Associate Leadership Network - August 2007

Please post your opinions (and those of your colleagues) regarding the following topics on the Resident Newsgroup located in the left task bar. To access this site you will need your ACP username and password. If you do not know this information, please visit www.acponline.org/register.

Debt Relief

The High-Need Physician Workforce Incentives Act of 2007, a six-part bill which focuses on workforce issues of physicians was introduced on June 6, 2007 by Representative Michael C. Burgess, MD, and Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas. ACP has already expressed its strong support of this proposed legislation.

The first proposal of the bill suggests a “scholarship program for general physicians in high-need areas.” The proposal would empower the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to make grants to health facilities to alleviate shortages of internal medicine, family practice, pediatric, emergency medicine, general surgery and OB/GYN physicians. The bill also proposes a “loan repayment program” to alleviate shortages of the same types of physicians. For each year of service at a high-need facility, HRSA will pay up to $35,000 of the principal and interest of an individual’s educational loans. Details about the High-Need Physician Workforce Incentives Act of 2007 can be found online.

Are there programs in your state that offer reimbursement for physicians who practice primary care?

Would this type of incentive make you more likely to enter a primary care field?

Do you have other ideas about how to improve recruitment into primary care, especially in underserved areas?

Teaching Quality Improvement

Recognizing that quality improvement (QI) is a hot topic in internal medicine, ACP’s National Associate Abstract Competition has added a new category for QI submissions. Information regarding ACP’s Abstract Competitions including the top scoring QI abstracts from the 2007 competition can be found on the ACP Web site. Despite the increasing awareness of the importance of QI measures, there is currently no standardized way of teaching residents or subspecialty fellows about the quality improvement process.

How does your program use QI measures and teach the QI process?

How can we best equip residents and subspecialty fellows with the tools to improve quality within their own practices?

Procedural Training

The ACP Council of Associates has identified the need for a pocket manual demonstrating several basic internal medicine procedures. This proposed manual would include indications, contraindications, land marking, technique and equipment necessary for each procedure.

Do you know of a pocket-sized procedural guidebook on IM procedures already available for residents and subspecialty fellows?

Would you find such a resource useful? Why or why not?

2007 Recruit-a-Resident Program

The 2007 Recruit-a-Resident (RaR) program launched on July 1 and continues until December 31. Any residency program that recruits 90% or more of their PGY1, PGY2 and PGY3 residents (or 90% or more of all medicine-pediatric residents) to become ACP Associate members will receive free educational products from the College. To learn more about the RaR program please visit us online or e-mail Jodi Siegrist.

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