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Griffin P. Rodgers, MD, MBA, MMSc, MACP, the director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), presented NIDDK Initiatives to Eliminate Health Disparities and Train a Diverse Workforce as one of the Annual Educational Conference’s three featured sessions on Friday, March 8.

Lauren Wojnarowski, MA is the ACGME's Associate Director, Educational Projects, working in the Education Department's Educational Activities team. She is one of the planners of the Annual Educational Conference, and her team's role is to handle collection of educational content and logistics (besides AV) to produce the conference each year. We asked her to share some more about her role and what the conference experience is like for her behind the scenes.

Health provider shortage areas, comprised of urban and rural regions with high populations of people struggling with multi-morbidity and poverty, often have a challenge with physician recruitment. Dr. Meaghan Ruddy, vice president for Academic Affairs and director of Medical Education for The Wright Center for GME in Scranton, Pennsylvania, describes how a teaching health center family medicine program operationalized as a graduate medical education safety-net consortium.

In 2016, a Castlight Health report named Wilmington, North Carolina, the city with the highest abuse opioid abuse rate in the US. In response, Joseph Pino, MD, MHA, and members of the community sought to safely reduce the number of opioids prescribed, increase adherence to best practices in opioid prescribing, and reduce emergency department visits due to opioid overdose. His poster, presented at the 2019 ACGME Annual Educational Conference, reports the outcome of these multiple initiatives.

The third day of the conference featured a morning of inspiring talks, including the President’s Plenary with ACGME President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Nasca, MD, MACP, and a special fireside chat, “Rediscovering Meaning in Medicine” with Marvin R. Dunn Keynote Speaker Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, 19th surgeon general of the United States. The conference wrapped up Sunday morning with “Conversations with the CEO,” at which Dr. Nasca responded to questions submitted throughout the conference.

In his President’s Plenary, ACGME President and CEO Thomas J. Nasca, MD, MACP addressed a crowd of approximately 3,700 people with a fundamental question – “what will the medical workforce of the future look like?” The short answer is no one knows.

On this first full day of the ACGME Annual Educational Conference, attendees were encouraged to “reignite the fire” of passion that drives them to work in graduate medical education, and to rediscover their meaning in medicine.

Dr. Carol A. Bernstein is the 2019 winner of the John C. Gienapp Award and the first ever women to be honored with the award--on International Woman's Day to boot! Dr. Bernstein is Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at New York University. She has spent her entire career engaged in the education and mentorship of the next generation of physicians in addition to maintaining a clinical practice in general psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.

Collaboration and connection were front-and-center during the six pre-conferences today at to kick off the 2019 Annual Educational Conference. The pre-conferences, which are designed to appeal to those across experience levels from a first-year coordinator to seasoned designated institutional official (DIO), mixed detailed information about ACGME accreditation with inspirational and aspirational examples of how each member of the graduate medical education (GME) community can positively influence the experience of patients, peers, colleagues, and themselves through their work and unique contributions.

Join the fun in this year’s #ACGME2019 Exhibit Hall with our Discover the Doc daily scavenger hunt. Follow the clues to find the fictional doctor Funko Pop! dolls hidden among the booths daily! To kick things off, two dolls will be hidden for discovery at this evening’s Welcoming/Poster Reception and Exhibitor Kick-Off. Here are your clues!