Program Director’s Corner – July 2020
Summary: APDEM Virtual Annual Meeting
Odelia Cooper, MD, Secretary-Treasurer, APDEM Council
Program Director, Endocrine Fellowship Program
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
APDEM made history on June 18, 2020. We held our first ever virtual annual meeting with over 100 participants logged onto the Zoom platform. While we all did miss seeing each others’ faces and socializing at our mixer, the virtual meeting provided the ability for all PDs and associate PDs to attend the meeting and to receive up to date information on the initiatives of APDEM. The theme of the meeting was how APDEM and other societies are responding and adapting to the new era of learning in the digital age and ensuring the continued education of our trainees. I am providing a summary of the meeting for your reference.
Our new president, Dr. Andrew Gianoukakis, led the meeting and welcomed our new PDs (Dr. Heather Elias, Dr. Gregory Hong, Dr. Pooja Luthra, Dr. Gunjan Gandhi) and coordinators (Lisa Horvath) as well as new APDEM council members (Dr. Rana Malek), officers (Dr. Odelia Cooper-secretary/treasurer), and staff (Mary Merkin). We bid farewell to staff members Amanda Perl and Alexa Dimock who tirelessly supported APDEM.
The financial state of APDEM was reported by the treasurer to be strong. Our primary investments in 2019 were the annual meeting and administrative time and upkeep from staff. Moving forward, the finance committee will assist in recommending ways APDEM can invest and save funds to benefit members. APDEM membership is robust with 111 active PD members (please make sure to renew your membership!). We also thanked the continued support from our sister organizations: American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the Endocrine Society.
Dr. Martha Zeiger from the American Thyroid Association (ATA) highlighted the resources for programs and trainees, including research grants, webinar series, COVID-19 resources, trainee and early career programs, the ATA Career Links Job Board, virtual education library, thyroid calculators, and patient education resources. Dr. Susan Samson, secretary of AACE, presented the positive feedback received on the new structure of Endocrine University and informed us that EU for year two fellows in November will be virtual. In addition, AACE offers AACE master classes, conferences, annual meetings, the Braverman’s fund, and will be shortly launching an online resource center and ASAP 2021. Dr. Carol Wysham, president elect of the Endocrine Society, discussed ENDOOnline2020 that was offered free of charge and had over 26000 participants. There was also an Endocrine Fellows Series with discussion on professional development during that conference. Further, the Endocrine Society is offering complimentary membership for first year fellows. The Committee on Diversity and Inclusion supports the FLARE program (Future Leaders Advancing Research in Endocrinology) that reaches out to basic scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty from underrepresented minorities and provides leadership development training, skill building, and mentorship. Applications open up in August. The Society also provides the Fellows Training Series, the In-Training Exam, and a Career Development Workshop Library. Finally, she announced that Clinical Endocrinology Update and Endocrine Board Review 2020 will be virtual this year.
APDEM has taken active steps in supporting policy to ACGME. After collecting data from surveys, APDEM responded to 3 proposed paradigm shifts and to proposed new endocrinology program requirements. APDEM drafted a letter to the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) regarding procedural competencies for incoming endocrine fellows. The revised 2020 APDEM curriculum was launched with assistance by council members and PDs. To receive a copy, please email: apdem@endocrine.org
The APDEM newsletter under the strong guidance of Dr. David Lieb continues to be a forum to update APDEM members on initiatives and provide resources. All PDs and program coordinators are encouraged to submit articles, editorials, letters, and share your COVID-19 experiences and program innovations. You can reach Dr. Lieb at apdem@endocrine.org
Dr. Chris McCartney provided an update on the All in Match survey conducted in Jan-March 2020. Overall, 75% of PDs were very satisfied with the process as were the fellows. Dr. McCartney welcomed input on how to improve compliance with All in Match process—whether to make more severe penalties for noncompliance, smoother process, clarifying MOU, or a prematch process for those interested in just one program. Dr. McCartney did clarify that failure to respond to APDEM’s survey on the number of first year fellows would be an NRMP policy violation. Further, APDEM does request notification of transfers from programs. The Oversight Task force (Drs. Andrew Gianoukakis, Rachel Hopkins, Matthew Levine, Chris McCartney, Aaron Schulman, Amal Shibli-Rahhal) will continue to monitor the process.
The treasurer discussed the creation of the finance committee last year. It is responsible for assessing APDEM’s financial wellbeing and identifying potential fiscal opportunities that will support the mission of the organization. Members are Drs. Odelia Cooper, Andrew Gianoukakis, Sara Lubitz, Chris McCartney, Farah Morgan, Ole-Petter Hamnvik, and Vafa Tabatabaie. The Finance Committee reports directly to Council and is responsible for reviewing the annual operating budget and presenting to Council for approval, identifying potential sister societies and sponsors, exploring investment opportunities and options, developing business plans for proposed APDEM projects, and recommending membership dues rates to Council. The committee met once last year under the prior chair (Dr. Susan Samson) and reviewed 2020’s budget for Council’s approval which was ultimately approved. The committee will meet again later in 2020 to review the 2021 budget. Given APDEM’s good financial standing, we are seeking input for any initiatives, projects, or products that the finance committee should explore recommending to Council for 2021. So please-email your ideas to APDEM. (apdem@endocrine.org)
APDEM announced the formation of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committee chaired by Drs. Ricardo Correa and Rana Malek and Chris McCartney as the board liaison. This will address the ACGME’s common program requirement to address health disparities as part of the professionalism competency as well as the call by Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The goal of the DEI is to increase fellow and faculty knowledge of health equity, diversity, and inclusion; to incorporate projects on social determinants of health equity and disparities; to create a toolkit to increase diversity during recruitment; to develop curriculum resources; provide training in DEI for faculty and fellows; and to work on research and quality improvement in this area. The chairs of DEI welcome APDEM members to volunteer for the committee (apdem@endocrine.org) .
We next focused on the initiatives and actions taken by our COVID-19 task force. The task force was chaired by Drs. David Lieb and Chris McCartney and comprised 23 members in addition to APDEM council representatives. There were 4 subcommittees: pandemic emergency committee (chaired by Drs. Aaron Schulman and Vafa Tabatabaie), fellow didactics committee (chaired by Drs. Ricardo Correa and Deepika Reddy), patient care committee (chaired by Drs. Stephanie Smooke Praw and Emily Szmuilowicz), and 2021 fellow recruitment committee (chaired by Drs. Marina Charitou and Saira Khan). The recruitment committee administered a survey to PDs and fellows, drafted recommendations for the 2020 interview season, and created an online toolkit for virtual interviews. The majority of PDs favored 100% virtual interviews while 60% of fellows favored a combination of in-person and virtual. Delay of NRMP deadline was not overall favored. The pandemic response committee authored a letter to the ACGME advocating protection of our fellows’ time and that our PDs should have some control over how and when fellows our deployed to internal medicine services. They developed a pandemic response plan for PDs to use if their institutions transition to the ACGME Stage 3 pandemic status. The patient care committee developed recommendations in how to incorporate telehealth and fellow-driven care in the outpatient, inpatient, and procedural settings. The didactics committee updated the APDEM list of online educational resources from sister societies and developed a plan for regional didactic programs. At the meeting, a poll was conducted asking if PDs would like to participate in this program, and the majority responded positively. The committee will next start on organizing programs for this initiative. All documents for the COVID task force committees and the co-chairs’ emails are on the apdem.org site. APDEM members are encouraged to reach out to the chairs with any questions, suggestions, and ideas.
Finally, Dr. Geetha Gopalakrishnan provided an update on milestones. The milestone working group is developing Milestone 2.0 whose goal is to develop endocrine specific milestones, provide more specificity for understanding the milestones, utilize harmonized milestones for the competencies, provide positive language to define progression, and limit the number of subcompetencies.
In summary, the first virtual APDEM meeting was successful in communicating to endocrine PDs the support and resources in navigating the new world we are facing. We all felt a part of this close knit community, all facing the same struggles and challenges, and looking to each other for comfort and comraderie. In a world that is physically distant, APDEM is bringing us all together virtually.
And let us hope that next year we can meet in person.