And the envelopes, please…
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Dean Christian Larsen |
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On the third Friday of March at noon, our graduating medical students—like medical students all over the country—tore open the all-important white envelopes and discovered where they will be training as residents. Cheers and shouts filled the ground floor of the SOM. (Listen at WABE Sounds of Atlanta.)
Of 128 graduating seniors, 125 participated in the National Residency Match Program (three participated in the military medical residency match.) The Emory Medicine experience—in which students acquire knowledge and skills in highly diverse clinical settings, internalizing decision making as well as the humanistic aspects of medicine—differentiates our graduates, who are among the most sought after in the nation.
They will now head off to serve in residencies across the US. We're happy to say that 40 will spend some time at Emory or in Georgia; the next most frequent destinations are New York, Illinois, Maryland, California, Texas, Washington D.C., and Tennessee, with one lucky resident headed to Hawaii. In addition to Emory, students will receive their residency training at other prestigious institutions such as Yale, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt, Columbia, NYU, University of Chicago, UCLA, Northwestern, and Washington University, among others.
The most popular specialties were internal medicine (26), pediatrics (16), general surgery (15), and emergency medicine (14). Four students gained matches in urology, and four in ophthalmology.
To see more, go to Storify Emory Match Day.
New critical care option for emergency medicine residents
A collaboration between anesthesiology and emergency medicine has created a joint training opportunity in critical care.
While board-eligible training in critical care medicine became theoretically possible this year through three tracks (surgery, internal medicine, and anesthesiology), there were a lot of practical barriers. In collaboration with a cadre of colleagues, Ruth Lamm (emergency medicine) designed a two-year curriculum with unique requirements, which was approved by the American Board of Anesthesiology. This highly choreographed effort also involved Laureen Hill (chair of anesthesiology), Joel Zivot (Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine fellowship program director), and Dianne Lee (anesthesiology fellowship coordinator).
This exciting new pathway will help ease the shortage of highly trained critical care providers needed to care for an aging population with complex diseases.
Get engaged, be heard
The uncertain sustainability of tenure, changes to NIH research funding, and clinical care reimbursement are just a few of the challenges facing medical faculty. Faculty must be proactively engaged in solutions or risk being left behind as key decisions are made, says Debra Houry (emergency medicine), university senate president and faculty council chair. "Faculty governance should not be seen as 'veto' power, but rather an opportunity to give input or lead new initiatives," she says.
Daniel Brat (pathology) chairs the dean's Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC), whose members are elected by the faculty to serve as representatives. Topics the FAC has addressed recently include:
• Bridge funding in troubled times: who decides and who receives?
• Tenure action: what are the possibilities for change and what are the intended and unintended consequences?
• Valuing faculty time: how can ancillary services of the SOM be streamlined?
Surveys show that many faculty members are unaware of governing bodies like the FAC or are skeptical of their effectiveness. Houry is exploring ways to expand the membership of the current FAC to be more representative, as well as adding ex-officio members to represent constituencies such as education, research, and the Emory Clinic.
Houry would like to hear input from faculty on these questions. Email replies. Follow her on Twitter @debhoury:
• What suggestions do you have for ways faculty can be more engaged in the SOM?
• What venues could faculty use to give input regularly to SOM leaders?
• What issues are facing the SOM (or health care/ academics generally) that Emory faculty can be involved in developing solutions or programs for?
Making a food desert bloom
The Urban Health Initiative, a collaboration among the SOM, the Center for Community Partnership, and city, state, and community partners, has been developing better eating and nutrition programs and urban farming and community gardens in Atlanta's food deserts. Emory students often come to help out on Fridays and Saturdays, says associate director Carolyn Aidman. The garden above is in the Super Giant Foods parking lot, 2176 Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. Volunteer or check out more at facebook.com/SuperGiantCommunityGarden.
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