Dr. O'Donell has a birthday!

Dr. O'Donell celebrated a major birthday milestone last week, with cheers and ongoing well wishes from her Family Medicine family. A good time was had by all!!

Residents: Donna Simmons, Rene Melendez, Jerome Alonso

What exactly is Jerome up to?!

Chairman Dr. Barbara Thompson, birthday girl Dr. O'Donell, and former resident / now faculty member Dr. Hanan Hussein.

congrats to Jerome!

Dr. Jerome Alonso has recently accepted a Sleep Medicine fellowship at Stanford for 2008-09. Congratulations to Jerome... we're proud of you!

Gerardo has a fellowship

Congratulations to Dr. Garcia-Gallegos! He was recently offered a Geriatrics fellowship position here at UTMB, which he has accepted for 2008-09. Gerardo came here with the dream of continuing into a Geri fellowship, and we are all so happy for him. Good work Gerardo!

emails from applicants

Now that we are nearing the opening of ERAS, I am receiving once again too many emails per day from applicants requesting information about our program. I am not able to respond individually to the large of numbers of requests. Instead, I will refer you to the information posted here and here.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the emails I receive are from applicants who obviously have made no effort to review the available information on this blog and our website and I simply cannot sort through them all on a daily basis to identify the residents with individual concerns that require a personal approach.

Please review our basic information via the links above. Only if this does not answer your questions and you have a specific question, concern or situation that requires a personal response, then you may contact our recruiter, Mr. Louis Johnston who will help you.

We will NOT be able to provide anyone with specific USMLE score cutoffs or any additional information regarding our selection criteria as it varies slightly from year to year. Our basic requirements are posted in the links noted above. If you meet them, please apply through ERAS.

We are happy to respond to questions and individual needs, however we ask that you show us the respect of first reviewing our posted program and application information.

Best wishes for the upcoming interview season.

Salary increases effective September 1!!

I am very pleased to pass on the good news of the following raises to house staff annual salaries as noted:

PGY-1: $41,550
PGY-2: $42,925
PGY-3: $44,526

Not that I'm old or anything, BUT... this is almost double what I was paid as a resident way back when! It came out to (average) $2.83 per hour during my intern year...

resource for IMGs

The Society for Teachers of Family Medicine has a new course to assist IMGs in preparing for Family Medicine Residency application and training programs. STFM programs are always high quality and I encourage all of our international medical graduates to consider attending this course.

If you do complete the course, please be sure to mention it in your ERAS application.

Interview Season for 2008 Match

We will begin our interview season for the 2008 Match on October 22. We anticipate finishing interviews by January 30. Interview days will be Mondays and Wednesdays.

ERAS open for Osteopathic applications

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR OUR OSTEOPATHIC APPLICANTS

We are currently accepting applications via ERAS from Osteopathic applicants. We will have two PGY-1 positions in the Osteopathic Match this year, which will be tracked positions in the Family Medicine Residency.

Due to changes at the AOA and ACOFP levels as well as that we are currently in the AOA/ACOFP application process for our PGY-2 and PGY-3, you may see some conflicting information in the posting of our positions for this year. As of now, we are approved for transitional internship, PGY-1. Concurrent with our application for years 2 and 3 of the FM Residency, we have applied to transfer our transitional positions to PGY-1 FM. At some point during this Match cycle, we anticipate approval of our application. Therefore, we will be seeking to fill our two positions this year with applicants who plan to complete the FM Residency.

Osteopathic students may also apply through the ACGME Match, however you will be applying for an ACGME position via that route, and NOT the dual certified AOA/ACGME positions.

Please call if you have any questions... 409.772.6245

We look forward to hosting you for your interview!

alumni news

We received news of a former graduate, Luis Benavides (Jan '07), by way of a relative with a family member in his new community of Whitney/Hillsboro, TX. Below is an exerpt of the email:

...my Mother (in Whitney, TX) tells me that there is a new physician in the
area (with hospital privileges in Hillsboro) who the whole town in thrilled
with. She is thinking of going to him because he has such a good
reputation.

I'm always thrilled to hear good things about our graduates! Kudos to Luis!

party

Info for applicants

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in our residency training program.

We have no open positions for 2007-08.

Our basic requirements for consideration for interview include:

• graduation from medical school within the past five years (not flexible).
• passage of USMLE I and II, including CSA (preferably on first attempt). Obviously, the better your scores, the stronger will be your application. Osteopathic students need not take USMLE. Similar expectations apply for the COMLEX exams.
• some U.S. clinical experience
• three letters of recommendation, at least two of which MUST be from family doctors

We accept applications only through ERAS. Please do not email me long attachments in an attempt to circumvent the process because I will not read them. If you meet our criteria outlined above, then apply through ERAS. This will ensure that your application is reviewed.

We will be participating in the Osteopathic Match this year. Osteopathic students may apply to our program through either or both Match processes, however you will only be guaranteed a dual-accredited slot by matching through the AOA Match.

We will begin our interview season for the class entering in 2008 in October 2007 and hope to conclude interviews by mid-February at the latest. We will begin screening applications immediately as they become available through ERAS. We will schedule interviews until we have interviewed sufficient candidates to fill our class, so you are encouraged to apply early.

Our program does sponsor J1 visas. Our program does NOT sponsor H-1 visas.
UTMB does NOT sponsor externships or observerships for persons who have already graduated from medical school.

Please see our Residency website for more detailed information regarding our program. For specific questions that may not be covered, please contact our recruiter, Mr. Louis Johnston. His contact information is listed on the webpage.

Lisa R. Nash, D.O.
Program Director
UTMB Family Medicine Residency

Orientation underway

The Class of 2010 is having a successful Orientation month so far. We only had one visa/passport issue, which is thankfully resolved and we're happy to have everyone together and completing their Orientation activities.

From talking with them, there is a little stress over ACLS, BLS, PALS and NRP. But overall, things seem to be going well. Yesterday we had our mini-ALSO workshop and that was a lot of fun. We reviewed Electronic Fetal Monitoring, Postpartum Hemorrhage and Shoulder Dystocia and taught the ALSO mnemonics for those. We pulled out the mannikins and practice the shoulder dystocia drill. After it was over, I realized I should've had someone take pictures. Sorry!

I had Ruthie with me yesterday in clinic and that was fun. We worked through some notes on the EMR so she got a little practice before starting in her own clinic next week. She saw a couple of patients on her own and we finished them up together. Half the class was shadowing faculty in clinic and the other half was shadowing on the hospital service.

They are all anxious about the first rotation and I think ready to get on with that, so they can be into it and be done with all the anticipation. It's normal. They are a GREAT group and I'm really looking forward to working with them.

Congratulations - Alonso

Congratulations to Dr. Jerome Alonso (R3/Chief) on the acceptance of his poster for presentation at the 2007 AAFP Scientific Assembly being held October 3-6, 2007 in Chicago. He also has a project accepted for presentation at NAPCRG. Good job, Jerome! The resident research section certainly has a lot to be proud of this year!

Also, check out Dr. Alonso's article in the June 2007 Houston Medical Journal.

FMR Class of 2007

Here they are! Saturday night was a wonderful celebration. I really enjoyed getting to meet family members and friends and to share in the accomplishments of this fine group of young physicians. They will be missed. Below are the list of awards and recognition achieved:

• 2006-07 Chief Residents: Pompeyo Chavez and Clarence Williams
• Perfect Practice Partner: Pompeyo Chavez (selected by the residents)
• William A. Wilson Award for Scholarship and Clinical Excellence: Pompeyo Chavez (selected by the residents)
• M. Lamar Ross Award for Scholarship and Clinical Excellence: Valerie Hernandez (selected by the FM faculty)
• Thelma Frank Award for Professionalism: Clarence Williams (selected by the Program Director)
• STFM Resident Teacher of the Year: Pompeyo Chavez (selected by the FM faculty)
• Outstanding Achievement in Behavioral Medicine and Family Oriented Primary Care: Valerie Hernandez (selected by the Behavioral Medicine faculty)
• Outstanding Achievement in Resident Research: Pompeyo Chavez
• Outstanding Achievement in Integrative Medicine: Hanan Hussein and Norberto Alvarez
• Academic Achievement Award - R1: Donna Simmons
• Academic Achievement Award - R2: Jerome Alonso
• Academic Achievement Award - R3: Norberto Alvarez
• FM Intern of the Year: Adriana Gomez (selected by FMR Program faculty)
• FM Resident of the Year: Jerome Alonso (selected by the FMR Program faculty)

Faculty/Staff Awards: (all selected by the residents)

• FM faculty of the Year: Syed Azhar
• FM Adjunct Faculty of the Year: Dan O'Neil (Ortho)
• Staff Member of the Year: San Juanita Martinez

more congratulations!

Congratulations to Dr. Pompeyo Chavez (R3/Chief) on the acceptance of his poster entitled "Evaluation of Factors Associated With Health Related Quality of Life in COPD Patients Attending a Primary Care Clinic" for presentation at the 2007 NAPCRG Annual Meeting being held October 20-23, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Good job, Pompeyo! We're very proud of all our resident researchers.

congratulations!

Congratulations to Carlos Montiel (R3/Chief) on the acceptance of his poster entitled "A potential for long term partnerships that can improve primary care in Nicaragua" for presentation at the 2007 AAFP International Family Medicine Workshop in Tucson, AZ in September.

The FMRP and the International Health Group will award Carlos with a stipend to offset his expenses.

Good work, Carlos! We're proud of you.

Orientation starting

Welcome to our incoming 2007 intern class! Orientation for the university is getting kicked off and one of our new interns has dropped by the office to say hello. We'll be seeing everyone else on Monday, as we begin FM Orientation. We're all looking forward to it!

Graduation for the R3s is Saturday night and we're also looking forward to that special celebration. Look for photos next week.

AOC update

As of this week, I have two AOCs submitted by residents - one in Geriatrics and one in Sports Medicine. Dr. Sierpina has worked on the draft for Integrative Medicine (aka CAM). I anticipate having a draft for International Health soon after Dr. Janice Smith returns from their annual trip to Nicaragua. Despite a lot of interest in Advanced OB in the initial surveys, so far, no one has chosen that area.

Overall, I'm pleased with the interest we've seen for our very first year.

Fellowship completed

This week, at the Program Director's Workshop, 58 of my fellow PDs from around the country and I completed the last session and requirements for the Program Director's Fellowship, from the National Institute for Program Director Development. I'm really proud of the work I did during the fellowship, and look forward to sharing and living what I learned, for the benefit of the program, faculty and residents.



I met many new colleagues and made a number of friends from all over the country.



I'm especially proud of the project and poster that evolved out of some of my fellowship work, and the new colleague and collaboration with my co-author, Dr. Mark Robinson. Dr. Robinson is the PD at the Cabarrus FMR in North Carolina and also the new president of the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors. We had a great time by phone and email working on this project and actually met face to face for the first time a few days ago at the meeting!



I'd like to say thank you to a few people. To my Chairman, Dr. Barbara Thompson, and our Faculty Development leader, Dr. Alice Ann O'Donell for sponsoring my fellowship. Also to our department administrator, Judy DiMarco and also to Ty for helping me with my financial project. Thank you to the faculty who covered my call and attending responsibilities and took care of my patients while I was gone. Thank you to the Residency Leadership team and staff who held down the fort, made countless logistical arrangements and all the other things you do every day to make the program run well. Thank you to Rosie for printing my poster! Thank you to the medical students and to my residents who participated in the surveys and gave me feedback on the AOC project. And last, but certainly not least, thank you to the leadership and teachers for NIPDD. They are a phenomenal group of people. Many of them are long-time friends and mentors. They commit a lot of themselves to the fellowship and we all benefit greatly from their contributions. They're amazing.

1st Place

First Prize - Areas of Concentration - Scholarly Posters AFMRD/PDW 2007