The State of Ambulatory Undergraduate Internal Medicine Medical Education: Results of the 2016 Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine Annual Survey

Ambulatory care is qualitatively different and valuable to the health system. Given the shifts in health care that prioritize ambulatory care, internal medicine educators see benefits to learning in this environment. Internal medicine education teaches the skills necessary for managing complex patients, including those with multiple illnesses, medications, and social needs, all of which are encountered in the practice of ambulatory internal medicine

Financing U.S. Graduate Medical Education: A Policy Position Paper of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine and the American College of Physicians

In this position paper, the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine and the American College of Physicians examine the state of graduate medical education (GME) financing in the United States and recent proposals to reform GME funding. They make a series of recommendations to reform the current funding system to better align GME with the needs of the nation's health care workforce. These recommendations include using Medicare GME funds to meet policy goals and to ensure an adequate supply of physicians, a proper specialty mix, and appropriate training sites; spreading the costs of financing GME across the health care system; evaluating the true cost of training a resident and establishing a single per-resident amount; increasing transparency and innovation; and ensuring that primary care residents receive training in well-functioning ambulatory settings that are financially supported for their training roles

The Most Common Feedback Themes in Communication Skills Training in an Internal Medicine Residency Program: Lessons from the Resident Audio-Recording Project

Individualized structured feedback is an integral part of a resident’s learning in communication skills. However, it is not clear what feedback residents receive for their communication skills development in real patient care. We will identify the most common feedback topics given to residents regarding communication skills during Internal Medicine residency training. We analyzed Resident Audio-recording Project feedback data from 2008 to 2013 by using a content analysis approach. Using open coding and an iterative categorization process, we identified 15 emerging themes for both positive and negative feedback. The most recurrent feedback topics were Patient education, Thoroughness, Organization, Questioning strategy, and Management. The residents were guided to improve their communication skills regarding Patient education, Thoroughness, Management, and Holistic exploration of patient’s problem. Thoroughness and Communication intelligibility were newly identified themes that were rarely discussed in existing frameworks. Assessment rubrics serve as a lens through which we assess the adequacy of the residents’ communication skills. Rather than sticking to a specific rubric, we chose to let the rubric evolve through our experience

Identifying Solutions to Ambulatory Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Remuneration in Graduate Medical Education: An AAIM Position Paper

Perspectives Viewpoints •Graduate medical education (GME) directors should target their efforts on faculty development and salary support/payment for teaching as highly valued incentives for ambulatory resident teaching.•GME programs from Title VII and Teaching Health Centers are potential solutions for ambulatory faculty recruitment and retention at both university-based and community-based institutions.•Because faculty produce income from their clinical and teaching efforts with residents, an educational relative value unit structure provides an equitable method to reward GME teaching faculty