Author Archive for: Residency Program Alert
Boost resident attendance at hospital committee meetings
October 3rd, 2008 
In the October issue of RPA, I profiled how one institution went from nine months of zero residents attending hospital committee meetings to 100% attendance. Getting residents to participate in hospital committees is important because it’s an ACGME institutional requirement, and it’s one way they can meet the systems-based practice competency.
The institution I profiled created a Housestaff Council, which chose resident delegates to attend various meetings. All delegates meet about once every month or so and share what’s happening in their committees. This reporting mechanism created accountability and now residents are less likely to skip or forget meetings.
Obviously, there is more than one solution to getting residents to faithfully attend hospital committee meetings. So, I asked Vicki Hamm, GME program administrator at University of Nebraska to share what her institution does and how they document resident participation for the ACGME.
Funding to expand and add new programs
August 29th, 2008
As you all know from my last “From the Pages of RPA” post, I recently completed an article about how to request funding for new programs and residency positions from hospital administration. In addition to the DIO I mentioned in my last post, I also interviewed Vicki Hamm, GME manager at University of Nebraska Medical Center and author of The Graduate Medical Education Committee Handbook (published by HCPro, Inc).
In the article she talks about how the GME leadership at her institution formed a joint planning committee with their largest participating institution. Together, they developed a business plan model for requesting funding for additional programs and residency positions. Program directors fill out one of two funding requests that the committee then evaluates and decides if they want to fund or not.
The September 2008 RPA article included a template for funding requests based on educational arguments for expanding the GME program. I didn’t have room in the newsletter to include the template that calculates the anticipated revenue the additional program or position would generate for the hospital, so I posted it on ResidencyManager. You can find it in the Forms and Documents section.
Wishing residents a happy birthday
August 8th, 2008
We all know residents are extremely busy. A coordinator I recently spoke with for a RPA article told me that, at times, her residents get so busy that they barely remember their own birthdays!
Everyone- okay, most people- appreciate a birthday note, so this coordinator suggests putting your residents’ birthdays in your Outlook calendar. Set a reminder and send them a happy birthday e-mail on their special day. It’s a nice way to show them you care.
Hopefully, you haven’t missed any yet because it’s still the beginning of the academic year!
Recruitment strategy: Check out Scutwork.com
August 1st, 2008
With ERAS opening up to applicants last month, images of recruitment and applicant interviews have started crossing my mind. They made me think about a RPA article I wrote in March about the kinds of high-tech tools programs use to bolster their recruitment efforts.
One Web site you should check out is Scutwork.com. Medical students, residents, and fellows log on to the site to rate and leave comments about the programs they are interviewing with or currently enrolled in.
Although you can’t modify or delete their comments, you can at least find out what you’re doing right, or perhaps more importantly, what you’re doing wrong. Not every program is rated, but you can get a lot out of reading the posts about other programs in your specialty. Find out what residents do and don’t like, and you may come across some good ideas you can implement in your own program.
Can you make residency safe?
July 18th, 2008
During a recent interview I conducted for a Residency Program Alert article, the person I was speaking with asked a really interesting question: Can you make residencies safe?
I thought this really touched on an issue at the heart of residency programs and quality improvement. Sure, there are obvious risks to having trainees with immature skills practice medicine on real people— that’s why people joke never to check into the hospital in July or August when the interns are new, right?
But this program director said that there are several aspects inherent in the design of residency programs that make them safe, including:
- Multiple levels of redundancy
- Structure that encourages academic question and problem solving
- Interest in documentation, data collection, and evaluations
- Team approach to patient care
Graduate medical education professionals should leverage these assets when developing patient safety and quality improvement projects.
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Residency Program Alert
Residency Program Alert is the only monthly resource that brings you best practices and tools from the most well-respected experts working in the field.
RPA has written 15 posts.
