Perspectives
A Word From the President
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Advancing women in academic medicine: Progress, challenges, and hope for the future
by Darrell G. Kirch, MD, AAMC President and CEO
AAMC President and CEO Darrell Kirch, MD, urges medical schools and teaching hospitals to create institutional climates that support and promote women.
Academic medicine leads efforts to address the opioid epidemic
by Darrell G. Kirch, MD, AAMC President and CEO
AAMC President and CEO Darrell Kirch, MD, lauds the nation’s medical schools and teaching hospitals for their multifaceted efforts to tackle pain management and opioid use disorder.
Viewpoints
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
What can we learn from an epidemic?
by Atul Grover, MD, PhD, FACP, FCCP
AAMC Executive Vice President Atul Grover says we can use the lessons of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s to inform our work today around the opioid crisis.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Prioritizing the service mission
by David Lubarsky, MD, MBA
Competing priorities caused one health system to cut back on caring for the underserved. Here’s how they turned that around.
The man in the clinic exam room looked crestfallen: he had experienced homelessness and struggled with schizophrenia and other chronic health issues throughout his life, recalls Sadie Elisseou, MD. Elisseou could have completed the man’s exam without taking his sensitive history into account. Instead, she used a trauma-informed approach, explaining every step of the exam process and moving slowly throughout. In response, her patient felt comfortable enough to share the emotional pain he’d endured.
“Trauma-informed care is putting the patient in control of their environment, their body, their experience, for people like this gentleman who perhaps haven't been made to feel in control very much at all,” says Elisseou, a primary care physician in the Veterans Health Administration system.
In fact, Elisseou and other providers of trauma-informed care (TIC) assume that every patient may enter a health care setting having experienced some form of trauma. That’s not so far off the mark: more than half of the U.S. population reports experiencing at least one traumatic event in their lives.
Often, trauma stems from sexual violence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than one-third of women and nearly one-quarter of men have experienced sexual violence. But trauma has many possible causes, including surviving a natural disaster, witnessing violence, and facing poverty or bigotry. And early traumas — adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as neglect — can be particularly damaging.
Academic Medicine in the News
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Program improves teaching skills in students and residents
The Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Teaching Star program provides medical students and residents with the opportunity to become effective peer educators. Participants with high marks from their students receive commendations as “Teaching Stars,” and those with low scores are flagged for individualized improvement.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Studying the impact of climate change on patient health
A multidisciplinary symposium that includes medical students, residents, and faculty on the University of Michigan campus will explore the impact that climate change will have on the health of future patients worldwide and advance the study of behavior change and the psychology behind climate change.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Mass casualty drill teaches life lessons
Nearly 80 college students participating in the University of Florida’s Summer Health Professions Education Program had the opportunity to practice first aid on volunteer victims, played by medical students and residents, during a mass casualty drill.
