ACGME

Debra L. Dooley came to the ACGME 22 years ago, initially in an administrative role with the Review Committee for Internal Medicine. She retires today, after 10.5 years as the Director of Educational Activities, where she leads the team responsible for producing the ACGME’s educational programming, and most notably the Annual Educational Conference. We spent some time with her before she left, discussing her career, her mentors, her legacy, and the renaming of the Debra L. Dooley Program Coordinator Excellence Award.

Health provider shortage areas, comprised of urban and rural regions with high populations of people struggling with multi-morbidity and poverty, often have a challenge with physician recruitment. Dr. Meaghan Ruddy, vice president for Academic Affairs and director of Medical Education for The Wright Center for GME in Scranton, Pennsylvania, describes how a teaching health center family medicine program operationalized as a graduate medical education safety-net consortium.

In his President’s Plenary, ACGME President and CEO Thomas J. Nasca, MD, MACP addressed a crowd of approximately 3,700 people with a fundamental question – “what will the medical workforce of the future look like?” The short answer is no one knows.

On this first full day of the ACGME Annual Educational Conference, attendees were encouraged to “reignite the fire” of passion that drives them to work in graduate medical education, and to rediscover their meaning in medicine.

Collaboration and connection were front-and-center during the six pre-conferences today at to kick off the 2019 Annual Educational Conference. The pre-conferences, which are designed to appeal to those across experience levels from a first-year coordinator to seasoned designated institutional official (DIO), mixed detailed information about ACGME accreditation with inspirational and aspirational examples of how each member of the graduate medical education (GME) community can positively influence the experience of patients, peers, colleagues, and themselves through their work and unique contributions.

The American Association of Osteopathic Medicine highlights the ACGME Back to Bedside initiative to bring joy and meaning back to work, while encouraging osteopathic programs to apply for the second round of funding.

The ACGME is committed to supporting graduate medical education programs to develop a Culture of Well-Being, not just the absence of burnout and depression. The central feature in this culture is the well-being of all members of the health care team, including faculty and staff members, and residents and fellows.

Named for ACGME Senior Scholar in Residence and pioneer of interprofessional medical education Dr. DeWitt C. Baldwin Jr., the Baldwin Seminar Series has helped the ACGME shine more focus on innovation, excellence, expanded thinking, and fresh perspectives in graduate medical education.