Program Director’s Corner – May 2021
APDEM Annual Meeting Summary
Odelia Cooper, MD
Program Director, Endocrine Fellowship Program
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
On April 29th APDEM held our Annual Meeting, and though we missed seeing everyone in-person, we were grateful to have a virtual format to communicate with the 132 PDs, associate PDs, and program coordinators that participated. Below is a summary of the meeting.
Our president, Dr. Andrew Gianoukakis, welcomed our new PDs (Drs. Lindsay Bischoff, Brandon Barthel, Christopher Coyne, Sanjay Mediwala, and Tracy Tylee) and APDs (Drs. Elizabeth Lamos and Dragana Lovre) as well as new APDEM council members (Drs. Ricardo Correa, Matthew Levine, and David Lieb), and officers (Drs. Marina Charitou-Secretary/Treasurer and Odelia Cooper-President-Elect). We bid farewell and thanked the valuable contributions of our outgoing officers – Drs. Christopher McCartney, Mira Torres, and Abid Yaqub.
The financial state of APDEM was reported by our treasurer to be strong. Our primary investments in 2020 were the annual meeting and administrative time and upkeep from staff. APDEM membership is robust with 100 active PD members. Please make sure to renew your membership!
The treasurer also presented the updates of the Finance Committee which is responsible for assessing APDEM’s financial well-being and identifying potential fiscal opportunities that will support the mission of the organization. The committee met earlier this year and approved the 2021 budget. The committee will meet again later this year to review the audit and prepare the 2022 budget. Our focus is to increase membership in APDEM and support from sister societies. We are seeking input for any initiatives, projects, or products that the finance committee should explore. So please – email your ideas to APDEM. (apdem@endocrine.org)
We thanked the continued support from our sister organizations: the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the Endocrine Society, and welcomed our new sister society – the Pituitary Society and representatives of each organization presented their updates.
Dr. Susan Samson, secretary of AACE, presented very positive feedback received on the virtual Endocrine University and informed us that EU for year two fellows in November will be virtual. AACE’s annual meeting will be held May 26-29, 2021 and includes the APDEM-AACE program leadership meeting and events for fellow career development. The AACE cardiometabolic conference will be held October 8-10, 2021 virtually. The Lewis Braverman Fund supporting fellows’ educational experiences away from their home programs will open applications in July 2021. There is also now a monthly virtual AACE board review series for fellows based upon their new AACE-Self Assessment Program.
Dr. Victor Bernet from the American Thyroid Association (ATA) highlighted the resources for programs and trainees, including research grants, their 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. The ATA annual virtual meeting will be on Sept. 30-October 3, 2021.
Dr. Carol Wysham, president of the Endocrine Society, highlighted 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 in August 2021. The Endocrine Society encourages fellows to engage in advocacy efforts to influence practice and policy. The Society also provides the Fellows Training Series, the In-Training Exam, and a Career Development Workshop Library. The Endocrine Feedback Loop is a new monthly journal club podcast which features an expert educator and topic specialist to review recently published articles and discuss implications for clinical practice. The annual ENDO 2021 meeting in March had over 7000 attendees, and sessions are now accessible to members. Finally, Dr. Wysham announced that the Clinical Endocrinology Update and Endocrine Board Review 2021 will be virtual this year and reminded us of the complimentary membership for first-year fellows.
Dr. Maria Fleseriu, director of programs for the Pituitary Society, presented the opportunities for fellow education that they offer. The Fellows’ Master Course was held in April 2021 which provided 5 hours of recorded lectures and 8 hours of interactive teaching in large and small groups. There are webinars on pituitary disease and complimentary access to the journal Pituitary for members and patient education booklets.
Dr. Gianoukakis then presented the active committees of APDEM and their 54 members who are graciously volunteering their time to further initiatives in fellow education. In addition to our Council, we have an All-In-Match Oversight Task Force, the COVID-19 Task Force, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Finance Committee, and Newsletter Committee.
The revised 2020 APDEM curriculum is available to PDs, and additional sections are being added, including sections involving transgender endocrinology and health equity. To receive a copy, please email: apdem@endocrine.org
The APDEM Newsletter Committee under the enthusiastic guidance of Dr. David Lieb continues to be a forum to update APDEM members on initiatives and provide resources. All PDs, APDs and program coordinators are encouraged to submit articles, editorials, letters, and to share their COVID-19 experiences and program innovations. You can reach Dr. Lieb at apdem@endocrine.org .
Dr. Matthew Levine, the chair of the All-In-Match Oversight Task Force, presented the findings of the surveillance conducted by the task force. The first round was over the first two months of the academic year, and the second was this past spring, reviewing compliance over a two-year period. Twelve programs were noted to have discrepancies and have been contacted to provide clarifications. Dr. Levine reminded us of the exceptions to AIM policy with the newest exception being if a program is newly accredited or receives complement increase approval from ACGME, they can request an exception to recruit a candidate from match day until June 30 of the same academic year. As a reminder, any program that meets criteria for an exception to AIM does need to submit a formal request to the AIM committee.
Dr. Rana Malek, co-chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee, together with Dr. Ricardo Correa, discussed how this committee helps address the ACGME’s common program requirement to educate fellows on health disparities as part of the professionalism competency (now in Milestones 2.0) as well as a similar call by Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The DEI has two subcommittees, including diversity/inclusion, and health equity. The DEI Committee has sent a survey to PDs and fellows to establish diversity metrics, to understand current state of health equity training in fellowships, and to gauge interest in curriculum development for health equity. Please complete your survey if you have not done so. The chairs of DEI welcome APDEM members to offer their suggestions and input to the committee (apdem@endocrine.org) .
We next focused on the initiatives and actions of our COVID-19 Task Force. The Task Force was chaired this past year by Drs. David Lieb and Chris McCartney and consisted of 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 Fellow Recruitment Committee (chaired by Drs. Marina Charitou and Saira Khan).
The Fellow Recruitment Committee provided toolkits and guidance for this past year’s interview season. To help formulate recommendations for the upcoming interview season, a survey was sent out to PDs and incoming fellows. Overall, 94% of fellows and 57% of PDs were very satisfied with the match results with the majority of incoming fellows feeling they know the program well. The preferred format for FY22 in the survey was: 1/3 opted to keep all virtual interviews, 1/3 to have an in-person and virtual hybrid model, 25% preferred a virtual interview with optional in-person tour, and 12-15% preferring all in-person. The majority of PDs would like a unified model for interviews. During the meeting, a poll was administered asking if PDs prefer all virtual or hybrid, and 72% responded they prefer all virtual. The next step of the committee will be to draft an APDEM position statement in time for July and update our recruitment toolkits.
The Fellow Didactics Committee followed up on the response of PDs last year at the annual meeting to create a shared didactic program for our fellowships. APDEM divided endocrine fellowship programs into 10 geographical regions, and the committee met with each region to help kick off the program. One to two programs took the lead for each region. The New England Endocrine Alliance presented their successful program as an example to help guide other regions. APDEM will continue to facilitate and support each region as the year unfolds. APDEM members are encouraged to reach out to the chairs with any questions, suggestions, and ideas. Please see our COVID-19 section on the APDEM website for access to resources: https://www.apdem.org/news-and-information/covid-19-support/
Finally, past APDEM president Dr. Geetha Gopalakrishnan provided an update on Milestones 2.0 just released by the ACGME. The Milestone Working Group developed endocrine-specific milestones, provided more specificity for understanding the milestones, utilized harmonized milestones for the competencies, provided positive language to define fellow progression, and limited the number of sub-competencies. There are now 19 endocrinology milestones with shorter verbiage and milestones that address personal and professional well-being and health disparities. For further information, please see Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism Milestones and Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism Supplemental Guide . The milestones will start July 2021 with the first reporting in January 2022.
In summary, the APDEM annual meeting was successful in communicating to endocrine PDs the support and resources in navigating the new world we are facing. We all feel a part of this close knit community, are all facing the same struggles and challenges, and are looking to each other for comfort and comradery. In a world that is physically distant, APDEM continues to bring us all together.
And let us hope that next year we can indeed meet in-person.
Dr. Odelia Cooper serves as president-elect, APDEM Council.