Health provider shortage areas, comprised of urban and rural regions with high populations of people struggling with multi-morbidity and poverty, often have a challenge with physician recruitment. Dr. Meaghan Ruddy, vice president for Academic Affairs and director of Medical Education for The Wright Center for GME in Scranton, Pennsylvania, describes how a teaching health center family medicine program operationalized as a graduate medical education safety-net consortium.

Dr. Carol A. Bernstein is the 2019 winner of the John C. Gienapp Award and the first ever women to be honored with the award--on International Woman's Day to boot! Dr. Bernstein is Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at New York University. She has spent her entire career engaged in the education and mentorship of the next generation of physicians in addition to maintaining a clinical practice in general psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.

Kelli Corning is the Associate Director of the University of Washington’s internal medicine residency program. She has been actively involved in program coordinator activities throughout her career in GME and participated in the full Annual Educational Conference, and also presented at the pre-conference Coordinator Forum. Additionally, this year Ms. Corning was a recipient of the ACGME’s GME Program Coordinator Excellence Award, which she received at the conference.

In 2016, a Castlight Health report named Wilmington, North Carolina, the city with the highest abuse opioid abuse rate in the US. In response, Joseph Pino, MD, MHA, and members of the community sought to safely reduce the number of opioids prescribed, increase adherence to best practices in opioid prescribing, and reduce emergency department visits due to opioid overdose. His poster, presented at the 2019 ACGME Annual Educational Conference, reports the outcome of these multiple initiatives.

Lauren Wojnarowski, MA is the ACGME's Associate Director, Educational Projects, working in the Education Department's Educational Activities team. She is one of the planners of the Annual Educational Conference, and her team's role is to handle collection of educational content and logistics (besides AV) to produce the conference each year. We asked her to share some more about her role and what the conference experience is like for her behind the scenes.

The 2019 ACGME Annual Educational Conference offers multiple sessions focused on osteopathic medicine and accreditation and numerous opportunities for attendees from all corners of graduate medical education to learn and connect.

If you’re joining us in Orlando next week, here’s a quick list of tips and information to know before you arrive! See you soon!

Dr. Ashraf Mohamed El Ghul, is the designated institutional official (DIO) and Internal Medicine Residency Program Director at Mafraq Hospital in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). His institution’s and program’s experience with ACGME International brought him to the 2019 ACGME Annual Educational Conference and we asked him to share his experience.