Family medicine
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Coaching, mentoring, and sponsoring are tools academic leaders can utilize to develop junior faculty. Each tool has a unique goal, time frame and method. It has been suggested that sponsoring may be a particularly useful tool for furthering the careers of women in medicine. Our primary aim was to understand to what extent one group of academic leaders-family medicine department chairs-have benefited from each tool in their own career development and how often they use each to develop others. A secondary aim was to compare women's experiences with sponsorship to their male colleagues. ⋯ Chairs have less experience with coaching and sponsoring than mentoring. Personal experience being coached, mentored, or sponsored was associated with increased use of these tools. Formal training may increase use of mentoring and sponsoring. Contrary to our hypothesis, female chairs' experience with sponsoring was similar to their male peers.
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Increasing the diversity of family medicine residency programs includes matriculating residents with disabilities. Accrediting agencies and associations provide mandates and recommendations to assist programs with building inclusive policies and practices. The purpose of this study was (1) to assess programs' compliance with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates and alignment with Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) best practices; (2) to understand perceptions of sources of accommodation funding; and (3) to document family medicine chairs' primary source of disability-related information. ⋯ The number of students with disabilities in medical education is growing, increasing the likelihood that family medicine residency programs will select and train residents with disabilities. Results from this study suggest an urgent need to review disability policy and processes within departments to ensure alignment with current guidance on disability inclusion. Department chairs, as institutional leaders, are well positioned to lead this change.
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Academic promotion is critical in academic medicine. Traditionally, peer-reviewed journal articles have been at the core of advancement deliberations. With the increasing prominence digital content and social media, an increasing number of academics have begun linking their scholarly value with their online activities. It is unclear whether and how US academic medical institutions have updated their promotion criteria to reflect the changing environment and digital practices of faculty members. ⋯ Digital media use has the potential to distribute scholarship widely. Including digital scholarship in promotion would help destigmatize the use of digital platforms and promote science dissemination to the public. Medical institutions should embrace new models of digital scholarship and lead the way in defining and ensuring quality.
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With the emergence of COVID-19, telemedicine use has increased dramatically as clinicians and patients have looked for alternatives to face-to-face care. Prior research has shown high levels of patient satisfaction and comparable quality of care. Video visits have been hypothesized to be one way to reduce burnout among clinicians, but there has been minimal research on physician views of virtual care. We sought to measure family physician experience with video visits at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. ⋯ This study is among the first to assess physician experience with video visits. As the visits are perceived as shorter, they may offer a unique opportunity to address clinician burnout. There was a high level of satisfaction at our institution despite multiple technical challenges.
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The proper documentation of Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) codes is essential for risk-adjusted reimbursement, chart accuracy, and clinical communication within primary care, but represents a significant training gap in resident education. Our goal was to improve the understanding and confidence level of family medicine residents with HCC coding during outpatient primary care visits. ⋯ Family medicine residents displayed a high degree of knowledge but low confidence with HCC coding. Posteducation surveys suggest the possibility of a positive impact of our e-module, though further intervention roll out and data collection are needed to evaluate this effect.