10/27

What a week! I've been meaning to update this blog ALL WEEK and just now getting to it. It's been long work days every day this week, so I haven't quite caught up from being gone last week.

The end of last week I was in Santa Fe, attending the NIPDD... basically, the Program Directors fellowship. Learning how to be a more effective PD. It lasts through summer '07, and got off to a really good start. I'm looking forward to learning a lot and have already gotten some good tips we'll be implementing in our program. One of the projects we're required to do in the fellowship is a curriculum project, so if any of my current residents have suggestions for which area you'd like me to pick, please let me know! I'm thinking about an applied Practice Management project based on your own clinic numbers, Pedi Inpatient or the community service piece of Community Medicine. You may have other requests I haven't thought about though.

This has been a week of odd occurrences too... kind of unusual circumstances various residents have found themselves in. As you might expect, some had the potential for residents to get into some kind of trouble, with somebody! I've been really impressed with the professionalism demonstrated by you in your handling of the situations. Secondly, I am very much appreciative that you have filled me in. It is SO MUCH easier for me to be effective on your behalf when I already know your side of the story and someone else thinks I need to know about it or that I need to "do something". Good work! Keep it up!

And I'm not the only one noticing... I'd say in the past month, at least a half dozen different faculty have approached me for the purpose of commenting about what a great group of residents we have right now. You make me proud. :-)

Change of subject - for the applicants: based on a request from an applicant via the blog, we were able to send out an email through ERAS for applicants who will NOT be offered an interview. That went out last week. If your application was complete as of last week, and you did not receive a notification email, your application is still being considered.

We have in the ballpark of 65 interview slots. We've scheduled 35 interviews and extended an additional 15 invitations. Should we need to, we will add interview dates in early February. The season is going well, I continue to be excited about Match 2007.

Residents: quick reminders

November 3 & Nov. 6 - ITE exam. Check your schedule to see which date you're assigned. Good luck!! I'm hoping we're going to have a banner year.

November 15 - FM Dept Thanksgiving luncheon, PCP 2.268 from 11:45 to 1:00. See you there!

Season opener

Wow! It's that time, already! Interviews begin for us this week. This is such an exciting time of year for residents, faculty AND the new applicants! We're ready and looking forward to meeting our group of potential new residents. Wednesday 10/18 is day 1.

We didn't get through all of our new applications for last week quite yet... I was out of the office some and Louis was out of the office some, so if your application was completed last week and you haven't heard anything, that may be why. In reality, it will probably be another week before we catch up, because I have Residency business that will keep me out most of the coming week as well. We do still have interview spots available, so don't worry... more interview invitations are coming.

There was a question/comment to the last post that I thought I would answer here: Will we be sending rejection letters to those not invited? The answer is probably not. My initial thought was definitely not, because we have a small staff and I simply can't commit the resources in the midst of a very busy interview season. However, I need to talk to Louis about it before giving a final answer, because it may be possible to sort the applications and send a group email to let people know. It will not be possible to notify 250+ people why they individually were not invited. When we've completed our invitation process, I will post common characteristics of successful applications though.

Best wishes,
LRN

Weekly Recruiting Update

I am still so excited about our 2007 recruiting season! Applications continue to come in. As of yesterday, we have invited 36 applicants to interview and 23 of those have already reserved their interview dates. We anticipate that we will interview approximately 50 - 65 applicants this year, so we are well on our way to filling our calendar. This may be our first year to have to "wait-list" some applicants.

Last week I attended the Texas Medical Association Fall Summit. The TMA Council on Medical Education and the Subcommittee for Academic Physicians both met during the Summit. Workforce and medical education are at the top of the agenda for those groups, as you might expect, but also are becoming more and more of a state-wide (and national) concern. This bodes very well for Family Medicine, and especially Family Medicine residencies in Texas, I believe. There continues to be calls to expand residency training opportunities in Texas. As many of you will already know, Texas medical school seats were increased with this year's entering class. I encourage you to stop by www.coderedtexas.org and look at the reports on workforce and medical education.

The Subcommittee for Academic Physicians (I chair that group) is nearing completion of a Patient Safety Curriculum for medical students, residents and practicing physicians. It will be the first fully on-line, self-contained, free curriculum in Patient Safety. I'm quite proud of this work... we believe it is the first collaboration of all state academic medical centers and the state medical association to produce such a project. The curriculum will be housed on the TMA website. I will post the link when it is published.

Have a great weekend, everyone!