Am I blogging? This is thrilling! My friends and family will glean endless delight from the idea that I’ve stepped into such a technologically savvy environment! In all seriousness, this is a truly exciting opportunity to connect and communicate about graduate medical education on a new platform. And timing its launch with our Annual Educational Conference might just be kismet, because the theme of this year’s conference, Engaging Each Other: Transformation through Collaboration, speaks to that same goal – to tune in and work together, to gather and initiate growth and change. And through it we will celebrate the connections we make and the positive impact they have on graduate medical education and the care of patients. This conference has become one of the largest gatherings of graduate medical educators in the world, and brings together designated institutional officials (DIOs), faculty members, program directors, program coordinators, residents, fellows, and others in GME who are passionate about education and collaboration.
I’m so proud of our community and our team at the ACGME for what this conference has grown into. This is not as much an ACGME conference as a GME conference. It’s a community-led conference. The genius is in the community, and we gather each year for four days to share the excellence from this community; to ignite passion for patients and for learners; to become energized both to teach and to learn; to get together to positively transform medical education to benefit and serve the public through education that shapes and supports physicians in training who will care for patients for the next 40 years.
As we do every year, we have so much to get excited about and inspired by at this conference. With 119 total sessions (selected from the national call for sessions and including ACGME staff member presentations, and 57 of which were community-selected), I know it is easy to feel like you are missing something important. We will do our best to capture as much as we can here on this blog and through other vehicles to share with the community the wealth of knowledge and innovations being offered.
- We have 12 sessions focused on topics relating to physician well-being, as well as sessions of interest on faculty and professional development, crisis management, resident remediation, the Milestones, specialty updates, ACGME initiatives, Program Requirements, distance learning, scholarly writing, the CLER Program, and more. We have sessions presented by the AODME, AAMC, the ECFMG, and the ABMS.
- We have pre-conferences for coordinators, program directors, DIOs, and osteopathic programs and institutions transitioning to ACGME accreditation.
- We have 67 exhibitors in our Exhibit Hall.
- We have 103 international attendees. Our attendees include approximately 60% of DIOs of accredited institutions!
- We have two sessions led by members of our resident council. We have five feature sessions: three on Friday morning (SES001 – Professional Identity Formation in Graduate Medical Education: Helping Residents to ‘Think, Act, and Feel Like a Physician’; SES002 – Achieving Health Equity: Tools for a National Campaign against Racism; and SES003 – GME and the Patient Care Dream Team) and two on Sunday morning (SES118 – Milestones Five Years On: Lessons Learned and Practical Approaches to Improve Value; and SES119 – The 21st-Century Physician: What SI2025 and CLER are Teaching Us).
- We have networking opportunities, our Career Corner in the Exhibit Hall, sunrise yoga on Friday and Saturday
- And of course our CEO Address on Friday morning and Marvin R. Dunn Keynote Address, Looking at the Road Ahead through the Rearview Mirror, Saturday morning, presented by Dr. Jordan J. Cohen.
There’s so much more. I couldn’t possibly capture everything in one blog post. And that’s part of why this conference is really such a unique and extraordinary experience for staff and attendees every year.
This year, I hope those of you who come leave the conference energized. I hope you are on fire with ideas and tools and new connections and a renewed awareness that they are part of a great important whole. I hope they leave feeling connected to us, the ACGME, and to each other to forward the mission beyond what any of us has already imagined. I hope this conference will etch maps of new meaning into our work in graduate medical education.
Those of you who will join us – I hope to see you and say hello in Orlando next week! And those of you who cannot be there, please follow along with us here on this blog where we will provide previews and summaries and photos and more, and on Twitter as well – follow @ACGME and the hashtag #ACGME2018 to join the conversation. I look genuinely forward to seeing the engagement and transformation unfold through the collaborations we form here and beyond.