Association of Chiefs of General Internal Medicine

ACGIM Chiefs Alert

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2: NOVEMBER 13, 2002

PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE
ACGIM - activity galore! ACGIM has been busy the past month, and as always it's a delight to be your president in these productive times. We are now at just over 90 chiefs in ACGIM, and we plan to have an ACGIM T shirt made for the 100th chief! Harry Selker (Tufts-NEMC) and I began a recruitment effort for HSR chiefs to join ACGIM. Keith Doram (Lehigh), Valerie Weber (Geisinger) and I are engaged in an active recruitment process to diversify and expand our overall ranks of chiefs. As organizations go, our percent of potential chiefs enrolled is impressively high!

The last month has also seen some enlightening and important email listserve conversations around part time practice within GIM (kicked off by Fran Brokaw at Dartmouth) and funding for GIM chiefs. Robert Hodge (Missouri) provided an impressive summary of the latter. These may well develop into formal pieces for publication one day (as this is on ACGIM's goals list!).

Bill Moran (Wake) is working on finalizing the program for our national SGIM/ACGIM meetings in Vancouver, 4/30 to 5/03/03. The finishing touches are being put on the Institute on Managing Faculty Demands. Right now, it looks like we'll have a leader from the NAIP speak on Hospitalist programs, Mary Nettleman from VA Commonwealth will speak on business and fiscal issues, and yours truly (ML) will speak on Lifecycle issues, Workforce and Worklife (see this week's commentary in the Green Journal). In addition, workshops on personal professional balance by Penny Williamson and Tony Suchman, co-sponsored by ACGIM, have been submitted to SGIM for review.

Our Mentoring Committee, chaired by Rich Gross (Arizona) has been constituted and charged and is off and running to develop a mentorship program for chiefs. Rich will also be the liaison with SGIM's recent mentoring initiative. Jim Byrd (ECU and ACGIM President-Elect) is working with the SGIM Task Force on defining the domain of GIM. Site visits to chiefs and GIM programs are on the horizon as part of the Career Support Task Force endeavor, and our ACGIM Executive Committee enthusiastically endorsed this. And finally, there has been a lot of discussion and activity surrounding the proposal for ACGIM to join ASP and thus participate in the national discussion about the future of academic IM. The plan also brings ACGIM closer to sub-specialists in IM, and forms a GIM-SSIM committee to further explore these relationships. The five-part proposal was endorsed unanimously by ASP Council, and is now under discussion by ACGIM membership and SGIM Council and Executive Committees. So far, comments by ACGIM members are running strongly in favor of joining. A vote will be held of ACGIM membership prior to finalizing our stance on the proposal.

So, it's been a great month! I look forward to the next one, and to hearing from each and every one of you as we move ahead together!!!
Warmly - Mark

Mark Linzer, MD (mxl@medicine.wisc.edu)
Chief, GIM, University of Wisconsin -Madison
President, ACGIM

WEB SITE OF NOTE
RE-NAMED FELLOWSHIP DIRECTORY OFFERS FREE LISTINGS!
To reflect the cooperation between ACGIM and SGIM in disseminating information about GIM Fellowships, the SGIM Fellowship Directory will now include the ACGIM name. In addition, Chiefs have the opportunity to list their fellowship programs for FREE in the ACGIM/SGIM Directory of General Internal Medicine Fellowships.

The ACGIM/SGIM Directory is a great place to list your fellowship! This online directory provides prospective applicants with information about post-residency fellowships in general internal medicine. A narrative description of each fellowship accompanies structured tabular information, so users can compare programs easily. To view the directory, or print out a form to add your program, go to
http://www.sgim.org/fellowshipdir.cfm

NEWS OF NOTE
STANFORD SEEKS APPLICANTS FOR NEW FACILITATOR TRAINING COURSE
The Stanford Faculty Development Center (SFDC) will offer its first Faculty Development for Contemporary Practice facilitator training program in March 2003. The one-month course is designed to provide faculty with the background knowledge and leadership expertise to conduct development seminars for their colleagues on teaching key concepts, pertinent issues, and the new skills that will be required for practicing medicine in the 21st century.

Speaking for the SFDC, Merlynn Bergen, Peter Rudd, and Kelley Skeff of the Stanford Faculty Development Center stated, "We are quite excited about this program (supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), as we believe it will be one way to help faculty and residents master and teach the new skills needed by physicians as collaborators, leaders, and more effective contributors to the system in which they practice and teach."

Drs. Bergen, Rudd, and Skeff went on to say, "The SFDC has recently completed another series of courses in Clinical Teaching, End-of-Life Care, and Geriatrics, bringing the number of faculty trainers who have attended the Stanford one-month courses to approximately 240. These participants have in turn trained over 15,000 faculty and residents at their home institutions and regional programs. The new course will be an important addition to the center by assisting faculty to acquire and teach a set of skills that are often omitted from usual residency training programs, even though they will be critical to the future of medical practice and academic medicine."

Six faculty will be selected to attend the March program. Individuals interested in applying themselves or recommending a colleague should contact Drs. Bergen (bergen@stanford.edu), Rudd (rudd@stanford.edu), or Skeff (skeff@stanford.edu). More information about the course is available at
http://sfdc.stanford.edu/. The application deadline is December 15, 2002.


RECRUITMENT LISTINGS:

• DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE, Case Western Reserve University

• EPIDEMIOLOGY/OUTCOMES RESEARCH POSITION. Washington University
  FELLOWSHIPS: GIM, Johns Hopkins University; Primary Care Research, UCLA

• GENERAL INTERNIST INVESTIGATOR, Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University

• OUTCOMES RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY, University of Cincinnati Medical Center

• PHYSICIAN INVESTIGATORS, University of Iowa
  PHYSICIAN SCIENTIST, Northwestern University.

• SENIOR SCHOLAR IN GERIATRICS, Case Western Reserve Univ., University Hosp. of Cleveland