Submit a poster presentation during the Call for Abstracts for the 2026 ACGME Annual Educational Conference; complete a survey to inform revisions of the Institutional Requirements; join the MUA/P Interest Group.

This award honors residents and fellows who have actively implemented strategies that lead to measurable improvements in patient safety within their Sponsoring Institution or residency/fellowship program. These individuals demonstrate a commitment to advancing patient safety through innovative solutions and initiatives, resulting in tangible outcomes that enhance the overall quality of care.

Associate Program Director Kimberly Collins, MD of Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in Saint Petersburg, Florida set out to see how simulating conversations about social determinants of health (as opposed to in-class learning or immersion-based training) affected a resident’s or fellow’s ability to broach and explore these complex, often sensitive, subjects with patients and their parents. Her results are recorded in her poster: Improving Resident Comfort with Discussing Social Determinants of Health through Simulation.

Dr. Lynne Kirk joined the ACGME staff in September 2019, following a 30-year career in internal medicine and geriatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. We recently asked Dr. Kirk to outline her goals as the ACGME’s first Chief Accreditation Officer.

Debra L. Dooley came to the ACGME 22 years ago, initially in an administrative role with the Review Committee for Internal Medicine. She retires today, after 10.5 years as the Director of Educational Activities, where she leads the team responsible for producing the ACGME’s educational programming, and most notably the Annual Educational Conference. We spent some time with her before she left, discussing her career, her mentors, her legacy, and the renaming of the Debra L. Dooley Program Coordinator Excellence Award.

The next post in the Partnerships to Establish and Sustain Rural GME series features an interview with Matthew A. Braniecki, DO from Firelands Regional Medical Center.