Archive for: Fellowship Forum
Fellowship forum: It’s time for semi-annual evaluations
My, here we are half way through the academic year. It’s time once again to gather up all those evaluation bits and pieces and schedule the midyear meetings for the fellows and your program director.
During this meeting, the program director needs to review all the tools your program has used since July 1! Most programs are now required to have multi-source evaluations on fellows, with faculty and patient evaluations a must, and staff, peer, and self evaluations a plus. Patient evaluations are tricky because they usually cannot be completed online. One program hands out paper copies to patients as they leave their appointments. We give them a self-addressed stamped envelop to use that sends the evaluation directly to the coordinator.
What else is up for discussion? Most program directors will also discuss direct observation tools, which can include checklists, pre/post tests, performance cards, procedure logs, simulators, OSCEs, vignettes, and the most recent in-service exam scores, to name a few. If these aren’t already in your fellows’ portfolios, be sure to have them available and neatly arranged.
Consider creating a template that documents all of the items discussed during this meeting. In addition to the items listed in the first FAQ, also include discussion on how the fellows are meeting each of the ACGME’s six core competencies, and how they apply each of them to their training and skill proficiency? Also to be recorded:
- Research Activities: progress on abstracts, scholarly activities, etc.
- Duty Hours: snags with compliance, if any
- Feedback: mid-year observations on the program to offer the director
- Well-Being: fatigue, stress, scheduling, personal and professional concerns
- Career Goals: status of future plans, long and short term, and how the director can assist through contacts and networking
Of course, both the director and fellow should sign and date all forms when complete. Mark my words: the RRC site visitor will want to see these evaluations, so get ready and be ready for these midyear evaluations.
Fellowship forum: Create a welcoming Web site for prospective applicants
Ahhhhhh. All your fellows are now safely ensconced into their subspecialties, and all of your national data are submitted. Sigh of relief!
But, wait! There’s one more important thing for fellowship coordinators to do before heading for the beach (mountains, desert, mom and dad’s…). It’s time to update your own program’s Web site because clear-thinking residents are already looking around at subspecialty options.
Fellowship Forum: From Match to orientation
According to the NRMP General Schedule of Dates, it looks like fellowship programs Match at all different times of the year:
- Allergy & immunology in May
- Internal medicine and radiology in June
- OB/GYN and anesthesiology in October
- Ophthalmology in December
- Pediatric and surgery fellowships in any month you can name
So what happens during all the time between Match Day and when the new fellows actually arrive for orientation?
We used to keep in vague touch with the incoming fellows, but these folks kept contacting us to be sure they were expected. And we’d wonder if they were still coming. Although the NRMP makes matching a legal issue, it’s still a “long time – no see” situation.
To settle our nerves about this communication gap, we now send a letter of confirmation” immediately following the Match Day. Here’s what’s in it:
- A personal welcome for the fellow, to the institution, department, and program.
- The official training dates expected for the coming year.
- The date they must arrive for GME orientation, if earlier than the department orientation.
- The post graduate year (PGY) they will be upon entering.
- Notice of when they can expect to receive the GMEC Contract or Agreement of Appointment, which will include proposed salary, perks, credentialing process, and other information.
- Contact information for the program director and coordinator.
- Signature of the program director.
- Request that they sign the letter and return a copy to you.
This form of correspondence provides an extra secure feeling, so we coordinators can breathe easier until the next July first, and the beginning of the new academic year.
p.s. Good luck with your Match this year, whenever it is!
How do you keep in touch with your fellows and avoid the long-time-no-see problem? Leave a comment in the box below.
Fellowships and Residencies: New Best Friends!
How much attention do you pay to the relationship between subspecialty programs and their core/parent residency programs? Chances are, not enough.
The ACGME has many requirements regarding the residency-fellowship relationship. When I first started in this administrator position, I expected that the subspecialties would be all over the map with ACGME compliance. Sure enough, some programs had their documentation in order, some had a little bit of this and little bit of that, and some had virtually none. So we had to get everyone whistling to the same RRC tune, to establish a “reporting relationship” between the parent/core and the subspecialty while respecting individuality.
Alas and alack! The newly-minted (July 2009) Core Requirements for Internal Medicine state that the residency program must “supervise” the subspecialties. At our next Fellowship Program Directors’ meeting, we are together, as a team, going to decide just how to better comply with this direct mandate.
I know that not everyone who reads this blog is involved with an internal medicine program, but I get the feeling that other specialties are going to be moving in this same direction.
So, here’s a tip: If you don’t work much with the residency program in your department, you’ll want to check with who does. Find out exactly what type and how much “supervision” or “oversight” is required on both ends. Your residency program and your subspecialties might just become “new best friends” in satisfying your RRC!
I’m interested to hear how other programs–internal medicine and other specialties– handle and document communication/oversight/supervision between the core program and the subspecialty. Leave a comment in the tip box below.
From APDIM: Subspecialty survival
I have just returned from a week in Dallas, TX attending our medicine conference, and I’m experiencing the buzz that results from the wonderful information sharing that always happens at these events. (Never mind that this is followed by the crashing paralysis that happens NEXT week when I realize my newly revised “TO DO” list is 85 pages long!)
My fellowship administrator and I presented a workshop on “Subspecialty Survival” during which we shared some of the organizational tips we use to keep track of the numerous years’ worth of requirements that occur in subspecialty training. We also did a lot of “comparing” with other attendees about how they run their subspecialty programs.
It appears as if the exercise we endured this year, consolidating the coordination of our programs, which I wrote about in an earlier post, is indeed the wave of the future. Inserting a fellowship administrator at either the department or even the GME level is the most logical and manageable way manage the new accountability requirement.
The “hows” of this varied significantly, and because our fellowship administrator is also the blogger for Residency Manager’s Fellowship Forum, I won’t steal her thunder.
This is just to say that if you’re interested keep an eye out for her report on this as well!
Fellowship Forum: Tips to make it through all the documentation
Hectic? Did you say, “Hectic?” Yes, for fellowship programs, it is THE busy time for securing documentation of every description. Although our inclination is to address all these immediate issues at the same time, it’s wise to prioritize. Set aside a block of time each day to keep yourself updated on each to-do list.
Begin by keeping stacks of stuff in separate stations around your office pod. It would be too easy to misfile an important document in the wrong pile, and then spend hours looking for it. Here are a few tips for your overloaded desk right now:
1) Interviews. Yep, for some of our fellowships, they are still going on, long after the residency programs have finished. Keep those schedules in plain sight. Here’s a quick tip: Stay in close touch with your visiting applicants as they are the future of the program.
2) Credentialing for incoming fellows. This can be a tedious process, as it seems GME offices are requiring more and more documentation. Quick tip: If you have foreign medical graduates coming in, get going early on those J-1 and H-1B visas. With more of these folks entering US programs, rules are becoming tighter.
3) Reappointing current fellows. No doubt they will have annual updates due. Quick tip: If you’re having trouble getting fellows to complete paperwork, including online training modules, find a carrot. The barter system still works!
4) Fellows moving to faculty. This can require documentation for your HR person, division administrator, or whoever handles such records. Quick tip: Even though faculty appointments might not be in your bailiwick, you should search out who needs what from your fellow, so there will be no gaps in the transition.
5) Departing fellows. These folks have known for some time their next career step. Quick tip: Be sure to get a completely updated CV from them before they go, including publications and presentations (you might need these for your next PIF). Get forwarding addresses, if only for their professional locations for now; keep their personal e-mails, just in case.
Spring has surely sprung for fellowships. Stay calm, keep chugging away, and soon there will be a fresh start to a new academic year!
Fellowship Forum: Quick tips for managing a fellowship program
Ever make a master list of all the things we fellowship coordinators do in the course of a year?
If you did, you would see that a fellowship coordinator’s job is never done because soon as we’re finished with one task, something new comes along.
Here’s a partial inventory of ongoing tasks we do at various times, and beside each is a small suggestion to support the process. We’ll call these helpful hints “Fellowship Tips,” or “Flip Tips,” for short:
Symposium abstracts Post requirements and deadlines in fellows’ library
Job search Keep fellows’ recommendation letters and CVs updated
Grant submissions Set time lines for drafts, proof-reading, binding, etc.
New appointments Stay in cell phone contact and e-mail welcome newsletters
Reappointment Bug fellows to do online training modules, TB tests, etc.
Conference travel Get departmental pre-approval
Research day Reserve poster space for fellows’ entries
Proficiency Grids Check Boards for meeting minimum case log requirements
Speaker forums Record sign-in attendance for CME compliance
Moonlighting Remind fellows to get permanent licenses, if required
Duty Hours Monitor for compliance and possible violations
And, my personal favorite: Do everything you can to keep the ACGME competencies alive and well and way out front for all fellow activities.
Have a “Flip Tip” of your own? Add it in the comment box below.
Introducing Fellowship Forum
Editor’s note: Several fellowship coordinators and program directors have asked me about where they can get information specific to running a fellowship program.To meet the needs of the fellowship administrators in our audience, we’re introducing Fellowship Forum, a monthly blog post written by Sally T. Miller, fellowship coordinator.
Welcome to Fellowship Forum! This is a new monthly blog for fellowship administrators and coordinators who work with sub-specialties, be they within pediatrics, internal medicine, neurology, or other departments.
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