Bulletin October 27, 2014 

Welcome
Hi everyone! It is wonderful to be here at the start of the interview season – all the new applicants with all their enthusiasm and energy and love for med-peds, our residents ready to show off what they love about our programs, and a renewed sense our own energy and enthusiasm for how lucky we are to be doing what we are all doing. Hearing their enthusiasm and energy at the start of this interview season serves as a refreshing reminder for me to keep the genuine joy and privilege of being a Med-Peds physician at the center of what we do at work each day.

Update from AAP & NMPRA Meetings
The AAP and NMPRA conference were held in beautiful San Diego this past month. Thank you to Lori Wan (Med-Peds PD from UCSD) for her local hospitality!  The AAP Med-Peds section had an excellent but shortened program on transitions and quality improvement strategies for this vulnerable population. Thanks to Patience White and Margaret McManus for a great program, and their wiliness to be flexible and adaptable when the time slot competed with Hillary Clinton’s address!

During the national AAP meeting, the executive committees from three med-peds national organizations meet together for a joint discussion on issues related to med-peds. The AAP med-peds section executive committee, the MPPDA executive committee, and the NMPRA executive committee meet over a 4 hour morning meeting.  The group covered issues related to advocacy, med-peds work force, student recruitment, resident program representatives for NMPRA and how they can help in student interest groups, and the pediatric hospital fellowship accreditation.  Thanks to Allen Friedland (Med-Peds PD from Christiana Care) as the AAP Med-Peds section chair for his leadership of this joint group meeting.

Congratulations to NMPRA and Tristan McPherson (PGY-3 from Vanderbilt) the NMPRA president for a very successful annual meeting. The topic was integrative medicine. They had 4 hands on workshops including Tai Chi, Yoga, Mindfulness and acupuncture led by providers from the local Scripps Institute.  The keynote speaker, Dr. Christopher Suhar, a med-peds physician and leader in integrative health, gave a very empowering address for how to help patients focus on wellness through optimal diet and exercise.  He gave very specific examples for encouraging both.  After the conference, NMPRA representatives were able to reach out to student interest groups in both UCSD and UC Irvine.  Thank you to the NMPRA members and their faculty advisors who did an amazing amount of work to make all this happen.

In San Diego, I learned that only about half of our Med-Peds programs have designated a program representative to NMPRA.  This would help them out significantly.  There are resources that NMPRA has for student interests groups and reaching out to students at residency fairs, career in Medicine events, and others that residents can participate in.  They will receive specific initiatives from the NMPRA executive committee if they know who your rep is. If you have not already done so, please consider selecting one of your residents as a NMPRA program representative, and sending their name to  to NMPRA at [email protected]

Building an Alumni Data Base
Another thing I learned in San Diego is that we do not have an ideal way to identify who has trained in med-peds over the years.  When we look for a denominator for the number of med-peds physicians out there, that number can be a bit elusive.  We have some approximates. We can look at board application or passage data from who took each board, or both boards.  We can look at ACP rosters and AAP rosters.  All of the above give an incomplete picture when trying to define what percentage of those trained in med-peds do certain things.  As in most things med-peds, the places to look for data are many.  In conversation, it seems the best source of identifying who the graduates of the med-peds programs have been might be to ask the program directors themselves.  We are deciding how best to logistically collect this information.  When you see a request for a listing of your graduates by graduation year – this is the reason behind the request!

Networking
The executive committee is more than half way through our planned calls to each individual program.  We have found opportunities to advocate for some, and learned that we have some common challenges and strengths.  We look forward to completing these check-in calls.  If you have not received a call and have a pressing issue to discuss please let me know at [email protected] and I will make sure we check in sooner than later.  We hope to share any common themes found at the MPPDA meeting this spring.

New MPPDA Med-Peds Leadership Award
We are introducing a new Med-Peds Leadership Award this spring. It will be given annually by the MPPDA executive committee to a Med-Peds educator the Med-Peds community identifies as a leader. More details coming soon. Nominations will open next month. Stay tuned for more details soon.

MPPDA Executive Committee Nominations –Extended one week
The MPPDA executive committee has been an amazing experience for me personally. I would encourage anyone interested to e-mail me or call me directly.  You may nominate yourself or a colleague. Nominations are now extended one week through Monday, Nov 3rd at 11:30PM EST.  AAIM collects the MPPDA nominations on line, and you can reach that application directly from this link: http://www.im.org/p/cm/ld/fid=738

Pediatric Hospital Medicine Update
The JCPHM presented their proposal for pediatric hospital medicine fellowship accreditation to the ABP on October 21, 2014.  After that presentation, two members of that group from JCPHM reached out the MPPDA and let us know that they included some of the possible impacts on the Med-Peds trainee in their presentation.  They did present the ABIM’s MOC focused practice model to the ABP. In their presentation they included concerns about the impact on the med-peds trainee and provider they had heard from the MPPDA and others from the med-peds community. That this time, they did not have any informal or formal feedback to share with us from the ABP. They were told they would need to have more specificity about “grandfathering” and that they would need to define full time in hours and then what percent of effort needs to be spent in PHM in general and clinical in specific. The ABP expressed a need to have the same standard for Pediatrics and for Med-Peds.

In an effort to provide some education and background information for those of our membership on this issue, the executive committee created a 2 page document to outline some of the positives and some of the unintended consequences of this potential accreditation for our med-peds trainees. That document is linked here:

Talking Points for MPPDA Members on PHM Accreditation

MPPDA Meeting- save the date!
I am looking forward to seeing everyone at the Swan and Dolphin in Orlando in March!
Here are a few logistics to keep in mind:

  • Registration will be through APPD this year and will open in January.
  • Calls for posters will also be in January.
  • Nominations for our two awards – The Tunnessen Award and the New Med-Peds Leadership Award will be in December.
  • Pre-course (8am-3pm) and committee meetings (3:30-5:00) – Tuesday March 24th
  • Poster session and receptions (5:30-7:00pm) –Tuesday  March 24th
  • Meeting and dinner  (8am-6pm – Dinner at 7pm)– Wed March 25th
  • APPD meeting follows our meeting- make plans to stay for that programming as well!

In Closing
The MPPDA executive committee wants to support you in the best way we can. We are currently putting together the programming for the spring meeting.  Your comments from the evaluation of last’s years meeting will be used in that process.  In addition, if there is specific programming, or content that you would like to see, please contact any of us.  Jr Hartig at [email protected] is our point person for this year’s meeting. Feel free to send ideas or requests his way!

 

All Best,

Sandi Moutsios
President, MPPDA
Director, Med-Peds Residency Training Program
Vanderbilt University