Q and A with 2026 ACGME Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award winner Nikki Binz, MD.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this month the ACGME will shine a spotlight on resources for enhancing the well-being of all in the GME community.

As September is National Suicide Prevention Month, the ACGME is taking the opportunity to reiterate its commitment to supporting mental health and well-being.

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.

Sumbit a Call for Abstracts for the 2026 Annual Educational Conference; participate in surveys to inform the revisions of ACGME Requirements in a variety of specialties/subspecialties; and participate in the Clinician Educator Journal Club. 

If you were working in GME back in the 80s, maybe you attended one of the ACGME’s early forerunners of the Annual Educational Conference.

In one of the final sessions at the 2018 Annual Educational Conference on Sunday, March 4, a panel of ACGME executives, deans, a patient safety expert, and a resident spoke to the crowd about how medicine is changing and graduate medical education may need to evolve to serve patients well into the 21^st century.

ACGME President and CEO Dr. Nasca kicked off his Saturday morning session at the Annual Educational Conference with some “non-rhetorical” questions: Can anyone predict what the health care system will look like in 2035? Can anyone predict how long your residents will practice? 40 years?

After stumping the room, he went on to explain that it is our job is to prepare residents to practice in the future—not to arm them with practices, skills, and knowledge of the present. We want our residents to be prepared not just for 2018 but for 2035—and beyond.

2021 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Lead Awardee Meghan M. Walsh MD, MPH, FACP is the chief academic officer and DIO at Hennepin Healthcare. She specializes in internal medicine.

2021 Debra L. Dooley GME Program Coordinator Excellence Awardee Adam Finney is a program coordinator for child neurology and pediatric epilepsy at the University of Colorado.