Introduction
This year’s 2010 ABSAME Annual Meeting will provide a lively, interactive forum for behavioral scientists, other health care professionals, and community leaders to brainstorm about forming partnerships to create novel educational and service opportunities for trainees. The meeting will showcase instructional models based on community initiatives outside the familiar health care arena. Our goal is to capitalize on the power of non-traditional experiential learning to increase knowledge, enhance skills, heighten awareness, and – most importantly – change attitudes.
Primary care has placed increased emphasis on the “medical home,” where the focus is on accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective care. Beyond Cognitive Competence: Linking Community Experiences to Advocacy and Professionalism examines how authentic experiences provide a real-world purpose and context for learning and require students to demonstrate complex abilities in situations that demand collaboration, problem solving, research, and communication skills. Our goal is to take trainees beyond cognitive competency – a necessary but insufficient level of preparation for the health provider of the 21st century.
ABSAME has long believed one of the best ways to improve medical education is through sharing ideas. The 2010 Annual Meeting continues that tradition as we look forward to a host of exciting, engaging, and motivating presentations that highlight highly effective evidence-based practices in integrated health care.
We are honored to bestow this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award on one of ABSAME’s most beloved and cherished members – Ed Eckenfels. His tireless and enthusiastic advocacy for this organization and for community-integrated medical education spanned decades.
It is more than fitting that he receive this award during a year when ABSAME’s conference theme focuses on community integration. To exemplify a small part of the work that has been so important to him and to us over the years, he and his colleagues will present a panel about the Rush Community Service Initiative – a voluntary, student-run program of Rush University Medical Center that has, over nearly 20 years, implemented two dozen clinical and social service programs in poor urban communities.
Another truly groundbreaking effort in this field comes from Florida International University, where John Rock has spearheaded NeighborhoodHELPTM (Health Education Learning Program). This unique program immerses students in community activities that foster interdisciplinary partnerships and cultural awareness as a means to improve health outcomes. The goal is nothing less than developing socially responsible physicians.
That goal is shared by all three of our invited speakers. Last but not least, Lloyd Michener has been working at Duke University and with the National Institutes of Health to build an academic health center that now boasts hundreds of projects co-led by community and faculty members, with a collaboration underway that should improve health care across the county. Dr. Michener will discuss the Principles of Community Engagement – particularly, community trust.
This Annual Meeting marks 40 years of intellectual stimulation and peer-to-peer give-and-take in a highly unusual environment that blends the ideas and perspectives of anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, physicians, nurses, social workers, and others for whom teaching medical students and residents is a calling. What a great joy it has been to help plan such an event!
Continuing Education Credits
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Michigan State Medical Society Committee on CME Accreditation through the joint sponsorship of Genesys Regional Medical Center (GRMC) and ABSAME. GRMC is accredited by the Michigan State Medical Society to provide continuing medical education for physicians. GRMC designates this educational activity for a maximum of 13.75 credits AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim credits commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. This program anticipates being approved for 13.75 AOA Category 2-A CME credit hours pending approval by the AOA CCME.
The Association for the Behavioral Sciences and Medical Education is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Association for the Behavioral Sciences and Medical Education maintains responsibility for this program and its content. ABSAME is offering this activity for a maximum of 13.75 hours of continuing education credits provided it is completed as designed.
Application for CME credit has been filed with the American Academy of Family Physicians. Determination of credit is pending.