GAFP Residents
2013 AAFP National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students
Are you a medical student or a resident? If so, how would you like to attend the 2013 AAFP National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students? It will be from Thursday, August 1 - Saturday, August 3 in Kansas City, Mo.
The 2013 AAFP National Conference is the place to explore, learn, and connect for the next chapter of family medicine. Immerse yourself in topics ranging from clinical skills and career planning to the factors that are influencing the health care system transformation. Leave with important connections and an energizing passion for family medicine.
To register, visit: http://www.aafp.org/events/national-conference.html.
In addition, the AAFP is now accepting applications for poster presentations at the conference. Poster categories are:
- clinical inquiry
- community project
- educational program
- research
The contest is open to AAFP resident and student members enrolled in an ACGME/AOA accredited residency program or LCME/COCA accredited medical school. The submission deadline is April 12.
Selected entries will be displayed in the Exposition Hall, Thursday through Saturday. One resident and one student winner will be recognized on Saturday and will earn a trip to the 2013 AAFP Scientific Assembly in San Diego, California, September 25-28 to present their poster.
For details about this program, including application forms, visit aafp.org/nc/posters. For more information, contact Ashley Jungles at ajungles@aafp.org or 800.274.2237 ext. 6726.
In addition, if you would like to see 2012 Highlights or a recap of the real talk about family medicine that happened at National Conference, then go to this link:
http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/cme/aafpcourses/conferences/nc.html where you can browse photos, view the National Conference Family Medicine Video Contest winning submissions, and explore resolutions from the student and resident congresses.
AAFP National Conference Scholarships
AAFP has 200 scholarships available for residents and students to attend their National Conference, August 1-3 in Kansas City, Mo. The scholarships are for $600 and you must be a member of AAFP to apply.
Scholarship categories include:
- First-time Student Attendee Award;
- Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG) Leadership Scholarship Program;
- Minority Scholarships Program for Residents and Medical Students;
- Community Outreach Awards; and
- Tomorrow’s Leader Award.
Application packages (application, required essay and/or supporting documents) must be received via fax, email or mail postmarked no later than May 1. To learn more about the scholarships available, please visit: http://www.aafp.org/events/national-conference/about/scholarships.html.
GAFP's Resident Directors for 2013:
Wilhelmina M. Prinssen, MD with Emory Family Medicine Residency Program
Rosiland Harrington, MD, with Georgia Health Sciences University Family Medicine Residency Program
Alternate Director- Adegoke Adeleke, MD, with Morehouse Family Medicine Residency Program
Alternate Director- P.J. Lynn, MD, with Rome Family Medicine Residency Program
2012 End of Year Report from Georgia Residency Programs
As part of the Congress of Delegates Annual Meeting, all Georgia residency directors are asked to submit a progress report to the Academy. Excerpts on the exciting activities our residency programs have been engaged in during the past year follow.
Atlanta Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program
Atlanta, GA
We have now graduated 16 classes, with 70% of our graduates remaining in Georgia to practice.
We had a successful match this year, filling all of our 6 positions. We had 1800 applicants for those 6 positions. Our interns have started out very well and have gotten excellent evaluations on their first 2 rotations.
We have hired a new faculty member, Viktoria Nurpeisov, MD. Dr Nurpeisov was a chief resident in our program, attended the Medical College of Georgia, and recently finished a geriatrics fellowship at Emory.
Our Family Medicine Center in Morrow, Georgia, continues to do well. We increased our number of outpatient visits last calendar year by 17% and are on track to increase it by around 25% for 2012. We also continue to see continuity OB patients at the Palmetto Health Clinic (FQHC) in Palmetto.
Other notable accomplishments include winning the first-place award for research at the national student and resident meeting in Kansas City last year (Viktoria Nurpeisov, MD). The same resident also won the Resident of the Year award for Georgia. In addition, one of our first-years residents, Michelle Cooke, was chosen to be the AAFP resident representative on the board of the AMA. Finally, all of our residents have passed their boards on their first attempt the last 3 years.
We hope that interest in Family Medicine amongst American medical students will continue and reverse the multi-year decline we have been experiencing. We must all continue to promote Family Medicine to all medical students we encounter, and show them the benefit of continuity of care, and comprehensive care, and how this will improve the health care provided to the citizens of Georgia.
Family Practice Residency at The Medical Center
Columbus, Georgia
The Family Practice Residency at The Medical Center has a long and distinguished history of providing physician Graduate Medical Education and patient care to the Columbus area. The three-year Family Practice residency program was established in 1972. Prior to that date, primary care physicians were trained as general practitioners with a two-year residency after medical school. Over the past sixty years The Medical Center has been instrumental in supplying general practitioners and family physicians who served the needs of Georgia and particularly the Columbus area. The Medical Education program also sponsors a Transitional Year internship in which medical student graduates receive a traditional internship on their way to specialty training such as anesthesia or radiology. These two programs have trained over four hundred physicians who are scattered around the state of Georgia and the southeastern United States. In the immediate area, there are approximately fifty physicians who practice within a thirty-mile radius of Columbus who can claim all or part of their training at The Medical Center.
An important part of our Medical Education mission is providing quality medical care to the underserved. Under the guidance of full-time attending physicians, the Family Practice and Transitional Year residents provide care in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology. The teaching services enable The Medical Center to serve as a patient resource and referral center for citizens of Georgia and east Alabama. Residents provide care at the Columbus Health Department clinics and routinely assist on Columbus Regional's outreach medical van. During the last year, the teaching program saw over 35,000 outpatient visits in the Family Practice Center, delivered hundreds of infants and cared for thousands of hospital admissions. With training in Advanced Cardiac and Trauma Life Support, residents help provide 24/7 care to patients referred to The Medical Center's Intensive Care Units and Trauma program.
The Family Medicine residency received a full initial three-year accreditation (maximum allowable on first inspection) from the American Osteopathic Association for the three-year osteopathic Family Medicine program. The Transitional Year program is also dually certified by the AOA and ACGME and has a five year accreditation cycle from the ACGME. The Family Medicine Residency Program also received a full five-year accreditation cycle.
The residency program is now eight years into full implementation of an Electronic Health Record and has transitioned to AthenaClinicals as its second E.H.R. With the ability to have fifty simultaneous providers using computers in the exam rooms, it is the largest outpatient EHR implementation in the Columbus area. The Medical Center and its faculty are committed to keep the residency program at the cutting edge of providing quality and cost effective medicine.
This summer we became an official satellite campus for Mercer University School of Medicine as a branch campus. Fourteen pioneering Mercer MS3 students chose Columbus for their 2 years of clinical rotations. The Medical Center and St. Francis Hospital are collaborating to provide clinical experiences for these students. Additionally, our teachers hold clinical medical school appointments at the Medical College of Georgia, Nova Southeastern University and Georgia-PCOM. While resident training is the primary mission of the Medical Education Department, there is extensive cooperation with Three Rivers AHEC in the training of physician assistants, nurse practitioners and other allied health providers.
An important mission of our training program is to supply physicians to meet the needs of Georgia citizens. The following physicians graduated in June 2012 and are listed with their practice location:
| Bolatito Abe, MD | Joe Huong, DO |
| Los Angeles, CA | Atlanta, GA |
| Gladys Ukabi, MD | Rubab Khalil, MD |
| Creston IA | Columbus, GA |
| Amit Bawa, MD. | Stella Kinyota, MD |
| Columbus, GA | Boston, MA |
| Delano Benjamin, MD | Heather Martin, DO |
| Birmingham, AL | Dickinson, ND |
| Adam Bruckner, DO | Jagdish Shukla, MD |
| Aiken, SC | Columbus, GA |
| Monica Hoffmeister, MD | Michele Shumpert, DO |
| Columbus, GA | Atlanta, GA |
Emory Family Medicine Residency Program
Atlanta, GA
The Emory Family Medicine Residency Program (EFMRP) completed its' seventeenth year of training residents. During the 2011-2012 academic year 25 residents were in training. All residents completing the program went into private practice except one graduate who accepted a fellowship position in Geriatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. The GAFP Resident of the Year was awarded to Dr. Ann Marie Lam.
One resident left the Emory Family Medicine Residency Program after 3 months of training due to a family illness, and restarted training in the 2012-2013 academic year. Three residents left the program at the end of the academic year. One PYG2 resident left after matching in an OBGYNE residency program in Hawaii, another left to transfer into a Psychiatry residency. The third resident was couples matched with the resident pursuing the Psychiatry residency, and transferred into a Family Medicine Residency Program in Arizona to be with his wife. Three of the four residency open positions were filled by transferring residents into the Emory Family Medicine Residency Program
The Program staffs its family medicine service (FMS) at Emory University Hospital Midtown, previously Crawford Long Hospital, which is the sponsoring hospital for the Emory Family Medicine Residency Program. This is an excellent teaching service with the full academic training and clinical services support of Emory Healthcare.
The Program opened its' new clinic in August 2010. This clinic is designed around PCMH concepts and incorporates state-of-the-art teaching resources for residents, students, and faculty. Physicians see patients with laptop computers, using a fully integrated wireless EMR. The clinic has implemented e-prescribing, a depart process and meaningful use, and is fully electronic. The outpatient EMR freely communicates with all outpatient and inpatient clinical care throughout the Emory system.
The program's website is: http://fpm.emory.edu/Family/index.cfm
Faculty/ Staff Changes
The interim Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine is Dr. Kate Heilpern, effective since September 1, 2011. Dr. Heilpern is the Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. A national search is underway for a new Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. A national search is also underway for a new Dean of the Emory University School of Medicine.
The program director is Dr. Susan Schayes.
The program coordinator is Ms. Sandra Price.
The administrative support staff is Mr. Ursula Robertson.
2011 graduates
| Ann Marie Lam | Private practice-Woodstock, Georgia |
| Karim Makhni | Private practice-Bisbee Arizona |
| Caroline Oczachowski | Private practice-Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Nicole Bender Rodriguez | Geriatrics Fellowship, Emory University School of Medicine |
| Harsha Menon | Private practice-Augusta, Georgia |
Family Medicine Center
All Family medicine residents and faculty practice in the Emory Family Medicine at Dunwoody clinic and provide inpatient care to include pediatrics at Emory University Hospital Midtown. The Dunwoody site offers full service family medicine care as well as multiple procedures. The Dunwoody clinic provides teaching and training to both Family medicine residents and medical students in Ambulatory Care at the Emory University School of Medicine.
The clinic web site is: http://www.emoryhealthcare.org/family-medicine/index.html
Graduates
We currently have 125 graduates in practice. Approximately 70% are practicing in Georgia.
Future Directions
We anticipate future expansion of our Dunwoody site as we strive to provide care for a larger portion of our local population. A significant Japanese patient population will be joining the practice with the closing of the Nihon clinic. We continue to dedicate faculty resources to teaching medical students and being involved with the FMIG at Emory, in an attempt to interest students in our discipline. Emory has changed its' medical school curriculum to a new innovative curriculum which includes longitudinal small group learning. Three of the Division of Family Medicine faculty, continue to meet weekly with medical students in this small group learning environment. We expect continued implementation of our EMR to involve health maintenance and a patient portal during the next academic year.
The Medical Center of Central Georgia/Mercer University School of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program has had an eventful year.
On June 29, 2012, the residency hosted the graduation of the sixth class of fellows from the Geriatric Fellowship program, as well as the first class of fellows from our Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship.
The 2011-12 academic year included the completion of the second year of participation as an Early Adopter in the University of Arizona's Integrative Medicine in Residency program. As one of the original 13 programs in the country offering this program in the pilot phase, we are proud to have now graduated 18 residents, 1 faculty, and four Integrative Geriatric Fellows from this nationally recognized award-winning program, and are excited about contributing to the ongoing development of the IMR curriculum.
Our faculty grantsmanship has again been extraordinary this year. Dr. Monique Davis-Smith continues work on a 3 year $3.1 million NIH grant for the Faith-based Diabetes Prevention Initiative. Dr. Paul Seale continues work on his 3 year, $1.87 million residency training NIH supplement to his 5 year $5.7 million Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration NIH grant to improve Brief Intervention and Early Treatment of alcohol abuse in the local hospital EC.
Implementation of the full library of the Challenger Program for Residencies, made possible by a grant from the GAFP Foundation and generous faculty contributions, has been a great success. Residents have embraced it as an invaluable tool for Board review as well as general resourcing. Five PGY 3 residents sat for Boards during residency this year, and all passed.
8 of 8 positions were matched in the 2012 PGY 1 class with strong candidates, with most having strong ties to Georgia. Of the eight 2012 residency graduates, six are in practice in Georgia and one is in fellowship in Georgia with practice plans in state as well. Two are out of state with fellowship and will return to Dalton in June 2013. Overall, more than 85% of the graduates are practicing in Georgia, with 70% of those serving in medically underserved areas.
Medical College of Georgia Family Medicine Residency Training Program
Augusta, GA
Since graduating its first class of residents in 1975, a total of 249 residents have completed their training in the Family Medicine Residency Program. 81.1 percent of these graduates chose to remain in the Southeast, and of these, 70.8 percent chose practice sites in Georgia. 87.5 percent of the 2012 graduates remained in Georgia.
Resident recruitment activities continued on both the local and national levels with program representatives traveling to Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, as well as Atlanta and Augusta, GA. Also, national residency fairs attended were the American Academy of Family Physicians, American and Student National Medical Association. Those efforts resulted in a successful match with all eight intern positions being filled. Six filled in the National Resident Matching Program match and two in the Osteopathic match.
Since 2000, Mayo Clinic Health System in Waycross, Georgia, rural track training program, has graduated a total of 21 residents and 71 percent have remained in Georgia and successfully filled their two intern slots in the March 2012 National Resident Matching Program match.
The Family Medicine residency at MCG received continued accreditation for 4 years from the ACGME by the RRC.
Faculty Development Sessions were held quarterly.
Grand Rounds were introduced monthly as part of the Noon Conference Series. Department faculty present a variety of topics. Informal feedback is also welcomed immediately following the presentations during Q&A sessions.
Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences are also held monthly to evaluate cases that present a learning opportunity.
Resident retreat for all PGY-2s and chief residents was held in August 2012 in Tybee Island, Georgia. Topics presented by faculty included Personal Financial Management, Fatigue and Stress/Burnout, Career Development, and Conflict Management. Team Building was presented by chief residents.
Monthly chart reviews continue and the Quality Assurance Committee comprised of residents under the supervision of faculty remains active.
Continued recognition through the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as a level III Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH). In accordance with the PCMH guidelines, the FMC adopted a modified multi-disciplinary team structure. There are seven teams of attending physicians, resident physicians, mid-level providers and nurses. Teams meet on a monthly basis to discuss patient care issues, communication or safety concerns, and anticipated cross-coverage needs.
Residents published five publications this past year and five residents presented at regional/national and international conferences. Each PGY-3 presented at least one scholarly activity over the year. Residents were required to provide a written bibliography, written presentation, copies of articles, and a literature review. PGY-2s provided a Critical Appraisal of Topic (CAT) during their community medicine rotation. In addition, all residents with their advisor presented at Journal Club.
Morehouse School of Medicine Residency Program
Atlanta, GA
The Morehouse School of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program was established in 1981 and has since graduated 138 residents, with 80% of them practicing in the state of Georgia.
Six new residents entered the program on July 1, 2012:Folasade Ajayi Brown Medical School - Providence, RI
Jennifer Francois Morehouse School of Medicine - Atlanta, GA
Veronita Thompson Florida State University - Tallahassee, FL
Wanda Gumbs University of Alabama School of Medicine - Birmingham, AL
Ayanna Khalsa Boston University - Boston, MA
Serita Newton Meharry Medical College - Nashville, TN
Accomplishments:
On February 3, 2012, the Morehouse School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine was granted Level 1 status as a Patient Centered Medical Home by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
The 4th Annual Resident Research Forum in the Department of Family Medicine was held June 13, 2012 at the National Center for Primary Care where 3rd year residents presented their topics.
Dr. Donessa Fraser - "Knowledge, Attitude and Use of Motivational Interviewing Before and After and Educational Intervention"
Dr. Susan Thomas - "Exploring the Barriers Involved in Patient Centered e-Communication"
Dr. Jose Ventura - "The Integrated Hospitalist Telemedicine Stroke Center as an option for a Primary Stroke Center"
Dr. Kanyan Xiao - "The Burden of Emergency Department Use for Skin Disease: An Analysis of the ED Database in GA in 2009" and "Does Metformin Increase Risk of Anemia among Patients with Type II Diabetes Mellitus"
Dr. Susan Thomas (2012 Family Medicine Residency Graduate) joined the MSM Family as a Full-Time Faculty Member.
Dr. Isioma Okwumabua presented "Rare Presentation of Stroke like Symptoms" at the NMA Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly New Orleans, La July 28-Aug1, 2012 and received the award in the resident forum.
She also presented "Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) screening in Primary Care" -Scholastic Poster Presentation STFM Annual Spring Conference Seattle Washington April 2012
Awards and recognitions:
Dr. Isioma Okwumabua and Dr Omole were the 2012 Recipients of the AAFP Foundation Pfizer Immunization Program System Implementation(Scholarship/Grant)Award ($11,000) -Adult Immunization Category
Dr. Isioma Okwumabua was nominated for the Georgia Academy Of Family Physicians(GAFP) 2012-2013 Resident Of The Year
Dr. Isioma Okwumabua (PGY2) was the Second Place Winner at the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians (GAFP) Annual Research Poster Presentation in Atlanta, GA with her presentation on " Overcoming Barriers to Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Screening in Primary Care"
Dr. Joyce-lyn Ume Oguamanam received the 2012 Southeast Center of Excellence In Geriatric Medicine Resident travel scholarship Award. The event was held in Birmingham, Alabama.
Dr. Samir Ale, PGY 1 received the 2012 Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism and Excellence Teaching Award.
While Dr. Susan Thomas (PGY 3) now a faculty won the 3rd place award with her poster " A Rare Form of Melanoma Masquerading as Diabetic Foot Ulcer"
Drs. Thomas, Fraser and Ventura (PGY 3- class of 2012) also presented at the 2012 Society of Hospital in Medicine annual meeting April 1-4 in San Diego, CA with their poster entitled: "An UNUSUAL TWIST OF STROKE/Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis"
Dr. Susan Thomas was the First Place WINNER at the 1st Annual William E. Booth Resident Research Day with her topic "Exploring the Barriers Involved in Patient Centered e-Communication."
Dr Thomas also published in the Endocrinology: Thomas S*, Meng Y, Patel V, Strayhorn G "A Rare Form of Melanoma Masquerading as Diabetic Foot Ulcer": A case report, Case Reports in Endocrinology, vol. 2012 Article ID 502806, 4 pages ,2012. Doi:10.1155/2012/502806.
Dr. Jose Ventura was awarded the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Resident Teacher of the Year for 2012 for Morehouse Family Medicine.
Dr Ventura received GAFP Resident of the Year 2012 award
Dr. Folashade Omole, Program Director received the 2012 Arnold P Gold Foundation Leonard Tow Humanism Award
And we continue our Volunteerism and Community Service:
10 Family Medicine residents volunteered to give sports physicals to students at Paul D. West Middle School which is our adopted school.
Resident Drs. Jeffrey Bouadou and Adegoke Adeleke volunteered their services at the West End Medical Center 2012 "Back to School Immunization Fun Fest" in Atlanta, GA where they provided dental, hearing, vision and immunization to more than 300 children.
Activities: Dr. Isioma Okwumabua took over the as Champion for Change under a grant obtained by the American Academy of Family Physician's to implement Tobacco Cessation in primary care practice.
Carolyn Clarke our program manager was nominated to the Board of Trustees for the Association of Family Medicine Administrators and also serves as the Chair of Audio Web.
Floyd Family Medicine Residency Program
Rome, GA
The new Intern class is settling in now and performing at a very high level. The upper year residents have embraced their new role as the supervising residents and have become excellent role models for the new Interns. We are in the process of converting to an entirely electronic environment both in the hospital and in the Family Medicine Center. By the spring of 2013 the hospital EMR will be totally implemented and all order entries and notes will be done electronically. In the FMC we will be converting to the Greenway PrimeSuite EMR which will be completely compliant with the CMW Meaningful Use criteria and PCMH.
In January of 2012 we received level 3 PCMH recognition from the NCQA. We took part in the inaugural class of the GAFP PCMH University along with TransforMed and, with their excellent guidance, were able to achieve this recognition in one year! We already can see the impact this recognition has given us by transforming our practice into a truly team approached clinic. It allows everyone working in our clinic to have meaningful input into all the processes and decisions on a continuous basis. As a result of our becoming a level 3 PCMH clinic our hospital has decided to obtain this recognition for our entire primary care network. We have assumed the leadership role in making this happen.
We continue to teach the medical students from our state medical schools. MCG will be starting their new campus for third and fourth year students here in Rome starting in 2013. PCOM-Georgia campus also has an anchor campus here with third and fourth year students as well. We enjoy teaching these students but are rapidly reaching limits to our resources to provide an excellent educational environment for them. Each year we see the increase in the medical school enrollments without any support to the established GME structure in our state.
Family Medicine Residency Program at Memorial University Medical Center
Savannah, GA
This year begins the sixth year since Robert Pallay, M.D. took over the Family Medicine Residency director's position. The Program at Memorial University Medical Center, Savannah, Georgia continues to improve and develop its program under his direction. We continue to have to deal with changes in faculty with some moving into other academic or practice opportunities and others joining our program. In the past year we have had the addition of Jackie Huntly, M.D., a specialist in Preventive Medicine, have added Atul Devani, M.D. as a full time faculty member, and have added Lindsey Konor, M.D., recently graduated from Ohio State University Medical School Family Medicine Residency in Columbus, Ohio, where she finished her year as Chief resident. Dr. Peter Rives has left the program for other opportunities. In addition, two of our recent graduates, Nikki Johnson, M.D. and Bobbie Kumar, M.D., will be opening their own private practice in Richmond Hill as part of the Memorial Health University Physicians group and regularly precepting in the Family Medicine Center a full day each week. We are also extremely excited and privileged to be able to add as a regular faculty member Karen Tapp Baker, M.D., who is a Board-certified OB-Gyne physician with extensive experience teaching family medicine OB in Chapel Hill, North Carolina as part of the UNC Family Medicine system. Karen will be working in both the OB and Family Medicine departments and will work with us as we continue to develop our OB capabilities here in Savannah, in addition to our usual OB and Gyne time spent down in Hinesville with our physicians there. As usual, with all of these changes, we still have a couple of open positions we continue to look to fill over the next year. We continue to enjoy part-time precepting help from both Keith Ellis, M.D. and Roslyn Taylor, M.D., who continue to work regularly and share their knowledge and wisdom with our residents and our faculty! Rusty Hightower, M.D., a graduate of the FMR program in the 90's continues to do all of our geriatric teaching and training in addition to his full time position with Southcoast Medical Group. In April our full-time behavioral medicine faculty person left to return to hospital case management and we are doing a national search to replace her. In the interim, Dr. Huntly is filling that role and working with the residents regularly. She has tremendous experience with this as well as with Integrative Medicine and she also oversees that program which is in its third year here in our residency. All of these faculty people continue to train our residents in all their inpatient, outpatient, nursing home and geriatrics, sports medicine and other parts of their FM training. The commitment of our faculty as well as the many sub-specialty physicians we work with here at Memorial make the program a growing success and presence in Savannah and the rest of southeast Georgia.
In January of this year, we were excited to receive notification of level 3 NCQA certification as a Patient Centered Medical Home! We remain the only NCQA certified PCMH in Savannah and actually the only office so certified at all south of Macon. In addition, we are one of only 5 certified at the highest level, Level 3, in all of Georgia. Since that notification, our direction has been to walk the walk of practicing as a PCMH and all of our goals have been to incorporate the care of our patients within the PCMH model. This will continue in the ensuing years as we continue to strive to make the residency practice and the residency itself PCMH-friendly.
The various mandated changes in curriculum, work hours, and supervision continue to be a challenge for our program as it is for all residencies around the country. Our FM inpatient team continues to be very busy but we have established a comfortable way of providing care between our four-resident team and the night float residents. Rather than it causing more upheaval, we have stabilized care in a way that we feel has improved continuity and quality of education. We know it will continue to demand more work and further tweaking, but we are comfortable that we are meeting our goals to train all of our residents in all the parts of Family Medicine that will allow them upon graduation to seek traditional FM practice or hospitalist or solely outpatient care. Additional new parts of our curriculum this year include a full 2-week rotation in Atlanta doing practice management fully supported by the administration at Memorial through partnering with experts in the business world. The preliminary reports of residents who have done this rotation from other specialties have been excellent and we are excited about the opportunity for our own residents. Finally, this year we start regular 2-week rotations in rural medicine with all of our PGY3 residents rotating through a site in Thomasville in southwest Georgia. The affiliation with Archbold Medical Center has been a very positive and exciting one for our program and we are looking forward to the feedback we receive from this rotation.
Continuing as one of our biggest challenges this past year is the integration and training of the increase in medical student numbers as the classes at Mercer University School of Medicine have increased in size. In addition to our full resident complement, there are routinely 7-9 medical students working with our faculty and residents either in our office or on the hospital team at all times. Although it has added an increased level of stress for all, the enjoyment we all receive from teaching the students more than makes up for that stress. We are also certain that having the students with us will lead to more of them choosing to enter family medicine as a career choice and, hopefully, have some of them choose each year to join our residency program. The recent establishment of the Family Medicine - Accelerated Curriculum (FM-ACT) pilot at Mercer University School of Medicine here in Savannah will lead to accepting 2-4 first year students yearly into the program. That will allow these students who have expressed and definitive interest in Family Medicine to finish their medical school training in 3 years and then proceed immediately into our own residency program. Our first class of two students finished their first FM rotation this early summer and it was a major smash for them and for all of us! Both Mary Keith and Daniel Gordon were wonderful to have with us for their 6 week rotation but continue to stop by and interact with all of us on a regular basis. The TC interview done by Dr. Pallay and Mary was seen by so many people in Savannah and all were immensely impressed by the new program. In addition, we have had national articles and stories on our program and in January both Dr. Pallay and Dr. Buckley will be on a group presenting at STFM on the accelerated curriculum. Needless to say, the excitement and challenges from this new program will be many and we are excited to be on the cutting edge of this new program to bring more primary care doctors to the workforce sooner!
Our Integrative Medicine Residency curriculum continues to grow and receive funding through the Weil Foundation. We have also partnered with the Andersen Cancer Institute here in Savannah to help develop a more developed Integrated Medicine program in helping cancer patients. Part of this partnering has been funding through ACI to help insure we can continue with this program for at least an additional 3 years. In addition, our grant and the program includes a significant tech component to allow us to develop and adopt tele-learning and other similar changes that we hope will allow residents off-site to remain connected with not just the IMR program but other parts of the educational offerings from the residency. As we go live with our new EMR, EPIC, at the end of this year, it is our hope that we will find ways to improve our IM curriculum's availability even to our residents off-site.
Our graduates continue to find diverse career paths. All of last year's graduates have taken positions doing Family Medicine in practices in Georgia which is an exciting end result of the training we are providing for them here at Memorial. Finally, we added new residents this past June and continue to see a gradual improvement in the knowledge and quality of our resident classes. This improvement is appreciated throughout the entire Memorial campus as they realize the improving quality and knowledge of our residents in all three years. This year we again have significant interest in application to our program from medical students, both US and International graduates, and anticipate filling all 6 positions with excellent students. As we continue to improve the program in the next few years another part of our discussions with leadership will be about increasing the size of the program itself, growing it to a 8-8-8 or 9-9-9 or even larger program in the near future. Of course, that decision is a large one as it entails so much more in terms of adding faculty and learning opportunities.
Southwest Georgia Family Medicine Residency Program at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital
Albany, GA
The Southwest Georgia Family Medicine Residency was successful in recruiting six residents for PGY 1 positions.
Recruitment and interviewing for academic year 2013 - 2014 started September 15, 2012. As of the date of this report, the residency has received 1170 applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service.
Five residents graduated:
Stalina Gowdie, MD-Albany Area Primary Health Care, Albany GAPrysca Ngalme, MD-Bainbridge GA
Erick Green, MD-Fellowship in Mississippi
Terri Stapleton, MD-Jacksonville, FL
Rhett Calhoun, MD-Leesburg GA
This seventeenth graduating class will bring the total number of successfully trained Family Medicine physicians to 84, including 59 practicing in Georgia.
Tricia Bhatt, MD started as a faculty member in the Family Medicine Residency.
The program had a site visit by the ACGME in April 2012. The results of that survey should be available in mid-October.
In July 2012, the third class for the Georgia Health Sciences University (MCG) clinical campus began with 14 students who will be completing their third and fourth year rotations at the Albany clinical campus and the neighboring participating hospitals.
Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital is currently proceeding through a legal process with the FTC to finalize the purchase of Palmyra Hospital in Albany GA. PPMH has taken over the day to day operation and management of Palmyra. The new campus has been named Phoebe North.
Five hospitals in Southwest Georgia and MCG are developing a Consortium to increase Graduate Medical Education opportunities in Southwest Georgia. The five hospitals are: Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville, Colquitt Regional Medical Center in Moultrie, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, and Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton. The consortium has hired a full time executive director. The consortium is in the process of recruiting a full time Designated Institutional Officer.
Summer Student Programs:
Eight premed students from various locations in Southwest Georgia successfully completed the Pathways to Medical School program in July 2012. Several of the recent Pathways graduates have been accepted to medical schools in Georgia.
Fourteen first and second year medical students from various medical schools completed the Summer Student externship in June and July 2012.
January 23, 2013