrasound in medical education in 2019. Included will be reports on the seventh World Congress, hosted by the University of California, Irvine and plans for the eighth World Congress, hosted by Wayne State University in September 2020. There will also be an exciting update on ultrasound technology, artificial intelligence in medical education, and the chance to try out the latest in hand-held ultrasound technology. All AAMC meeting attendees who have an interest in ultrasound in medical education are welcome and encouraged to attend this session.

Open to all

Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD) Session: Trials and Triumphs of Curriculum Revision — Meaningfully Integrating Ethics and Humanities in Medical Education

Presenter: Nicole Piemonte, PhD, Assistant Dean for Medical Education, Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Education, Creighton University School of Medicine, Phoenix Regional Campus

Moderator: Kathleen Powderly, CNM, PhD, Director, John Conley Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities, SUNY Downstate Medical Center

AAMC Affinity Group members and friends

A wine and cheese reception co-hosted by the Group on Student Affairs (GSA) and Organization of Student Representatives (OSR). Please join your colleagues and students to review and discuss posters submitted by GSA and OSR members.

AAMC Affinity Group members and friends

This reception is open to all members of COTH, CMOG, GIR, GRA, and GFP.

Open to all

Join us to meet and mingle with colleagues who share roles and interest in regional medical campuses and distributed medical education.

AAMC Affinity Group members only

A breakfast and networking opportunity for members of the Group on Student Affairs.

Open to all.
This session will provide an update on the SVI 2020 administration, research, and next steps.

Closed business meeting (confidential)

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) Secretariat is available by appointment to meet with representatives from schools who seek guidance on issues unique to their schools. These in-person meetings could range from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the complexity of the discussion. Please complete and submit the online consultation request form to schedule a private consultation during the AAMC's annual meeting.

Bryan Stevenson is a committed, passionate, and eloquent defender of the incarcerated, the poor, and those oppressed by racism. As founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and the mastermind behind the National Lynching Memorial, Stevenson is not afraid to address the dark past of this country and the ongoing injustices that are far too common in 2019.

Alone, incarceration is a national issue. The United States has gone from 300,000 people in jails and prisons in the 1970s to 2.2 million today. One in three black males born in this country is expected to go to prison. But we know there is more to the problem than simply prison terms. From codified racial segregation and racial hierarchy to white supremacy, holding this country accountable for racial injustice has only grown in importance to Stevenson as he and his talented team have won appeals and freedom for those wrongly imprisoned.

In this talk, Stevenson will share some of his moving stories from Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, which chronicles his devotion to the legal defense of those most in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the legal system. He will also discuss the current state of racism in this country and why it’s so critical that we be willing to talk about — and confront — racial and economic injustice.

Understanding and addressing faculty burnout has been identified as critical to academic medicine, both in fostering the well-being of faculty and in sustaining excellence in delivery of teaching, research, and patient care. Many institutions have begun to assess the burnout of their faculty, and some are in the process of implementing strategies to address burnout and promote wellness at the individual and institution levels. Given the far-reaching consequences of burnout, assessing the efficacy of interventions employed remains as important as assessing faculty burnout. The session will feature institutions that have employed multipronged strategies to mitigate burnout and demonstrated measurable outcomes in improving faculty wellness. By sharing promising practices with documented success for addressing burnout, other institutions can begin to adapt and refine strategies being used across academic medicine.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe evidence-based strategies institutions are using to address burnout and improve wellness that have been measured over time.
• Evaluate current institutional wellness practices and the measurement strategies that can be used to determine their impact on lessening faculty burnout.
• Formulate recommendations that can be shared with home institutions to improve the deployment and continued evaluation of promising practices to address burnout.

With presidential and congressional elections looming next year, and health care policy a primary topic of discussion, it’s not too early to strategically build alliances with key elected officials. Academic medicine leaders and AAMC government relations staff will share their experiences developing and leveraging unique relationships with key legislators and policymakers to help advance the advocacy priorities of academic medicine. Topics will include how AAMC-member institutions are enhancing their existing advocacy efforts through the cultivation of more personal, meaningful relationships with members of Congress, congressional staff, and federal agency decision-makers and how this targeted approach can elevate academic medicine. Speakers also will discuss how the centralized identification and management of unique grasstops relationships can produce streamlined and effective advocacy outcomes.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand the benefits of strengthening and targeting the advocacy engagement of academic medicine leaders, influencers, and other key stakeholders to effectively communicate policy priorities.
• Describe how AAMC constituents work with their grasstops advocates to develop and strengthen personal relationships with key legislators and policymakers.
• Demonstrate how this activity will enhance advocacy by AAMC-member institutions and complement the association’s direct and grassroots lobbying efforts.

High-quality diagnosis is the cornerstone of effective medical care, yet diagnostic errors are prevalent, costly, and deadly. One of the most promising strategies to improve diagnosis in practice is to improve the effectiveness of health professions education across the continuum. This session will engage attendees in the work of a recent interprofessional initiative, funded by the Macy Foundation, to explicitly identify the competencies necessary for diagnostic excellence in practice and then implement innovations to ensure attainment of these competencies in health professions education, training, and practice. Key findings of the project include the fundamental interprofessional nature of the diagnostic process and the clear gaps that trainees and practicing clinicians have with respect to competence in clinical reasoning, teamwork, and systems-based practice. This session will highlight the findings of this initiative, engage attendees in analyzing their own programs to determine how to improve education and training about diagnosis, and offer actionable takeaways for implementation.

Learning Objectives:
• Discuss the public health imperative to improve diagnosis in health care.
• Discuss and critique the newly described Competencies to Improve Diagnosis in Health Professions Education.
• Identify methods to improve diagnosis through education, training, and practice at your home institution, focusing on clinical reasoning, teamwork, and understanding the health system.

This presentation will provide an overview of the latest physician workforce projections for both primary and specialty care and the multiple factors that influence workforce needs, including: undergraduate and graduate medical education trends; the workforce implications of evolving work hours and retirement patterns; physician well-being; and the growth of telehealth use. This session will highlight the most recent data on the physician workforce, including trainees and practitioners as appropriate. New data on physician workforce diversity will be presented, as will current data and research on access to care, especially for vulnerable populations. The session will also feature new data from the AAMC's National Sample Survey of Physicians.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify key factors and trends affecting physician workforce projections and physician workforce diversity.
• Identify key factors affecting work for physicians.
• Distinguish and describe key characteristics associated with barriers to health care access.

The Core Entrustable Professional Activities (Core EPAs) were developed to articulate graduation requirements of U.S. medical students. While these 13 activities described the daily work of interns, early sentiment from key stakeholders revealed that graduates were underprepared to perform many of the Core EPAs upon graduation. Since 2013, the Core EPA and the Education in Pediatrics Across the Continuum (EPAC) pilot institutions have been working to close the gap between undergraduate medical education (UME) and graduate medical education programs to meet the goal of the Core EPA initiative. In this session, leaders and students from the Core EPA and EPAC pilots will address the consequences of reorienting curriculum, with respect to impact on learners and the larger educational curriculum. We will highlight: (1) role of the preclinical curriculum; (2) transition and gateway assessments; (3) clerkship curriculum and assessment strategies; (4) tension between grades and entrustment decisions; and (5) faculty and learner development. Participants will discuss their local efforts to reform curriculum and will reflect upon changes that could facilitate full implementation of the Core EPAs at their respective sites.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand the implications of incorporating the Core EPAs into UME curriculum from the perspectives of students, clinicians, faculty developers, and curriculum developers.
• Weigh the local and national challenges inherent in developing a Core EPA-oriented curriculum in UME programs.
• Compare and contrast approaches used by the Core EPA pilot schools to address the challenges identified.

Ensuring the quality of our education, selection, and assessment practices is at the core of our work as educators. But many of our practices rest on certain assumptions — that medical practitioners are the best assessors of competence, and where we were raised determines where we will practice. This session examines some of the assumptions that underlie common practices in medical education and questions the appropriateness of a few of those assumptions.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts. 

As curriculum in the basic sciences is evolving, and the faculty who traditionally taught these lecture-based classes are retiring, finding and paying for basic science faculty to teach these courses is becoming a challenge. This session will start with a discussion from the perspective of a principal business officer that frames several of the current challenges: How do you recruit, pay and promote your basic science teachers; and what is the skill set you are recruiting for to teach the basic sciences given the changes in education models to a more problem and team-based learning environment? What are the implications for your current basic science faculty and your current basic science departmental structure? Following this high-level overview, two education leaders will share the experiences at their organizations and how they have developed successful models to address these questions and challenges.

Unresolved conflicts among health care professionals can lead to difficult consequences, including a disrespectful work environment and weakened team collaboration. Prior research by Azoulay et al. (2009) and Catchpole et al. (2008) shows that unresolved team conflicts pose grave consequences for patient safety and quality of care. Leaders require a deep understanding of the nature of conflict in order for targeted interventions to be created and appropriate behaviors to be modeled. In this session, the facilitators will share the common sources of conflict that occur in health care teams and discuss ways to create a more respectful environment for resolving conflict. Concrete and practical conflict dialogue skills will be learned in a workshop format and practiced in a “hot seat” simulation.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe individual, interpersonal, and organizational sources of conflict and their impact on teams and patients.
• Recognize the impact of power differentials in conflict situations.
• Explain a process and related techniques for making conflict dialogue productive and respectful.

Kate Bowler, PhD, was diagnosed with an incurable stage 4 cancer at age 35. At the time, Dr. Bowler had already achieved success beyond her years. As a Duke professor and historian, Dr. Bowler authored Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, which examines the growing religious movement where spiritual progress is measured in terms of financial wealth and physical well-being. In short, the prosperity gospel supports the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith. The irony was not lost on Dr. Bowler.

Since her diagnosis, she has devoted significant time to writing about faith and hope, morality, and death. She has amassed a huge following as evidenced by the critical acclaim and response to her second book, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, her podcasts, and her social media presence.

Dr. Bowler has some key messages for those treating the suffering. She has called out the damaging cultural scripts that we too often use when interacting with patients and their loved ones. In this talk, she will guide us through some of the mistaken ways we attempt to make sense of suffering and will share how her own experience has been influenced by faith, her caregivers, and her husband and son.

Join us for a lively discussion on pertinent topics, trends, and issues (The list of topics and facilitators will be distributed at registration and available for download in the mobile app.)

Facilitators will present their own perspectives and relate their experience with the topic. Conversation and discussion among participants is strongly encouraged. Blank table topic cards will be available for write-in topics. Box lunch is available.

Separate registration required

The Minority Student Medical Career Fair is a chance for students to have conversations with over 100 medical school or health profession recruiters.

Of the myriad circumstances that prompt leadership transitions across the academic medical enterprise, those involving major, unresolved challenges or crises at the departmental or institutional level are arguably the most challenging for the leader who is next in line. These crises can be complex, involving multiple stakeholders; high-profile, both internally and externally; and high-risk, posing harm to the institution’s reputation, resources, and overall ability to carry out its missions. This session will feature panelists with experience assuming a leadership role at a time of crisis for the department or institution. Speakers will explore personal characteristics and professional skills that contribute to successful leadership under these unique circumstances and will represent a variety of crises and administrative and executive roles.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe challenges and opportunities for the individual and the institution specific to assuming a leadership position amidst an institutional crisis.
• Identify personal and professional characteristics integral to success when undertaking a leadership position amidst an institutional crisis.
• Assess the characteristics and readiness of internal candidates for different leadership opportunities, including those that may benefit from superior crisis response and management skills.

As Congress and the administration consider sweeping changes to various aspects of the Medicaid program, this session will explore the latest developments and their impact on academic medical centers and the patients they serve. Policy experts from different states will share their experiences and how they have responded to various federal and state proposals.

Learning Objectives:
• Gain a basic understanding of the Medicaid policy proposals under consideration.
• Consider the potential impact on academic medical centers, the patients they serve, and the health care system broadly.
• Identify opportunities to support the AAMC’s advocacy efforts in this area.

Artificial intelligence (AI) was first coined in the 1950s to describe complex information processing. While the field progressed slowly through its first decades, recent advances in computational power, deep learning and neural network systems, and access to large datasets have set the stage for the rapid acceleration of AI. Potential applications in medicine are vast and include diagnostics, personalized medicine, predictive analytics for managing population health, workforce planning, virtual assistants, and streamlining workflow in complex health systems. While there remains painstaking work before transformational uses of AI catch up with its hype, the envisioned impact on medicine is enormous. Yet such black-box learning systems are also fraught with ethical implications, including baking human bias into AI algorithms, not to mention the associated challenges with educating students and training the physicians of tomorrow with regard to the potential and pitfalls of AI. This session will explore the impact of AI on the traditional three mission areas of academic medicine — education, research, and patient care.

Learning Objectives:
• Enhance awareness of the AI and potential applications and limitations for diagnostics, workflow design, and decision support in health care.
• Discuss limitations of artificial intelligence and aspects of specialties less likely to change, including student and advisors training issues in AI-heavy specialties, such as radiology.
• Understand the ethical pitfalls of AI, including bias, sensitivity/specificity, data ownership, and validation/generalizability across health systems.

Recent events across the United States — and in Arizona, in particular — have triggered a national conversation about the health and well-being of newly arrived immigrants, including migrant workers, refugees, asylees, and individuals who are undocumented. These groups face common barriers to health care, and many providers are not adequately equipped to address their health care and social needs. Using the voices and stories of local immigrants, physicians, and community leaders, the session will highlight the pressing need to educate, train, and inspire a new workforce of health care and research professionals who are knowledgeable about the impacts of immigration status on health and who are committed to bridging the divide between state and federal policy, underserved and hidden communities, and academic medicine.

This session will give participants the opportunity to learn about the unique needs and inequities faced by undocumented immigrants in the United States, broadly, and in Arizona, specifically, and to discuss what academic medicine — across its research, education, clinical, and diversity and inclusion missions — is and could be doing to improve the health and well-being of these populations.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand the critical issues regarding the health and health care of newly arrived immigrants, including migrant workers, refugees, asylees, and the undocumented.
• Describe the role of policy and the social determinants of health in creating and perpetuating health care inequities among newly arrived immigrants.
• Identify actions an academic medical center can take across its clinical, educational, and research missions to improve the health and health care of newly arrived immigrants.

Feeding forward student information to course and clerkship directors with the specific goal of improving the professional development of our students has its benefits and challenges. There are varying opinions and little consensus regarding if and how feed forward should be undertaken. We aim to direct a nuanced and exploratory discussion for how we can use feed forward to benefit our students as they progress in their education.

Learning Objectives:
• Discuss the pros and cons of sharing information on struggling students during the clerkship year.
• Describe methods used by different schools to identify and help at-risk students by feeding forward during the clinical clerkships.
• Explain how different institutional policies influence approaches to information about struggling students.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

One of the main goals of the Core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) pilot is to determine the feasibility of developing a process to make summative entrustment decisions regarding EPAs. Five years into the pilot, most pilot schools have an entrustment committee in place, but none have yet made entrustment decisions that serve a real summative purpose.

We previously described a set of core principles for guiding the development of the entrustment process. Each member school embraced these principles and made progress in a variety of areas. Nonetheless, considerable variability exists among schools regarding committee process, membership, data reviewed, outcomes, and the relationship between the entrustment committees and existing progress committees. We will describe the characteristics of entrustment committees at pilot schools, including elements in place or in the process of being implemented, demonstrating the variety of ways schools have approached the entrustment process.

Particularly notable about the entrustment process is the review of data from all medical students by entrustment committee members. This model mirrors that of the clinical competency committees seen in graduate medical education and differs considerably from traditional medical school promotions committees, in which only cases of unsatisfactory performance or professionalism issues are reviewed.Several common barriers and facilitators to the entrustment process emerged and will be presented. We will also share multi-institutional data regarding entrustment processes and decisions for our students.

Learning Objectives:
• Compare and contrast entrustment, clinical competence, and promotions committee processes.
• Identify a variety of ways in which schools may approach the entrustment process.
• Discuss barriers and facilitators to the entrustment process.

Join a discussion of trends in medical student education with the recipients of the 2019 Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teacher Award. These outstanding educators from across the country will discuss the power of teaching and mentoring, contemporary issues in medical education, and the importance of embracing innovation in the classroom, at the bedside, and in the lab.

The Distinguished Teacher Award recipients demonstrate a passion and aptitude for teaching and medical education. They are selected to receive the national award based on an outstanding record of accomplishment and scholarship in medical student education, including innovative work and products in the support and delivery of the educational program.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify opportunities and career decisions that influence satisfaction and success as a medical educator
• Recognize likely career/life challenges as a medical educator and possible solutions
• Determine steps that can be taken to develop one’s career as a medical educator

Community-based volunteer and adjunct faculty are critical partners in the delivery of clinical education. As educational delivery models change, an increased reliance on community-based faculty comes with a host of recruitment, retention, recognition, and rewards issues, such as student saturation, increased competition from offshore and non-allopathic medical schools, faculty development, and wellness and burnout.

Building on the 2018 Forum on Community and Volunteer Faculty, hosted by the AAMC Groups on Regional Medical Campuses and Faculty Affairs, and the Council on Faculty and Academic Societies, this session will present generalizable, solution-oriented strategies and approaches for addressing issues related to community-based faculty. Approaches include utilizing the institutional advancement office to recruit new alumni to faculty positions, developing exclusive rewards programs, advocating for state tax breaks, and streamlining faculty development and requirements to ease the burden on this volunteer population.

Learning Objectives:
• List and describe challenges that prevent community faculty from teaching.
• Describe new approaches to recruiting, retaining, recognizing, and valuing volunteer faculty.
• Advocate locally for new programs to increase personal value to volunteer faculty appointments.

From the recent National Academies of Medicine report Sexual Harassment of Women to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s major revision of its Common Program Requirement to address discrimination and harassment, issues of accountability and advocacy in creating learning and work environments free from harassment — and with recourse for those subject to harassment and discrimination — are at the forefront of deliberations on physician well-being and true implementation of diversity and inclusion.

The complexity of culture change in creating learning and work environments free of sexual harassment and gender discrimination requires a sophisticated understanding of the issues, implications, and strategies to ensure a safe and engaged learning and work environment. The Group on Resident Affairs queried its membership on institutional efforts around gender discrimination and sexual harassment, specifically on steps to create respectful environments, safeguards, improving transparency and accountability around process and recourse, evaluation of efforts to prevent sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and measuring progress. Coupling the survey results with perspective from a DIO and member of the ACGME Common Program Requirements Task Force and a leader from the compliance community, session participants will build an appreciation for the imperative and develop a framework for creating and implementing a viable framework for meaningful change.

Learning Objectives:
• Assess elements that create a respectful environment for faculty and residents.
• Develop safeguards and recourse for those who may be subject to sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
• Advocate for transparency and action to address sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Eli Saslow reveals the human stories behind the most divisive issues of our time. From racism and poverty to addiction and school shootings, Saslow’s writings uncover the manifold impacts of major national issues on individuals and families.

In this session, Saslow will dive in to his 2018 book, Rising Out of Hatred, which chronicles the journey of the heir-apparent of the white supremacy movement, Derek Black. Through college and life experiences, Black goes through a profound evolution and faces enormous ramifications when he decides to publicly denounce white nationalism in an open letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center. A testament to the power of education to broaden minds and spark conversations, Rising Out of Hatred immerses us in Black’s world, explains how our nation arrived at this polarizing moment, and suggests that outspoken communication and active listening have the power to change lives.

In a follow-up Q&A within this session, Saslow will provide his thoughts on other substantial societal and public health challenges we face, including opioid addiction, mass shootings, and poverty. A book signing will follow the session.

Across the country, medical students engage in self-lead initiatives that seek to foster community service, medical education, and student wellness — just to name a few of many domains. These initiatives are the grass-roots movements within academic medicine. The Learners Leading Learners showcase highlights just five of these initiatives from across the country, chosen for the uniquely innovative, meaningful, rigorous, and successful approaches to their respective causes. Recognition of these projects has value not only to other medical students, but also to those in the administration of medical schools who can gain new insight into and appreciation for student initiatives. Projects can vary between student wellness, medical education, and advocacy, as usual examples, but all student-driven initiatives may be considered.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify, showcase, and support projects that, through their student leaders’ own initiative and rigor, create and improve innovations across the entire spectrum of medical education.
• Increase awareness for student-led initiatives in the academic medicine community at large.
• Evaluate and deconstruct barriers to student-led initiatives and foster institutional support for similar student-led projects.

Over the last decade, the academic medicine community (and health care industry at large) has seen an increase in hospital and health system merger, acquisition, and partnership (MAP) activity. Research has shown that MAP activity presents institutions with the opportunity to scale health care costs, offer additional health care services, and create or improve their footprint in patient communities. However, MAP activity is not a small undertaking, as it has a great impact on all stakeholders, and aligning results to create a transformative change to meet the needs of a transforming health care system is a greater challenge that can take time. During this session, Banner Health President and CEO Peter Fine will share his insights on the institution’s successes and challenges during the University of Arizona Health Network (UAHN) and Banner Health merger that transformed the Arizona health care market and discuss the strategies that supported the merger and continue to influence the institution’s operations and culture.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify some of the various factors that contributes to and the institutional challenges caused by MAP activity (from the announcement to finalization).
• Recognize the necessary analytical and interpersonal skills to manage the initiation through completion of a MAP activity.
• Understand the impact of MAP activity on various stakeholders.

This session explores successful initiatives targeting improved access to care in the ambulatory setting. As demand for outpatient clinic visits continues to rise and outstrip the capacity of faculty and staff, academic medical centers are implementing a wide range of efforts to improve timely access to care. The AAMC and Vizient have convened several learning collaboratives that target access, and this session will highlight the most effective and generalizable lessons learned through this work. Health system leaders responsible for contemporary approaches to achieve better ambulatory access will share their efforts and lessons learned through interactive dialogue with the audience and program moderators.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand the principle drivers of inadequate access to specialty and primary care visits for patients and the impact access barriers have on quality and value of care.
• Describe successful efforts to rightsize the workforce and optimize staffing, operational structures, and clinical workflows to get patients to the right place at the right time.
• Explore opportunities that are broadly applicable to attendees of the session, and identify tangible next steps to engage in clinical innovations that can optimize access to care for patients.

Last year’s announcement from China of the birth of two infants whose genomes were intentionally altered created a major controversy. But the medical and bioethical communities have long deliberated about the potential for gene editing technologies, like CRISPR CAS-9, to benefit human health, while cautioning about risks to human beings — as individuals, populations, and even a species. In many ways, the announcement did not create controversy but made complex matters suddenly more urgent. The session will host a discussion by two prominent physicians who have dedicated themselves to understanding the medical potential and bioethical implications of these technologies and how our global medical community can respond.

Learning Objectives:
• Explain potential benefits and harms for use of gene editing technologies embryos.
• Describe an ethical pathway to using gene editing technology.
• Recount the ethics of embryo manipulation and the key questions about what can already be done now for inborn errors.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

The racial and ethnic diversity of U.S. physicians does not reflect the general U.S. population. This session will present two institutions’ experiences with the AAMC Experiences-Attributes-Metrics model as a tool to increase diversity in graduate medical education. Participants will develop institution-specific, mission-aligned holistic review rubrics that can be applied at their home institutions.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in the physician workforce and how holistic review can increase diversity in alignment with an institution’s mission.
• Develop an institution-specific, mission-aligned holistic review rubric that can be applied in the intern selection process.
• Distinguish institutional enablers and outline potential strategies to overcome barriers to the implementation of holistic review.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Numerous medical schools offer, or are developing, courses aimed at optimizing their senior medical students’ preparedness for the responsibilities they will assume as interns. These courses vary widely in length, content, scope, and timing; some are required elements in the curriculum and others are offered on an elective basis. This session will first provide an overview of the current landscape of these transition courses at U.S. medical schools and summarize the evidence to date about the impact of such courses on students’ preparedness for the start of residency training. This overview will be followed by three presentations highlighting different approaches to course development and implementation: (1) a required course developed by the school, (2) an elective course developed by the school, and (3) an elective course offered by the school based on a national curriculum developed by the American College of Surgeons, Association of Program Directors in Surgery, and Association for Surgical Education for students planning to enter general surgery residency. The presentations will be followed by small group breakout sessions for participants to join a discussion on one of several different challenges that face educators in developing and leading resident preparation courses in medical school. The session will close with a brief report-out of top tips from each discussion group. A full contact list of resources, references, facilitators, and presenters will be provided to all participants.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the role for residency preparation courses in the undergraduate to graduate medical education transition.
• Identify three key logistic considerations in development and implementation of a residency preparation course at your medical school.
• Define the potential advantages and disadvantages of utilizing a national residency preparation curriculum at your medical school.

In an age where the stresses of the workplace can be overwhelming and specific challenges in academic medicine can lead to burnout, this breakout will address the positive impact of demonstrating appreciation and gratitude on the workplace culture and give examples of how this can be achieved. Having a greater sense of gratitude and appreciation can mitigate many of the circumstances that can lead to clinician stress and burnout — and make the workplace a more enriching, satisfying, and ultimately more effective place.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand some of the evidence that links gratitude to well-being.
• Learn strategies and practices to enhance gratitude.
• Learn types of appreciation that are valued in the workplace.

Whether circled around a campfire or basking in the glow of pixels from our computer screens, there's no doubt humans are wired to respond to a good story. Good stories aren’t just for entertainment purposes — they can help you achieve organizational goals. Using compelling storytelling and appropriate framing techniques is an effective leadership strategy.

When you're trying to motivate people to change behavior or support your cause, quantitative data is necessary but not sufficient. You must include the qualitative aspect as well. There’s more to persuasion than just the facts and data; the rhetorical concept of pathos plays a part. Storytelling can capitalize on emotional appeals to bolster your strategic change efforts. From online communications to formal speeches to staff meetings to one-on-one interactions, a good story can make all the difference.

The session will begin with an overview of three rhetorical concepts (ethos, pathos, and logos) that help us persuade others. The presentation will identify common story structures, including seven types identified by Steve Denning, that can be used in organizational settings. Audio and video clips of storytelling will be played to model effective use. The presentation will touch on strategies for incorporating storytelling — even when speakers aren't sure they’re great storytellers — before concluding with time for questions.

The goal is for attendees to walk away understanding that properly applied, effective stories can capture the hearts and minds of our listeners and motivate action. They will also understand basic structures for stories that they can apply in their professional lives.

Learning Objectives:
• Explain the utility of framing and storytelling in organizational change efforts using examples from academic medicine.
• Identify and explain the purpose of a variety of story types useful in organizational settings.
• Apply proven storytelling techniques to achieve academic medical center strategic goals.

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP, or “Dr. Mona,” as she is widely known, is a whistleblower of the Flint water crisis. A pediatrician and associate professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, she is an immigrant who was born in the United Kingdom to parents of Iraqi descent. In 1980, after the rise of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Dr. Mona’s family immigrated to the United States and settled in Michigan, where she later dedicated her career to serving children and advocating for public health.

After Flint’s water supply was switched to a new source in 2014, Dr. Mona’s research uncovered an increase in the percentage of elevated blood lead levels in her pediatric patients. Despite denials from state officials, Dr. Mona’s persistent advocacy, along with that of a growing team, forced the state to acknowledge the manmade crisis, switch the water supply back to the Great Lakes, and commit to long-term public health measures to mitigate the effects of the crisis. Dr. Mona currently directs the MSU-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative.

In this talk, Dr. Mona will share her commitment to humanism and discuss stories from her memoir, What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, a 2018 New York Times Notable Book. She will also be presented with the 2019 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare by David J. Skorton, MD, president and CEO of AAMC, and Dr. Richard I. Levin, president and CEO of The Arnold P. Gold Foundation. The new award honors an immigrant professional who has made extraordinary contributions to humanism in health care.

Invitation only

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) will host the Service Recognition Reception and Award Ceremony to honor members of the LCME volunteer community, survey team members, secretaries, chairs, and members of the LCME whose significant and continued efforts to make the work of the LCME possible. The seventh LCME Distinguished Service Award will be conferred. Beer, wine, and hors d’oeuvres will be served. Attendance is by invitation only.

Open to all

Reception for alumni, colleagues and friends of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Alumni and friends

A reception for alumni and friends of Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The event is hosted by the dean of Penn State College of Medicine.

Alumni and friends

All alumni and friends of UND and USD are welcome! RSVP here.

Invitation only

Social reception for alumni of the MU School of Medicine.

Alumni and friends

University of Virginia School of Medicine alumni, students, current and former housestaff and current and former faculty are invited to join the UVA Medical Alumni Association for this reception.

Alumni and friends

Reception for Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine alumni and friends.

Alumni and friends

Please join us and your fellow Mayo Clinic alumni for a time of fellowship designed to reconnect and reminisce about the time you spent at Mayo Clinic. We love to see our alumni of all ages and eras, and this is a very special opportunity to renew your connections.

Open to all

RSVP here.

Invitation only

The Society of Directors of Research in Medical Education meet to network and have a brief business meeting.

Invitation Only

Networking opportunity for leadership of student affairs offices and residency program directors.

Open to all

This session will provide an overview of AAMC data resources that can help inform all facets of the medical education continuum. The session will cover applicant, student, and resident data collected through MCAT®, AMCAS®, Student Records System (SRS), student surveys (PMQ, MSQ, Y2Q, and GQ), ERAS, and GME Track; academic, employment, and demographic information on medical school faculty collected through the Faculty Roster; compensation reports on residents, faculty, chiefs, chairs, deans, and medical school and hospital administrators; operational and financial data about medical schools and teaching hospitals; and information from the annual LCME data collections. Following the overview of available data, an interactive question and answer session will engage attendees and incorporate audience reactions and ideas.

Open to all

Joint session hosted by AMCAS® and the GSA Committee on Admissions to provide the admissions community with a retrospective look at the first year of the revised application and acceptance protocols, review trends in data and behavior, and share best practices for maximizing AMCAS tools to support the admissions process during the 2020 cycle and beyond.

Start your Sunday morning with the soothing and emotive sounds of the Native American flute just before the Leadership Plenary begins. The AAMC is extremely honored to have the world’s premier Native American flute musician, R. Carlos Nakai, for this special performance.

Nakei, of Navajo-Ute heritage, has earned two gold records and eleven GRAMMY nominations. Nakai began playing the traditional Native American flute in the early 1980s and has released more than 50 albums in his career.

Brunch is served from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This session will build upon last year’s discussion of next-generation funds flow models. Part of the discussion will pull from recent work of the AAMC Advisory Panel on Health Care that is focusing on the evolution and implementation of organization-wide service lines.

Learning Objectives:
• Explain the challenges of implementing a new funds flow model and how you can participate in improving the strategic direction of your institution’s funds flow process.
• Reflect on insight from the organizations that faced these challenges and apply those learnings to your institution.
• Describe the three levels of alignment between hospitals and medical schools, assess your institution’s current status, and understand your role in strategic plans for funds flow.

As anchor institutions with missions to improve the well-being of residents in surrounding communities, AAMC-member organizations are addressing housing as a patient social risk factor and housing at a community level as a social determinant of health. For positive health outcomes for individuals and communities, coupled with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services moving toward penalizing for readmissions for social determinants of health, members are taking approaches to housing that range from economic investments, advocacy, and wraparound social service supports to patients to positively influence health. In this moderated panel discussion, representatives from academic medical centers will discuss their “why,” their approach, and their results.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe several academic medical centers’ social approaches to addressing housing as a social determinant of health in their local communities and their influence on health equity.
• Provide examples that can be initiated by academic medical centers to replicate promising practices.
• Conduct assessments on how your institution is approaching housing as a social determinant of health.

The U.S. health care system is increasingly paying for volume rather than value. There is bipartisan consensus that the current fee-for-service payment model does not adequately incentivize quality, leading to the expansion of alternative payment models (APMs) to encourage high-quality, cost-effective care — referred to as value-based care (VBC). Academic medical centers (AMCs) are on the cutting edge of VBC by contributing to the design of new APMs, piloting models with public and private payers, and informing changes to APM before they are more broadly implemented. With the growth of accountable care organizations and bundled payments, APMs continue to increase as a percentage of AMCs’ revenue. Today’s residents and medical students will be expected to practice within this environment, making knowledge of VBC essential to their success.

This panel discussion will feature leadership from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMS), the federal agency that designs and implements APMs, and senior executives from AMCs participating in these models. The discussion will begin with CMS’s vision for current and future APMs, including: the launch of new models, especially those that are mandatory; the increase in two-sided risk models where providers bear risk for the cost of their patients’ care; and the design of multipayer APMs with Medicare Advantage and other payers. The AMCs will contribute insights about what drives their participation in APMs; how they decide which models to join and how much risk to accept; the role of APMs in the clinical care they provide; and the impact this has on physicians, residents, and medical students. Following the prepared remarks, the facilitator will moderate questions from the audience.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand CMS’s current trends and future directions for APMs, including the launch of new models and the movement toward providers bearing financial risk.
• Identify successful strategies that AMCs have adopted to achieve clinical and financial improvement within accountable care organizations, bundled payments, and other alternative payment models.
• Highlight the importance of understanding APMs across the continuum, from trainees to clinicians, as value-based care will be the paradigm of the future.

This session will allow educators to peek inside editors’ decisions about how journals prioritize medical education submissions.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the different scopes and priorities of several medical education journals.
• Identity important papers from 2019 with the potential to influence medical education understanding and practices.
• Develop personal action plans for future submissions of educational scholarship.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts. 

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

An increasing number of medical schools are offering specialized educational pathways for students willing to commit to a specialty early in training. Because students in these pathway programs commit to a specialty in the first or second year of medical school, they need different types of support and advice than students in non-pathway programs, who typically choose specialties in the third and fourth years. Despite the substantial body of research on career choice in medicine, we know relatively little about how students in pathway programs make career decisions and how to support them in this pivotal decision-making process.

This session will engage an AAMC audience in an experience-based, data-derived discussion about how to support a growing number of students in pathway programs. Specifically, we share lessons learned from pathway programs at New York University School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), and the Education in Pediatrics Across the Continuum program.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the types of support that would benefit students in pathway programs.
• Identify existing gaps in student support.
• Discuss strategies (both general and program-specific) to address gaps in student support.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a junior or senior faculty member, staff member, or organizational leader — at some point in your career, you are going to engage in high-stakes communication. In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, threats to organizational stability are present at every level. Whether it’s unexpected financial challenges, accreditation challenges, the sudden departure of someone in an executive position, or allegations of misconduct, how problems are managed is the key to either gaining the support and trust of colleagues or damaging your reputation and the reputation of your organization. In high-stakes communication, failing to effectively manage a message can leave a legacy of mistrust that becomes part of the organizational culture. When you’re managing the message, you must be prepared to answer four critical and often immediate questions from colleagues and community members:
a) What happened?
b) What do we do now?
c) How is this going to affect us?
d) Why should we believe you?

This workshop offers participants practical communication skills they can use to support those who turn to them for answers during times of uncertainty. Successfully engaging in high-stakes communication helps faculty, staff, and leaders continue to effectively perform their job duties.

Learning Objectives:
• Craft messages that address your audience’s needs and build trust instead of creating and perpetuating more organizational chaos.
• Be aware of the potential pitfalls of not effectively engaging in high-stakes communication (e.g., increased burnout, declining productivity, perpetuation of false and damaging information).
• Explain why choosing the “how” and “when” to share information is integral to organizational stability.

The institutional self-study and the external peer review that constitute Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accreditation involve assessment of both processes and outcomes. The goals of this session are to: (1) come to a shared definition and understanding of the differences and linkages among process, balance, and outcome measures; and (2) illustrate the relationship of these measures to the intent of LCME elements and to the overarching purpose of medical education program accreditation.

Learning Objectives:
• Define and distinguish among process, balance, and outcome measures.
• Categorize the intent of selected LCME elements according to their focus on one or more of these measures of programmatic value and success.
• Relate these measures to each other and to the overall purpose of medical education program accreditation.

An internationally recognized expert on social influences on health and author of more than 450 scientific papers, Professor David R. Williams, PhD, MPH, has enhanced our understanding of the complex ways in which race, socioeconomic status, stress, racism, health behavior, and religious involvement affect health and health care.

In this talk, Dr. Williams will examine academic medicine’s role in ensuring high-quality care to people who face barriers to good health as a result of social circumstances. He will also discuss the persistent challenges to achieving health equity and what we can do to address our own shortcomings.

Come enjoy Sunday brunch in the Exhibit Hall and visit organizations dedicated to the support and advancement of academic medicine.

Join Dr. David J. Skorton and the AAMC Leadership Team for an informal conversation about the issues facing academic medicine as well as the AAMC's recently launched strategic planning process.

David Skorton will be interested to hear your feedback on the following questions:
1. Thinking about the future of health care, research, and medical education, what excites you the most? What worries you the most?
2. How can AAMC deepen our impact and relevance?

In an ideal therapeutic relationship, the doctors should be kind and compassionate and patients should be respectful and actively engaged in their care. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes patients can be demanding, controlling, or verbally and physically abusive, or demonstrate racially or sexually inappropriate behaviors. While professionalism and code of conduct establishes behavior standards for clinicians, such standards so not exist for patients. Junior clinicians and persons of minority backgrounds are disproportionately exposed to these types of subpar patient behaviors. Dealing with disruptive and abusive patients is extremely challenging and can be a source of distress and burnout for clinicians. It can also lead to unconscious alterations in clinicians’ behaviors and thereby compromise patient care. This session will provide an overview of common disruptive behaviors exhibited by patients. We will also discuss a practical framework to intervene respectfully and effectively to decrease unacceptable behaviors and foster mutual respect in clinical interactions.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize early signs of a potentially disruptive situation with a patient.
• Develop three to five strategies to contain and manage potentially abusive behavior from patients in a clinical setting.
• Understand support and services available to you as a clinician, should you encounter an abusive patient.

The VA MISSION Act was passed in June 2018, consolidating the previous community care programs and Veterans Choice Program, and now new regulations are being implemented, allowing AAMC-member institutions to explore new contractual relationships with their local VA medical centers and new contractors who manage regional provider networks. Come learn about recent legislative and regulatory changes affecting VA academic affiliate relationships, including the shared research, clinical, and education missions, and how the VA is implementing those changes. Discuss how to best navigate the changes and improve your institution’s relationship with the VA by engaging with agency staff and academic medical center leaders.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe new regulatory changes based on MISSION Act implementation, including changes to access standards.
• Define methods on how to engage with newly awarded Community Care Network contractors.
• Analyze changes to the continuum of care procedures related as implemented under the Community Care Network and how these procedures differ from the Veterans Choice Program.

Dr. Rana Awdish intimates lessons learned from surviving critical illness. She focuses on the illuminating power of moments that shatter our bodies and allow us access to truths. “The Wound is the Gift” is an inspiring talk about how confronting our own mortality and rebuilding ourselves as patients and physicians — through humanism, the arts, and literature — can help us to find meaning and peace. Ultimately, our dependence on each other and our interconnectedness are beautiful.

This session is presented by The Arnold P. Gold Foundation and the AAMC.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize the way illness and medicine each shape our identity, in productive and destructive ways.
• Be able to articulate the value of mutuality in the care of patients for patients and providers.
• Identify ways in which the arts and literature can inform our practice.
• Reimagine our role in the lives of our patients in terms of an interconnectedness that adds fulfillment to the practice of medicine.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Physicians and other health care providers have experienced challenges with electronic health systems and numerous regulatory requirements adding to physician burden and contributing to physician burnout. Concerns have been raised related to documentation burden, “note bloat,” the lack of interoperability, and regulatory requirements that do not align with current medical practice. Some studies have shown that physicians are spending more time with patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) than they are with patients. This can be particularly challenging for residents as they rotate through different clinical settings.

Despite the burden, there are also many benefits to the use of EHRs and technology. Academic medical centers are taking steps to leverage technology and EHRs and enhance training to save physician time, boost productivity, and increase capacity and thus access to patients. This session will discuss the challenges physicians and residents experience with the use of electronic health systems and what steps are being taken by practices and policymakers to mitigate this burden. In addition to a discussion of improving the ease of use of EHRs, the session will discuss how to train residents and physicians in the best ways to use the EHR.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand recent initiatives to reduce clinician documentation burden and initiatives implemented by academic medical centers to enhance training and ease the use of EHRs.
• Identify steps which could be implemented in your practice to adapt to regulatory changes and improve documentation burden.
• Identify opportunities to improve training in the use of EHRs.

Workplace-based assessments (WBAs) offer the ability to assess what a trainee “does” in an authentic workplace, rather than what the trainee “can do” in a controlled setting such as an Objective Structured Clinical ExaminationWBAs are typically described as formative and most effective when paired with feedback to help the learner grow and develop related to the competency being assessed. Three dominant problems with WBA implementation are: (1) poor understanding of the purpose of the WBA, (2) insufficient time for assessment and feedback, (3) inadequate assessor training. These problems have led to negativity toward WBAs by trainees. Utilizing the Core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA) framework has the potential to address each of these problems.

Many medical schools are implementing, or considering how to implement, the Core EPA framework within their undergraduate medical education programs, often with a mixture of simulations and WBAs. Institutions are struggling with content, process, logistics, and resources. Several schools participating in the Core EPA pilot have implemented Core EPA-based WBAs at their institutions. Workshop leaders will share lessons learned, as well as help participants solve practical problems and overcome barriers to using the Core EPA framework to address WBA. The session is designed to be practical, flexible, and interactive so that common challenges are optimally addressed.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the rationale for and the attributes of effective WBA.
• Compare and contrast Core EPA-based WBA with other types of WBA.
• Outline different strategies and scales that can be used in Core EPA-based WBA.

Advancing diversity is a key priority for our academic health centers. Medical schools invest in a range of programs and initiatives as early as elementary school through graduate medical education to attract diverse talent. However, data show that there is still work to be done to increase the representation of black/African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Latinos in medicine. These three racial/ethnic groups only account for 13% of the total medical school enrollment reported during the 2018-2019 academic year, according to the AAMC. This percentage has remained fairly constant despite the growth of medical schools. This session will feature solutions that include unique partnerships and collaborations aimed at reaching deeper into various communities to identify and engage talent. These partnerships will include community-based alliances, statewide coalitions, and relationships with non-profits in sectors outside of medicine. Participants will have the opportunity to join a table based on their interests, assess current efforts with an inventory, and leave with a roadmap to seek and establish additional partnerships.

Learning Objectives:
• Amplify the need for solution-focused strategies by considering trends in data of diversity in medicine by race and ethnicity over the past 40 years.
• Distinguish key characteristics of effective collaborations based on panelist testimonies and the use of measurements and data demonstrating success.
• Translate and apply a set of strategies to enhance strategic partnerships and collaborations at home institutions.

Despite gender parity among matriculants to medical school and an overrepresentation of women at early career stages, percentages of women in leadership roles, such as department chairs and medical school deans, remain stagnant (and very low). Disparities between male and female faculty in achieving senior academic rank and leadership persist after controlling for age, time since training, specialty, and measures of productivity. As organizations committed to developing a culturally competent workforce to care for increasingly diverse patient populations, medical schools and teaching hospitals must address systemic structural and cultural practices that impact gender diversity in leadership roles across academic medicine.

This session will examine key systemic organizational practices that impact gender diversity at the leadership level, including organizational conceptions of and perspectives on what it means to be an effective leader; opportunities for mentorship and sponsorship; and processes related to recruitment and promotion. Participants will be challenged to consider the impact of gendered distinctions in leadership competencies on the devaluation of women’s leadership skills, and speakers will explore institutional approaches to mitigating biases in identifying, developing, and advancing leaders.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the impact of how organizations conceptualize, describe, and communicate about leadership on institutional culture.
• Identify gendered distinctions in leadership competencies.
• Describe approaches for addressing systemic organizational practices that impact gender diversity in leadership roles across academic medicine.

We all know the statistics: medical students, residents, and physicians are at risk of elevated rates of burnout, depression, and suicide. This isn’t only a crisis for the profession; the end results for patients are also troubling, as burnout is associated with a greater risk of medical error, significant morbidity, and even increased patient mortality.

The good news is there are many individual, institutional, national, and international initiatives now addressing the problem. Continued research and evidence-based studies move us forward. We all agree that the optimal scenario is one where faculty, staff, and learners feel supported and well-treated, where diversity, inclusion, and health equity are promoted, and where patient care and outcomes improve as our caregivers feel fulfilled in their work.

While the alarms have been sounded, and there is much progress, much work remains. In this session, you will hear two perspectives on what has to be done to decrease burnout. Dr. Stephen Klasko, president of Thomas Jefferson and CEO of Jefferson Health, and Dr. Caroline Elton, a psychologist who has devoted her practice to supporting medical students and physicians, will discuss the causes and consequences of burnout. Both have called for reform of the systems, culture, and norms that contribute to current epidemic of burnout in the medical profession.

The growth of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) in academic medicine is minimal at best. AIAN students represented 0.76% of matriculants in 2018-2017, they make up 0.48% of full-time faculty members at MD-granting institutions, and AIAN doctors represent less than 0.56% of active physicians in the United States. While the numbers of AIAN members in academic medicine is small, the needs of their community are great. Academic medicine has a unique opportunity to address the detrimental health disparities endured by native and indigenous populations. In October 2018, the AAMC published Reshaping the Journey: American Indians and Alaskan Natives in Medicine. The report had the stated goal of “creating meaningful dialogue to explore and innovate ways to look forward” in the realm of AIAN representation and health outcomes.

The goal of this session is to understand the experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native individuals within the Indian Health Service, discuss pipeline issues and recruitment, highlight institutions that effectively recruit AIAN students, and showcase institutions that integrate AIAN health into their curriculum. With Learn Serve Lead 2019: The AAMC Annual Meeting ocurring in a region with a high AIAN population, we hope to engage the community in this important discussion and that all participants, regardless of proximity to native and indigenous communities, feel empowered to make academic medicine a more inclusive and better place for both communities.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand the experiences of American Indian and Alaskan Native patients within the Indian Health Service.
• Highlight curriculums that include experiences of AIAN populations.
• Highlight medical schools that actively recruit AIAN students and integrate AIAN health into their curriculum.

Over the past several years, much has been discussed about the need to engage patients as consumers of health care and empower them to make the best (i.e., rational) decisions about their care, considering cost and quality. This has led to a wave of transparency efforts over the past few years, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services releasing the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings, requiring hospitals to publicly post pricing information on their websites, and pushing payers and providers to effortlessly share data with patients in patient-preferred apps. But questions remain: Can we transform patients into empowered consumers? And if we can, will it change the health care marketplace for the better? This session aims to open a dialogue of where we are with health care consumerism, where we might be going, and if it is working.

The session format will begin with short presentations from each speaker with different perspectives — one from the AAMC’s regulatory team sharing regulatory efforts to push transparency and patient engagement, one from a consumer policy analyst on how these efforts do (or do not) meet the needs of patients and consumers, and another from a patient experience officer at a member hospital/health system on how they’re implementing transparency efforts and what impact they’re having. This will be followed by a facilitated discussion that will be engaging and interactive, suited to giving attendees a better framework to think of care delivery for the “new” health care consumer.

Learning Objectives:
• Better understand what information patients and consumers want to better engage with their own care.
• Identify ways health systems and providers can engage an empowered consumer.
• Evaluate new policy ideas aimed at empowering patients and consumers.

This session will identify how to develop institutional capacity to advance learning health systems and health system function by advancing integration of clinical care with research and resident education. Speakers will discuss development of learning health system infrastructure (such as data warehouses) and systematic approaches that engage clinicians, learners, and researchers that improve health system outcomes. Specific examples presented will illustrate how collaboration between researchers, health system leaders, interprofessional care providers, and learners across the educational continuum supports the rapid adoption of evidence-based solutions for improving health. Speakers will describe the establishment of cooperative relationships and enduring institutional structures (such as translational research centers) that support successful health improvement, education, and research.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify elements of a learning health system and how to successfully engage collaborative research, clinical, and education partners in health system improvement activities.
• Construct approaches that facilitate engagement of leaders and support collaborative structures and activities that enhance solutions that improve health.
• Adapt presented implementation strategies for your own research, education, and health care environments.

Unconscious biases are learned stereotypes that affect behavior. Unconscious bias affects the residency application process. The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE) is one source of written unconscious bias that can affect how an applicant is viewed before granting (or not granting) an interview. A standardization of comments or an understanding of unconscious bias will help improve the objectivity of the MSPE. In this workshop, participants will learn how unconscious bias can affect writing the MSPE as well as reading the MSPE.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand and learn how to recognize unconscious bias in an MSPE.
• Apply strategies to decrease unconscious bias.
• Construct better narrative comments with decreased bias for the MSPE.

Download the full descriptions of the sessions abstracts.

Faculty today face new and evolving challenges, not only in their own lifelong learning journey, but also in their critical roles as trainers of medical students, residents, and other learners. Many faculty feel overwhelmed by an increasingly large and complex health care system. Academic-business partnerships create a tension between our role as educators and scholars with the increasing demands to generate revenue. Challenges also arise from the recognition that yesterday’s teaching methodologies do not meet the educational needs of today’s learners. We have seen a shift toward competency-based medical education leading to a shared competency framework throughout the continuum of medical education (undergraduate and graduate medical education and continuing professional development). As we are faced with these changes, how do we promote them, integrate them into the existing complexities of the health care system, and transform the educational curriculum across the continuum?

Learning Objectives:
• Describe and locate current data sources and how these sources might be leveraged to promote institutional change that creates a culture supporting professional development of all faculty.
• Explain promising practices and new strategies for faculty development in the context of lifelong learning and the continuum of medical education.
• Develop an action plan with at least one actionable item to bring to your institution’s faculty and leadership that aligns with your institutional strategies and priorities.

The quality of care delivered in the clinical learning environment can influence future physician practices; graduates from organizations with better patient outcomes tend to themselves have better patient outcomes. Thus, one important strategy to improve health care quality is to give greater attention to improving educational experiences related to health systems improvement within the clinical learning environment. Linking health system goals and changes to undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education all along the continuum represents an underutilized strategy. During this session, participants will discuss the relationship between education and patient care quality outcomes, participate in interactive discussions to explore opportunities to engage learners and leaders in system change, and develop an action plan that they can take back to their home institutions to more meaningfully integrate and align their medical education and health care quality goals. The educational continuum from UME to GME to CME will be addressed.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the bidirectional relationship between education and quality of care, with a specific focus on mechanisms to bridge the two spheres to enhance the clinical learning environment.
• Identify opportunities and overcome barriers that prevent learners and leaders from co-creating system changes to improve the quality of patient care.
• Develop an action plan to implement structural and process changes at your home institution to better integrate and align medical education with local and national health care quality imperatives.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Join this session for a stimulating conversation between the 2019 Abraham Flexner Awardee for Distinguished Service to Medical Education, Joseph C. Kolars, MD, and his colleague Larry D. Gruppen, PhD.

Together they will explore Dr. Kolars’s storied career in medical education including curriculum transformation, competency-based medical education, and international education.

From being recruited by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop relationships between health science schools in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa, establishing the first Western health care system that provided training in China, and all the way to leading the adoption of innovations which served as the foundation for the Next Accreditation System of the ACGME, attendees will hear about Dr. Kolar’s extraordinary career as a medical educator.

Learners bring multiple identities to campus — some visible and some invisible — such as being an activist, a person who has a disability, underrepresented minority in medicine, first-generation college student, rural, non-traditional, military, second career, etc. The medical school context, combined with societal messaging, can affect how students navigate these salient identities. This session looks at data from the Medical School Year Two Questionnaire to explore the degree to which learners’ feelings of belonging and of being welcomed and supported in relation to their self-identification impact their ability to thrive. As current medical students, resident physicians, administrators, and institutions that have made structural changes or thought critically about the potential benefits of structural change engage in dialogue, session participants will be invited to discuss promising practices that foster an inclusive learning environment that can support student belonging, well-being, and success.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe theories of belonging and identity development in relation to student well-being.
• Recognize the importance of institutional structures and messaging to support learner well-being and the impact negative messaging can have on students from historically marginalized communities.
• Identify institutional models based on outcomes data that embrace learner identities, foster belonging, and lead to student thriving.

Long before he became a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and philanthropist, James R. Doty, MD, was contemplating how the brain and heart are connected. Now, as the director of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), he and his team focus on the neuroscience of compassion, altruism, and empathy.

In his compelling New York Times best-selling memoir Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, Dr. Doty chronicles his journey from a young child growing up in poverty to incredible success as a neurosurgeon and entrepreneur. Much more than a biography, Dr. Doty discusses how we can fundamentally change our lives by changing our brains and our hearts.

In this talk, Dr. Doty will share his personal story while also discussing the Center’s research which documents the value proposition of kindness and compassion regarding health, wellness, and longevity.

Open to all

This session is targeted to leaders in primary care at medical schools and academic medical centers and provides a forum for discussing priority issues in training of clinical delivery models. Representatives of primary care organizations will provide updates and dialogue with attendees.

Open to all

Are you involved in education technology at your organization? Are you interested in learning more about the power of technology standards in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of your education technology? This knowledge-sharing session is a joint session from the Group on Information Resources (GIR) Education Technology Work Group and MedBiquitous, a long standing health professions standards organization, now a part of the AAMC. During this session we will offer an opportunity to meet and network with colleagues across the country, and provide updates on current and future efforts on education technology. Attendees will be able to share some of their biggest challenges and learn from others during this informal discussion. This session is open to all meeting attendees.

This meeting is open to all.

Curriculum deans, administrators, and developers are especially encouraged to attend. We will be discussing results from the AAMC CI data collection in August-September 2019 (i.e., therefore, academic year 2018-2019 data), and results from a survey regarding curriculum mapping sent to U.S. medical schools participating in the AAMC CI program.

Open to all
This session will provide an update on the AAMC's Situational Judgement Test (SJT) project. The SJT is an assessment that evaluates applicants based on their knowledge of pre-professional competencies. Presenters will provide an update on the project's multi-phase research plan and share evidence supporting the viability of an SJT in the medical school admissions context.

Open to all

The Scholarly Concentrations Collaborative is a group composed of leaders in medical education working to improve and grow opportunities for student research and discovery.

Alumni and friends

This reception is for alumni of the AAMC Healthcare Executive Diversity and Inclusion Certificate (HEDIC) program. All program alumni, program faculty, and guests of alumni and faculty are welcome to attend.

Open to all

Please join us, following the HMS Alumni and Friends Reception, for dinner, discussion, and a chance to hear about HMX, an online learning program from Harvard Medical School. We'll talk about how prematriculation online learning has helped bring students with varied backgrounds up to speed quickly and supported curriculum redesign at HMS, as well as share successful use cases at other medical schools.

Open to all

Review 2019 and 2020 application cycle trends, discuss updates, and look ahead to the future.

Lunch is served from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

In an era of increasing consolidation of health care systems, which are often built around academic health centers, there is increasing emphasis on the financial margin and survival in a competitive health care business environment. Seemingly, the roles and skills of physicians have become less apparent among the leadership ranks of these organizations. Considering that an increasing focus on business performance and financial success can consume faculty effort previously devoted to teaching and research, it is arguably more important than ever that physicians are prominently positioned as health system leaders to preserve and cultivate the academic mission. In some systems, it has become the norm to separate physician leadership for the clinical enterprise from the academic chair, who oversees only education and research. In this context, it is compelling to discuss the requisites and imperatives of physician leadership in tomorrow’s academic health systems as a necessary component to ensure the viability and success of the academic mission in these large organizations.

Learning Objectives:
• Learn about the critical responsibilities and opportunities for physician leaders at different organizational levels in contemporary academic health systems.
• Understand the unique and indispensable roles of physician leaders in academic health systems.
• Learn the ways in which physician leadership can effectively nurture and support a thriving academic mission in large aggregated health systems.

This session will begin with short presentations from three speakers with diverse backgrounds — a payor, a member hospital/health system, and a policymaker — followed by a moderated panel discussion. The session speakers will engage the audience by describing their work on the ground to improve community health. They will share practical details about the implementation of their efforts and describe both successes and obstacles.

Each speaker perspective has a unique experience to share, but all will focus on some common themes such as what they and their teams did in the past, what they are currently doing , and what they plan to do in the future. Each speaker will also present evidence that their effort benefited communities and populations. The payor perspective will focus on what's next in innovation and how it will affect the community. The health system perspective will detail how the health system targeted certain populations, how stakeholders knew it was working, and how to duplicate the effort. The policymaker perspective will explain recent trends and the direction of future policy. Questions during the panel will focus on a range of topics, such as what the speaker plans to do next, how success was measured, how participants can translate the effort to their own work, why investing in community health is the model of the future, and how to evaluate the effects of community health on your alternative payment model effort and bottom line.

Learning Objectives:
• Demonstrate how engaging in new payment models can change the incentive for addressing social determinants of health.
• Gather tools to operationalize community health efforts with data.
• Describe how teaching hospitals are leading the way on integrated health systems for population/prevention/social risk.

Drug overdoses are rapidly increasing. They are the leading cause of death due to non-intentional injury and the leading cause of mortality for Americans under 50. Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. This issue has become a public health crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the United States, which includes the costs of health care, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement, is $78.5 billion a year.

Historically, clinicians were reassured opioids were not addictive and there was a push to ensure patients’ pain was appropriately managed. The pain scale became the fifth vital sign and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services measured patient satisfaction based on how well a patient’s pain was managed, thereby incentivizing the reduction or elimination of pain. Now, we are in the middle of a substance abuse crisis and this epidemic has caused a broad re-thinking of how clinicians manage pain. What are appropriate pain management protocols? What are appropriate opioid prescribing patterns? How do we work across care settings — in the hospital, in the community, and in the home — to manage this patient population? How do we ensure our learners are part of the new protocols?

This session will look at some of the innovative clinical interventions that address these questions. Participants will hear about what worked and, in some cases, the unintended consequences of implementing new programs and policies.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe how member teaching hospitals have changed their approach to pain management.
• Describe various interventions aimed at monitoring physician opioid prescribing practices.
• Identify ways in which member teaching hospitals are working with their community to address the opioid epidemic.

Currently, many institutions are considering creating coaching programs or modifying existing advising programs to incorporate coaching concepts. Faculty and administrators, however, may be more familiar with more traditional models of supporting learners, such as advising or mentoring. In this session, participants will identify their goals for incorporating coaching into their medical education programs and fine-tune their objectives, scope, and budget.

Learning Objectives:
• Articulate the benefits of coaching, as unique from mentoring and advising, in supporting competency-based education and resilience in learners.
• Describe the necessary operational elements of a successful coaching program, such as budget, availability of electronic learner data, learner and faculty development, and program evaluation.
• Develop an outline for creating or improving a coaching program at your own institution.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

This session will inform the U.S. and international academic medicine community about the ECFMG 2023 requirement that applicants for ECFMG Certification must be graduates of an international medical school that has been accredited by a World Federation of Medical Education (WFME)-recognized accrediting body. The requirement is intended to encourage the development and implementation of standards for evaluating undergraduate medical education to provide greater assurance to both medical students and the public that undergraduate medical students will be trained appropriately.

This session will include three perspectives: (1) ECFMG will provide an update on the countries that have a WFME-recognized accrediting body, (2) a national accrediting agency will outline the pathway to obtaining WFME recognition, and (3) a residency program director from a U.S. hospital that accepts large numbers of international medical graduates will share the potential impact the 2023 ruling may have on their programs.

Following the presentations, attendees will discuss the following topics:
1. What are the pros and cons of a global medical education accreditation system?
2. Given the number of international medical graduates that constitute the U.S. residency workforce, what impact will this policy have on the future residency applicant pool?
3. What impact will this policy have on the current physician workforce shortage in the United States?
4. What role might the U.S. academic medicine community play to raise global awareness of the WFME accreditation requirement and how can it assist national and regional accrediting bodies to apply for WFME recognition?

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the ECFMG 2023 requirement and the purpose of the new global policy.
• Become familiar with the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) accreditation guidelines and process for international accrediting bodies.
• Identify actions that individuals or U.S. academic medical centers can take to accelerate the number of WFME-recognized accrediting bodies globally.

Diversity in the health professions pipeline continues to lag behind growth in population diversity despite national efforts. The community college system provides an untapped pool of diverse students in need of strategic support. This session provides specific strategies to facilitate entry into medicine.

Learning Objectives:
• Define educational obstacles facing community college students and strategies to address their needs to successfully retain them in the health professions path.
• Examine a strategy to expand the scale of partnerships at the state level.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

This session has been cancelled as of November 10, 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience. This session will be an opportunity for attendees to learn how the AAMC supports students and medical schools in the learner’s transition from medical school to residency. Attendees will come away with an understanding of how the AAMC is providing better information to all stakeholders involved in this phase of the continuum and the challenges that remain. Participants will have an opportunity to learn about and share their own practices for easing the transition to residency.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand the challenges for all stakeholders involved in the transition to residency.
• Identify AAMC resources to aid students in selecting a specialty, researching programs, and applying to programs.
• Share successful practices, tools, and strategies for improving the transition to residency.

Over the past several years, in response to institutional data, LCME standards, and increasing concern about student and physician well-being, medical schools have intensified their commitment to creating learning environments in which students do not experience mistreatment or negative behaviors. But many challenges remain; students — especially women and students from underrepresented or marginalized populations — continue to report experiences of mistreatment. There is interest in learning about effective models and practices to reduce and prevent these negative behaviors. This session will first provide an overview of the national mistreatment data from the AAMC Graduation Questionnaire. Three schools will then highlight their approaches to addressing mistreatment, including data collection strategies, intervention models, methods for providing feedback to key stakeholder groups, outcomes data, and lessons learned.

The presentations will be followed by small-group discussions about different challenges institutions face in developing and implementing effective interventions:
• Data collection across multiple channels and systems.
• Interventions, training, and learning approaches.
• Targeted intervention for mistreatment based on gender, race, or ethnicity.
• Strategies and tactics for highly distributed campuses or programs with large numbers of community faculty.
• Evaluating progress and success.
• Creating feedback loops with key constituencies.

Learning Objectives:
• Summarize the national data related to student mistreatment.
• Describe effective models and practices for institutional interventions to address and prevent student mistreatment.
• Identify approaches and metrics for evaluating progress and success relative to reducing and preventing mistreatment.

Drawing from his recently published book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students, Anthony Jack, PhD, will discuss how class and culture shape how students navigate college by exploring the “experiential core of college life,” those too-often overlooked moments between getting in and graduating. Dr. Jack will shed new light on how inequality is reproduced by contrasting the experiences of the “Privileged Poor,” lower-income students who graduate from boarding, day, and preparatory high schools, and the “Doubly Disadvantaged,” lower-income undergraduates who graduate from public, typically distressed high schools.

Medical schools devote significant resources to diversify their own student populations — and ultimately the physician workforce. While our student populations have already managed the undergraduate university experience, that doesn’t mean that the playing field has suddenly become equal in medical school. What implications does Dr. Jack’s research have for professional education, our medical school campuses, and the support systems within our institutions? And how can this research challenge some of the steps we have already taken and get us closer to a welcoming culture and climate for all?

Come enjoy lunch in the Exhibit Hall and visit organizations dedicated to the support and advancement of academic medicine.

Science is an open and international endeavor, and America’s prosperity and global influence has been strengthened by U.S. universities and medical schools in their roles as hubs for international scholarship and knowledge dissemination. At the same time, the U.S. government has an obligation to ensure that national resources and intellectual property generated by university research are appropriately safeguarded, particularly from nations that are potential adversaries. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has detected specific ways in which the integrity of the research system can be compromised by a foreign power. A working group under the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, co-chaired by Dr. Roy Wilson, released findings and recommendations for the NIH in protecting the integrity of the research system. This session will look at ways that medical schools, as partners with the NIH, can respond to defend against undue influence while protecting the open nature of our research system.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the types of breaches or concerns identified by the NIH working group (e.g., undisclosed relationships between faculty or trainees and other governments, laboratories, and research entities).
• Describe three or four interventions that NIH is implementing to address concerns about threats to research integrity from other nations.
• Describe the importance and benefits of international scholarship.
• Promote awareness of threats to research integrity, identify ways to guard against foreign interference without feeding xenophobic sensitivities in our current environment, and provide examples of benefits of international collaboration.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Complex medical simulations differ from other session types due to a variety of factors: They can be more expensive to execute, require greater resources, require more and varied personnel, and can be difficult to schedule. The combination of all these factors make running these simulation sessions complex and difficult. So why would simulation centers take these on?

Complex health care simulations can offer unique benefits that make the effort pay off for learners. Two examples of complex medical simulations are boot camps and interprofessional education (IPE). Boot camps are aimed at learners at major transition points, such as beginning clerkships, graduating medical school and beginning residency, and transitioning to regular practice after residency. Boot camps focus intensively on the procedural and decision-making skills that will be necessary in the next phase and can require acquiring a large number of skills in a short amount of time. IPE is training that takes place as a team that more closely resembles the actual practice of multi-disciplinary health care teams. Bringing these teams together can be difficult due to conflicting schedules and varied training goals.

This multidisciplinary expert panel will discuss the challenges for simulation programs in supporting these sessions and suggest pathways to achieve the necessary high impact on learners. The panel will include perspectives from simulation leadership, faculty, education, technology support, business, and institutional administration.

Learning Objectives:
• List benefits for both boot camps and IPE simulation sessions.
• List challenges in running boot camps and IPE sessions.
• Describe ways to secure necessary resources to support these complex simulation sessions.

Adaptability is critical for the attainment of mastery in rapidly evolving fields such as health care. Educators must foster the development of Master Adaptive Learners (MALs), learners who are capable of innovation when faced with practice challenges. This workshop will explore the intersection of MAL with instruction in diagnostic reasoning aimed at mastery. Metacognition has been shown to reduce error and improve patient safety and is a key component of MAL.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the MAL Framework.
• Outline Dual Process Theory and its intersection with routine and adaptive expertise.
• Generate instructional strategies to foster excellence in diagnostic reasoning using MAL in the classroom and in clinical settings.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Opioid misuse has devastated communities across the country, and collaborative efforts are underway to stem the tide of opioid and substance use disorders. Through their missions of education, research, and clinical care, the nation’s medical schools and teaching hospitals are actively responding to this public health crisis and preparing the next generation of health care professionals to address the epidemic. The AAMC has been actively working to support its members in their tripartite efforts. This session will emphasize the medical education efforts and share the results of a national workshop, held in May and funded with help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was designed to share successful practices, approaches, and responses among educators, clinicians, and future physicians. The workshop also included a call to action that encouraged medical schools to commit to improving curricular practices or sharing effective strategies externally.

During this session, attendees will learn about the strategic efforts by the AAMC and will hear directly from several workshop attendees about their commitments teaching about pain and opioid use disorder. The session will include a gallery walk, which will depict the numerous resources available to educators. The recipients of the mini-grants program will be invited to share three-minute teasers of their nascent grant-funded projects. Before closing, attendees will be invited to either commit to action (those not in attendance at the May workshop) or extend their actions beyond what was proposed (those in attendance).

Learning Objectives:
• Outline the strategic actions taken by the AAMC to delineate and advance the medical education response to the opioid epidemic.
• Commit to act in one or more ways to advance local curricular efforts in response to the opioid epidemic.
• Critique educational resources that are readily and freely available for integration at your local institutions.

Changes in health care delivery necessitate an expanding vision for the ongoing professional learning of all clinicians. Continuing professional development (CPD) includes all of the learning activities that health professionals need to fulfill their dynamic and changing roles in the current health care environment. CPD encompasses a broad range of content and learners, such as the use of high-quality, diverse educational strategies that extend beyond traditional forms of continuing medical education (CME); integration of education with practice; and, ultimately, the potential to influence patient care and societal health. Thus, CPD represents a synthesis of CME and faculty development to prepare faculty to fulfill academic medicine’s tripartite mission of patient care, education, and research.The CPD section of the AAMC Group on Educational Affairs, in collaboration with the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education (SACME), defined and visualized CPD for Academic Medicine’s Last Page. Key elements of this vision outline CPD as a life-long practice. It requires professionals to work as a member of interprofessional teams that are part of the larger health care system existing within the larger context of the community.

This session will discuss this vision and direction of CPD and present key concepts including guided and self-directed learning in a continuous learning cycle; interprofessional practice; and development of adaptive expertise as applied to the four CPD focus areas: patient outcomes, education, research/scholarship, and leadership in the academic setting.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the role of CPD in the continuum of medical education.
• Define CPD in the context of academic medicine.
• Explain the role CPD plays in meeting the needs of today's academic faculty.

Join Bill McInturff, partner and co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, as he presents a summary of the AAMC’s first public opinion research study on health equity, health disparities, and holistic review. Using qualitative and quantitative data, the project explores public opinion and perceptions about health equity and health disparities, as well as views and messages in support of holistic review in the medical admissions process. In addition, this research study offers updates on core tracking questions about perceptions of medical schools and teaching hospitals.

Learning Objectives:
• Understand public views about health equity and health disparities.
• Identify effective messaging in support of holistic review in medical school admissions.
• Understand public views about medical schools and teaching hospitals.

Leading with Heart: Transforming Generations

Each year, the AAMC recognizes an individual with the Herbert W. Nickens award for outstanding contributions to promoting justic in medical education and health equity in the United States.

Maria L. Soto-Greene, MD, MS-HPEd, FACP, the 2019 Herbert W. Nickens awardee, will deliver this year’s lecture and focus on the roles we all play in transforming generations.

Soto-Greene acknowledges that, in life, there are many drivers and untapped strengths that contribute to success. Together, we will take a journey from humble beginnings fraught with barriers and challenges culminating in the self-transformation needed to transform generations. Therefore, championing equity, diversity, and inclusion demands that we lead with heart.

If the U.S. population of incarcerated individuals all lived in one city, that city of 2.2 million people would be larger than Phoenix, our country’s fifth largest city. Our criminal justice system has become the largest provider of mental health care services in this country.

By this point in the conference, you’ve already heard from Bryan Stevenson and you’ve most likely been moved by his call for social justice. That call includes health justice as well and should remind us that suffering and illness do not stop when someone becomes incarcerated. Many of the challenges you face as a doctor to a patient become more difficult and harder to treat once your patient enters the criminal justice system and then returns back to the community. The health care crisis of mass incarceration is leaving lasting and painful wounds that affect our patients, our roles as healers, and our society. What can those of us in academic medicine do to ensure that we are part of the solution?

Join two leaders who have championed humanizing, safe and respectful health care for incarcerated patients and fought for change in the criminal justice system. Dr. Elizabeth Ford has spent her career as a psychiatrist treating men with serious mental illness in New York City jails on Rikers Island, improving jail psychiatric care in order to minimize the traumatic impact of incarceration, and expanding training and research experiences for medical students, residents and fellows. Dr. Newton Kendig, the former medical director for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is now leading a criminal justice initiative at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. In this session, Dr. Ford and Dr. Kendig will explore the current state of health care in correctional settings, examine some of the current academic partnerships, and encourage medical school and teaching hospital leaders to both value the care of these patients and recognize the enormous public good that clinical training opportunities in jails and prisons provide.

Increasingly, U.S. medical schools are developing and expanding global health courses and tracks. Yet, global health is an immensely complex domain, which cuts across geographic and disciplinary borders. From infectious disease to mental health, well-being is intertwined with cultural, economic, environmental, technological, legal, and political factors. Further, there is a growing need not only for interprofessional training within the health sciences, but also interdisciplinary collaborations with architects, lawyers, and other professionals.

In this session, two institutions — the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore — will illustrate how innovative and interdisciplinary programs can advance global health research, education, and practice. Descriptions and outcomes from interdisciplinary global health programs from both institutions, in different settings, will be shared, describing both challenges and lessons learned. Presenters will integrate how research on team science informs global health collaborations and guide participants through a process of organizing and developing strong interprofessional teams.

Learning Objectives:
• Articulate the need for, and challenges of, interdisciplinary global health research, education, and practice.
• Share strategies for working across professional and graduate schools to create interdisciplinary global health projects from project development to administrative structures.
• Gain experience fromlessons learned from team science into research, education, and outreach missions at home institutions.

For over 50 years, the Research in Medical Education (RIME) community has advanced the scholarship of medical education by pursuing key questions. And yet, as scholars, we are keenly aware of how much remains unknown and how many more questions warrant investigation. In this session, we invite renowned scholars to share their perspectives on the next big questions that will advance medical education. Researchers, educators, leaders, learners: Join us!

Learning Objectives:
• Describe provocative questions in assessment, self-directed learning, equity pedagogy, and faculty development.
• Identify topics for future research in health professions education.
• Discuss the boundaries of knowledge in key areas of health professions education.

Gun violence is a public health crisis in this country. Each year, 38,000 Americans die from firearm-related injuries as a result of suicide, interpersonal violence, mass shootings and unintentional injuries. In addition, an estimated 85,000 people survive non-fatal firearm injuries that result in both physical and emotional trauma for both the individual and entire communities. In the face of this widespread reality, physicians and hospital-based violence prevention programs increasingly play a role in identifying patients at risk, counseling patients to reduce firearm-related injuries, and partnering with communities affected by gun violence.

Continuing the discussion from a session at Learn Serve Lead 2018, this session will explore strategies underway at academic medical centers to equip future and practicing physicians to address gun violence using a public health framework. From curricular learning opportunities across the continuum of medical education to partnerships that empower families and help ensure safe and resilient communities, speakers will provide examples of effective strategies to prepare physicians at the local level in their efforts to reduce gun violence.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe current state of gun violence education in medical student and resident training
• Identify barriers to designing effective curricula on gun violence
• Discuss ways to prepare physicians to raise the topic of gun violence with their patients.

With the rise of the #MeToo movement, the topic of sexual and gender harassment has been increasingly popular in a variety of fields from entertainment to medicine. Exposure and activity in this area has been positive, recognizing the prevalence and impact of harassment on women. However, this conversation has tended to exist in a binary silo, seen primarily as a “women’s issue,” a topic talked about by and for women. This one-sidedness has left men, allies, and individuals of other genders and identities outside of the conversation, feeling unsure how to support and act — including instances where men are targets. Furthermore, women of color are less likely to come forward because of fear of being stereotyped in addition to not having the support systems that white women have. Specific subtopics addressed in this session may include: defining and educating about respect for colleagues, learners, and patients; bystander training; effects of #MeToo on male mentors of female mentees; tips for allies and growing the choir of allies; and the backlash against male allies.

This session will take the form of an inclusive conversation for men, allies, and additional perspectives in academic medicine to hear about why this topic is important to all, how everyone can contribute to the conversation and become allies, and ultimately how institutions can expand their campus conversations. Taking an intersectional, nonbinary approach to harassment, this session aims to create a safe space for all perspectives and offer examples of how institutions can take a solution-oriented and inclusive approach to addressing harassment.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify myths and facts about sexual and gender harassment.
• Recognize harassment is not just a white women’s issue, and allies can use their privilege to help transform institutions and systems by identifying policy innovations to effectively address harassment.
• Adopt strategies and interventions that institutions have undertaken to create an inclusive environment with solutions to address sexual and gender harassment.

As our academic medicine community considered professional development strategies for clinician educators in support of our triple missions, traditional solutions may not be feasible or optimal. Busy clinical schedules and reduced funding may get in the way of traveling to and participating in face-to-face meetings. There also may be few colleagues locally with similar interests, which can limit local professional development options and lead clinician educators to feel undervalued and isolated. In recent years, efforts to leverage online collaborative learning tools to connect like-minded individuals from around the country and the world have been implemented. Online professional development now connects individuals and supports the creation of online communities that promote the professional development of isolated and, potentially, all medical educators. This session will highlight several models of these online communities. Presenters will discuss online graduate programs, communities of practice, and the use of social media to deliver content and connect faculty virtually to develop teaching and scholarship skills.

Learning Objectives:
• Describe models used to design online professional development.
• Discuss the pros and cons of using online communities and technologies to offer professional development.
• Consider the model(s) that would work best at your institution that aligns with the needs of your medical educators.

There is growing concern about the increasing number of older physicians in the United States and their roles in academic medicine. Currently, one in five MDs is 65 years old or older, and the size of this group has increased by 27% since 2005. The average physician anticipates retiring at about the age of 60 but actually retires closer to age 69. Newer data, however, suggest that 46.8% anticipate retiring sooner than planned.

Academic health centers spend considerable resources ensuring that learners transition smoothly into undergraduate and graduate medical education and independent practice. Late-career transitions into retirement, however, typically occur without the same level of institutional support, despite the potential for these transitions to impact patient care, institutional bottom lines, individual physicians’ personal and professional identity, and the makeup of the health care workforce. In addition, there is no consensus regarding how, when, or who decides when an MD should step back from full- or part-time engagement.

This session will explore the current landscape of the aging physician workforce, the basis for decisions regarding retention or disengagement of these individuals, and what strategies should be considered both by the physician and by academic medicine regarding a change in status. Physicians currently or recently navigating late-career transitions of their own will draw on evidence and personal experience to illuminate this topic.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify demographic trends at play for older physicians and the potential value-added contributions of these senior clinicians.
• Name barriers to retirement and reasons physicians are considering earlier retirement.
• Identify approaches that can be employed to segue from full-time engagement to retirement.

On Veterans’ Day, what better way to honor those who have served in the military than to hear from two physicians who have led extraordinary lives before and after their military service?

Native American physician, author, soldier, patient, and healer, Jon Kerstetter, MD has had a remarkable journey. Kerstetter’s life began in poverty on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. With determination and the dream of becoming a doctor, Kerstetter entered Mayo Medical School at age 34. Trained as an emergency physician, he later joined the Army National Guard after volunteering for tours in war-torn Rwanda, Kosovo, and Bosnia. His three tours in the Iraq war marked the height of American struggle there. After returning from Iraq, Kerstetter suffered a stroke resulting in severe cognitive and physical disabilities. His long recovery coupled with complications from PTSD prevented him from continuing his medical practice. It also led him to understand his own resilience and to a new vocation as an author. Kerstetter’s first book, Crossings, was released in 2018.

South Korean immigrant, military officer, combat surgeon, professor, and chief of surgery, Peter Rhee, MD has had an equally exceptional life. Probably best known as the attending physician for U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and other victims of the 2011 Tucson mass shooting, Rhee is a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and served as a trauma surgeon in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has worked in the trauma centers of several academic medical centers and is an active researcher. His memoir, Trauma Red, chronicles the patient cases Dr. Rhee has handled on two distinct battlefields—those on foreign soil and those within the urban zones of Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Known for his passion, Dr. Rhee doesn’t shy away from discussing the politics of violence.

Join us as we salute two of the many heroes who chose to serve society as both doctor and military service member.

Join Dr. David J. Skorton and the AAMC Leadership Team for an informal conversation about the issues facing academic medicine as well as the AAMC's recently launched strategic planning process.

David Skorton will be interested to hear your feedback on the following questions:
1. Thinking about the future of health care, research, and medical education, what excites you the most? What worries you the most?
2. How can AAMC deepen our impact and relevance?

Open to all

Awards ceremony for recipients of the Best Paper and New Investigator RIME awards.

A grab-and-go continental breakfast will be available outside of the plenary. Stop by before heading in.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.

Highlight sessions are composed of reports on select abstracts related by a particular theme. Abstracts presented orally may be research — completed empirical investigations that contribute to medical education research and practice or innovation — or unique educational experiences far enough along in the developmental cycle to provide valuable lessons and insights. The sessions will be moderated and allow for presentation of each abstract along with discussion.

Learning Objectives:
• Recognize key topics currently of note in medical education.
• Distinguish similarities and differences among a variety of educational interventions.

Download the full descriptions of the session abstracts.