Though the 2022 Annual Educational Conference will be held in a virtual environment, consistent with the conference theme of Meaning in Medicine: Rebuilding Connections, engaging and valuable networking opportunities are planned to provide participants with ways to meet new colleagues and reconnect with longstanding friends.

Juanita Braxton, PhD is the Administrative Manager for Surgical Education at University of California Davis Health in Sacramento, California. She is also a charter member of the ACGME’s Coordinator Advisory Group, which was formed in 2016 to serve as a consultative body to the ACGME administration concerning coordinator, GME, learning environment, and accreditation matters. Dr. Braxton presented PC005, Inspiring Minds – Cultivating Success, at the Coordinator Forum during the pre-conferences to the Annual Educational Conference Thursday, March 1.

Jamie Dow, EdM, is assistant director for resident education and training at the University of Florida. Her poster, Mindfulness in Neurosurgery: Improving Neurosurgeon Wellness in Training and Beyond (with co-authors W. Christopher Fox, MD, Associate Program Director, University of Florida, and Gregory Murad, MD, Program Director, University of Florida), looked at wellness in neurosurgery, which Dow says “has traditionally been considered an oxymoron.” However, as priorities among neurological surgery residents evolve and the effects of physician burnout are increasingly recognized across specialties, life balance and overall well-being have become areas of emphasis and an opportunity for program improvement.

The Journal for Graduate Medical Education (JGME) published a new article around the examination and 2017 revisions of the Common Program Requirements.

On this first full day of the ACGME Annual Educational Conference, attendees were encouraged to “reignite the fire” of passion that drives them to work in graduate medical education, and to rediscover their meaning in medicine.

The ACGME has named Dr. Pilar Ortega as Vice President, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Dr. Ortega will support efforts to address harassment, discrimination, and other forms of mistreatment in the graduate medical education (GME) learning environment; improve retention and well-being for diverse resident and fellow physicians; and disseminate information on diversity, equity, and inclusion activities to the GME community.

The new Clinician Educator Milestones are designed to aid in the development and improvement of teaching competence by assessing educational skills of faculty members across the continuum of medical education. They were introduced and contextualized in a session at the 2022 ACGME Annual Educational Conference.

Welcome to the new academic year! As thousands of new residents begin their journey toward independent practice this month, we asked Jeff Dewey, MD, former resident member of the Review Committee for Neurology, to reflect on his experiences in residency and share lessons he learned.