UTMB FMR Graduation 2008

Click to view the 2008 graduation photos!

Many thanks to Cassie Boatwright (our photographer) and Becky Hamilton (our video producer). The photos and video are outstanding and I know our graduates will cherish them for years to come.

salary increases!

We are pleased to announce the pending salary increases for House Staff have been approved effective September 1, 2008, reflecting the October 1st paycheck.

PGY-1: $42,757
PGY-2: $44,015
PGY-3: $45,620

PHNP

Our Grand Rounds presentation June 5th was given by Dr. Ana Malinow. It was an excellent presentation covering U.S Health Care Policy. I encourage you to look at the following resources:



Physicians for a National Health Program

Healthcare for All Texans



One of the most sobering points in her presentation was when she asked how many of us in the room had ever been uninsured. This was an audience of medical students, residents and faculty physicians and other faculty members. About 50% of the people in the room raised their hand. I was one of them. Can you imagine?! Fifty percent of the healthcare professionals in that room have been uninsured at some time in their life. Unbelievable. And unacceptable.

exciting faculty developments

Yesterday I met with our new part-time faculty member (Peter Curka, DO) who starts next week and we enjoyed planning our Osteopathic Manual Medicine (OMM) conferences for next year and some of the other projects he will be involved with. DO and Alternative & Integrative Medicine track residents will be required to attend, our other MD residents are welcome and we have two MD faculty members who already have requested to attend the course.

Our OMM Consult Clinic will be open for scheduling in the next six weeks or so. Of course, all the DOs in our practice also are able to schedule OMM in their continuity clinic, but the consult clinic will allow our MD colleagues to easily refer patients for OMM.

We are in the process of setting up an interview with another DO candidate for a full-time faculty position with the residency as well.

Today I interviewed a faculty candidate for Residency who has a CAQ in Sports Medicine (MD) and will take the lead on development of our Sports Medicine fellowship if we are successful in recruiting him. You may remember that one of our 2007 graduates is starting his Sports Medicine fellowship next month and we hope to also recruit him back to join the faculty.

It’s exciting times around here at UTMB!

Departmental Review

Recently, our Department underwent the most recent formal review. These occur roughly every 5 years and are rather a big deal in the land of academic medical centers. Among other things, the Departmental Review identifies strengths and suggests areas for improvement. For this post, I'd like to share with you the strengths identified by our reviewers.

• 8/8/8 FMRP scheduled for next review in about 18 months
• Adequate patient volume to support most aspects of outpatient and inpatient training, with the exception of maternity care. (Maternity care being an area we've been working on with various strategies for the past several years. More to follow on that front...)
• Resident graduates who remain to practice in the region
• Unusually high percentage of residents graduating this year entering various fellowship programs
• Strong commitment to rural education via a rural track residency program
• Residen tcohort who reports satisfaction with attending support in both the hospital and ambulatory settings
• Adequate administrative resources in support of residency training
• Strong faculty commitment to residency teaching in all clinical venues
• Appropriate educational relationships with other disciplines providing training for Family Medicine residents