2021 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Awardee David A. Wininger, MD is the internal medicine residency program director at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He specializes in infectious disease.

This week's edition of the e-Communication includes information on #ThankaResidentDay; the Annual Educational Conference; the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leadership Forum; ACGME Award nominations, and more.

This week's e-Communication includes information on the Resident/Fellow and Faculty Surveys, Review and Comment for program requirements, the Annual Educational Conference, and more.

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.

John Madara, MD wanted to find a way to improve incoming residents’ ability to identify and mitigate patient safety hazards, address these hazards through teamwork and collaboration, and report safety events using an online event reporting system. Dr. Madara, the chief fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, worked with others to create an interactive, competitive “escape room” themed environment to stimulate learning and teamwork. His poster, Patient Safety Escape!: Engaging Residents in Patient Safety Education and Event Reporting, reports on the activity and its effectiveness in teaching residents about patient safety and online reporting procedures.

A panel of institutional representatives and ACGME leaders discussed the successes and challenges of actively involving residents in patient safety improvement as part of the ACGME’s Pursuing Excellence in Clinical Learning Environments (Pursuing Excellence) initiative. The panel convened at a sunset session at the 2019 ACGME Annual Educational Conference.

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.

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.

A guest post from Dr. Ali Mendelson spotlights how participating in the ACGME's Back to Bedside initiative has added value to her fellowship and clinical experience in hospice and palliative medicine.