Governor’s Corner
Matt Hollon, MD MPH FACP
Nearly 100 happy health tomato plants started indoors in late February awaiting the last frost date (around Mother’s Day in Spokane) before transplanting to the garden.
Dear Colleagues,
Spring marks the end of the ski season, the start of the gardening season, and the National ACP Meeting. The snow is melting, fueling the always amazing Spokane Falls (reported to be the largest urban waterfall in the US and worth stopping to see if you are coming through Spokane) and eventually swelling the Columbia River which provides water for our State’s amazing agricultural industry. This time of year, I too turn my attention to agriculture and my small “urban farm”. Each year from our small backyard plot we harvest potatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, spinach, carrots, chard, kale, lettuce, green beans, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, peppers, basil, and asparagus – plenty of ingredients to make salads all summer and big batches of ratatouille which we freeze and have throughout the year. Of course, this requires some dedicated planning including starting the tomato plants indoors at the end of February!
Planning on many fronts is something your Washington ACP Chapter continues. With help from many of you (click here to volunteer for our Chapter), we continue to make progress on supporting you as physicians and the practice of internal medicine, on fostering collegiality within our internal medicine community, and on advocating for our patients, our communities, and the practice of medicine. The Spring Newsletter is a great chance to update you on recent events and upcoming plans.
The Board of Governors (BOG) met prior to Internal Medicine 2019. The BOG, through the resolution process, serves in an advisory capacity to the College’s Board of Regents (BOR), which is responsible for establishing College policy. At the spring meeting, the BOG heard and debated over 20 resolutions on a wide range of topics relevant to the health of our patients and the practice of medicine. Among important resolutions that passed was resolution 10-S18 “Affirming that Equitable and Universal Access to Appropriate Health Care is an Ethical Obligation of Society”. This resolution will serve as the backdrop against which ACP will develop its policy in the coming year on “A New Vision for American Health Care”. We heard from Bob Doherty, ACP Senior Vice President for Governmental Affairs and Public Policy that ACP is committed to being in the room and standing up for equitable and universal access as discussions about the future of American health care happen – so stay tuned!
Spring 2019 ACP Board of Governors Meeting
The BOG also passed resolution 13-S19 “Developing Policy on the Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Improve Patient Health and Mitigate the Risks of Climate Change”, which the Washington Chapter co-sponsored. In passing this resolution, we continue to advance ACP’s efforts to advocate for policy that addresses the single greatest public health threat of the 21st century. For more on the health impacts of climate change please see my recent national ACP webinar.
On these issues and others, please know that your voice, the physician voice, matters. The easiest way for you to be involved and have your voice heard is to sign up for ACP’s Advocates for Internal Medicine – which you can do my following this link: Advocates for Internal Medicine Network.
ACP Internal Medicine 2019 – Philadelphia
Internal Medicine 2019, the 100th anniversary of the ACP Annual Meeting, immediately followed the BOG meeting. In addition to the amazing scientific sessions, additional highlights from annual meeting included:
New Washington Chapter FACPs at Convocation at Internal Medicine 2019 in Philadelphia (left to right): Ana Freeby, MD FACP; Vincent Salvador, MD FACP; Rachel Safran, MD FACP; Matt Hollon, MD MPH FACP (Governor); Kang Zhang, MD FACP; Angelika Koch-Leibmann, MD FACP; Nkeiruka Duze, MD FACP; Lauren Beste, MD FACP; Anusha Iyer, MD FACP; not pictured – Dharini Gopalan MBBS, MD, FACP
- ACP’s celebration of the careers of internists, the I.M. Proud campaign, was in full force with posters and physician stories throughout the convention center. You can join this conversation on social media using the hashtag #IMProud
- Our second wellness champion, Dr. Carmen McDermott, a hospitalist and member of the faculty for Internal Medicine Residency Spokane, received her training and joins Dr. Cathrine Wheeler in co-chairing our Chapter’s Wellness Committee.
- Convocation is an annual ceremony whereby the College recognizes and applauds its new Fellows (more on Fellowship in the College) and the recipients of various honors. It is a ceremony of tradition, transition, renewal, and celebration. From our Chapter, nine new Fellows and three new Masters (Dr. Carrie Horwitch, Dr. Joyce Wipf, and Dr. Greg Gardner) participated in Convocation.
- The contributions of our associate members were laudable including our Chapter meeting oral abstract winners, Dr. Paula Morzenti and Dr. Lauren Benson, and our Doctor’s Dilemma team. Our Doctor’s Dilemma team from UW Internal Medicine Residency reached the finals for the second year in a row.
The Governors from Oregon, Utah, Alaska, and Washington addressing attendees at the Northwest Reception in Philadelphia.
The Annual Meeting is also such a wonderful opportunity for camaraderie. We had the great opportunity to join our neighboring Chapters at the Annual Northwest Reception. We caught up with colleagues and reaffirmed that when physicians come together with the support of our professional organizations, we are way more than the sum of individuals members. As a result, working together we can effectively support each other and advance our profession.
Upcoming 2019 Chapter Events
With Internal Medicine 2019 behind us, we look forward to upcoming Chapter events this year. Our next event is our annual Spring Scientific Day on May 17th. This event, under the leadership of Dr. Joyce Wipf (Past-Governor) and Dr. Kim O’Connor (Awards Committee Chair), is an opportunity for students, residents, and early career physicians to showcase scholarly work from quality improvement to medical education. Additionally, there are structured opportunities for mentoring across the career spectrum. We encourage anyone interested in supporting chapter members scholarly work to register here: Spring Scientific Day.
Our Membership Committee has been working with Executive Council members from across the state planning an informal general membership event in June. We also anticipate events this summer from both our Health and Public Policy Committee (an advocacy event) and our Resident/Fellow Committee (career fair). Next thing you know it, it will be time for the pre-imminent event of our Chapter – our Annual Meeting, October 31 – November 2, 2019 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center. Save the date and stay tuned for further details (including the return of the live webcast to Spokane and, new this year, to Yakima).
Our Chapter also continues to put a lot of planning into our organizational structure and creating opportunities for you all to be involved. Most recently, our Council for International Medical Graduates convened via web conference and had a successful planning session. Again, we encourage you to volunteer for the Chapter. Currently our Council for Hospitalists and our Council for Primary Care Internists could use volunteers to breath some life into our efforts to engage and support these constituencies.
And while we are more than the sum of our parts, we wouldn’t be the chapter we are without each of you. With this newsletter we are excited to begin highlighting individual members in our new member spotlight section. This section is a collaborative effort with our Committee for Medical Students. Students, who will get the opportunity to learn more about careers in internal medicine and have an article published in the Chapter newsletter, will be volunteering to reach out to Chapter members and have a conversation about life and the practice of medicine. This is an awesome opportunity for you to provide mentorship to a medical student interested in internal medicine so please consider volunteering and contact our Executive Director, Liz Truong, at liz@aminc.org if you are willing to participate in a short interview and share your story!
There is certainly a lot going on at the Chapter level for you to take advantage of – we encourage and value your participation. Also note that National ACP continues to provide opportunities for all of us to advance our careers, such as the Certificate in Physician Leadership opportunity with tracks in both hospital medicine and primary care.
I hope all of you enjoy this Spring and the opportunities that warmer weather brings. If you have any great garden tips or anything else you want to reach out to me about including the work we are doing as a Chapter, please do not hesitate to email me: mhollonmdfacp@gmail.com
Matt Hollon, MD MPH FACP
Governor || Washington Chapter – American College of Physicians
Wellness Committee: Dr. Charlene Dewey’s Four Energies
Cathrine Wheeler, MD, FACP
Dr. Charlene Dewey of the Center for Professional Health at Vanderbilt University recently lead an ACP-sponsored Webinar in which she shared some tools and ideas for providers to attend to some important aspects of well-being. She defined four different types of “energies” to consider with regards to well-being. These energy categories include physical energy, emotional energy, spiritual energy and mental energy. She encouraged providers to “practice managing energy every day” by choosing one activity to do each day within one of these four energy categories. Below is a summary of these four energies, and a link Dr. Dewey’s webinar slides which include more detailed ideas.
In her webinar, Dr. Dewey emphasized the importance of promoting positive emotional energy. One way to fuel positive emotional energy is through connections with colleagues and confidants. These connections are an important component of professional satisfaction. To that end, the Well-Being Committee would like to coordinate some relaxed salon-type gatherings where providers can get together in someone’s home to foster connections and build on positive professional experiences. We are hoping to find some individuals throughout the state who might be willing to host such an event in their home in the late summer or early fall the year. If you might be interested in hosting or attending such an event, and would like to learn more, please contact one of the well-being committee co-chairs: Carmen McDermott, MD (Carmen.McDermott@providence.org) or Cathrine Wheeler, MD (cathrine.wheeler@gmail.com).
Dr. Charlene Dewey’s Four Energies
Physical Energy:
1) Eat and Sleep well 2) Physical Activity 3) Take Breaks 4) Identify your top home and work stressors and explore ways to manage/reduce those stresses
Emotional Energy:
1) Fuel positive emotions and defuse negative emotions: express appreciation to others, tell a different story = power of positive thinking, use a different lens (wide, reverse, long), random acts of kindness
2) Have mentors, coaches and confidants
Spiritual Energy:
1) Identify your sweet spots— what do you enjoy most, what do you do the best, what is most important to you? 2) Allocate time and energy to the positives 3) Engage in spiritual renewals 4) Live your core values
Mental Energy:
1) Reduce interruptions to decrease “switching times” 2) Designate “sprint zones” for focused thinking (90-120 min) 3) Plan -> Prioritize -> Accomplish
2) Self-identify how you plan best (where: showers, car, while exercising?), check list or to-do list
ACP Webinar 27 Feb 2019: Mini but Mighty: Skills for Well-being, Self-care and Maintaining Professional Health and Wellness are Important Throughout Your Career.
Charlene M. Dewey, M.D., M.Ed., FACP
Center for Professional Health, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.
2019 Internal Medicine Meeting: Doctor’s Dilemma Team
Team members from UW Internal Medicine Residency Dr. Alex Taylor, Dr. Erik Snider, and Dr. Linzee Mabrey pointing out their progress to the semi-finals!
Our team, consisting of Linzee Mabrey, Erik Snider and Alex Taylor (all Internal Medicine residents at the University of Washington), had a blast representing the Washington chapter in the Doctor’s Dilemma competition at the ACP Internal Medicine Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Doctor’s Dilemma is a jeopardy-themed medical trivia competition that has become a highlight of the ACP meeting for many attendees. We won our quarterfinal, placed second in our semifinal round and advanced to the finals as the wild card team. We were excited to make our second consecutive appearance in the finals. We enjoyed the opportunity to learn esoteric medical facts (who knew that aristolochic acid is associated with urothelial cell carcinoma!), meet residents from other states and countries, and take advantage of the rich educational offerings at the national meeting. We would like to thank the members of the Washington State ACP chapter who supported our trip to this unique and intellectually stimulating event.
Membership Committee Report
Gary Forbes, MD, FACP and Kemi Nakabayashi, MD, FACP
Both before and after IM 2019 in Philadelphia, our Washington chapter executive council has been inspired to engage our membership in new ways. We have newly-formed councils, including International Medical Graduates (IMG) and Under-Represented in Medicine (URiM) in addition to more established councils such as Women in Medicine, as well as Wellness champions for both western and eastern Washington. We are also striving to improve communication methods, in particular encouraging any members who have not as yet designated specific demographic information in the national ACP registration to check profile information. We particularly encourage identifying professional activity (such as hospitalists or subspecialty) and ethnicity in order to receive information tailored to specific groups.
We are excited to announce for the first time, gatherings across the state for all members or eligible members planned for June, organized by the Membership & Diversity Committee. Specific details will be forthcoming, but for now please check out these Saturday morning dates and locales and save the date(s) that work for you:
Saturday, June 8 Port Townsend, Seattle, Tri-Cities (Richland), Wenatchee
Saturday, June 15 Spokane, South King County (probably Federal Way)
June Date TBD Bellingham, Vancouver
Though the majority of these informal [no-host] brunch or lunch gatherings will be for networking at restaurants, Gary Forbes and Sarah Schmidt are piloting a local Story Slam event in Port Townsend from 11 am- 1 pm on June 8 to be held at Jefferson Healthcare Dirksen Auditorium. Please contact Gary at gforbes@jeffersonhealthcare.org if you wish to present a brief vignette modeled on the On Being a Doctor forum in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Lastly, we encourage eligible members to apply for Fellowship. These June gatherings can be a great way to network with chapter council members and other colleagues who can provide supporting Fellowship letters. Here is the link to more information on Fellowship requirements and the more streamlined online application:
https://www.acponline.org/membership/physician-membership/acp-fellowship
IM 2020 will be back on the west coast in Los Angeles, so starting the Fellowship application process now is especially ideal to participate in the Fellowship Convocation at the national meeting.
Council of International Medical Gradutes (IMG) Update
Deepthi Mani, MBBS, FACP
The initial meeting of the IMG council was held on April 15th, 2019 wih 10 council members. We formulated a three-pronged vision for the council – to foster a sense of community amongst IMGs through networking events, to give back to the community through volunteering activities and to support IMGs in various stages of their career path through mentorship.
As the first step in he networking process, the IMG council will be hosting a luncheon from 12-1 pm on October 31, on the precourse day during the WA Chapter ACP meeting at Anthony’s Bell Street Diner which is at a walkable distance from the conference center. Though the event would be hosted by the IMG council, it would be open to all ACP interest groups including ones focusing on Underrepresented in medicine (URiM), hospitalists, medical students and residents. Future events planned for this year would include networking lunches on Saturdays and scheduled volunteer activities, with opportunity to bring in your family members too. If you are interested in being part of the council, please reach out directly to the council chair Deepthi Mani, MD (deepthim1@gmail.com) or Liz Truong, Chapter Executive Director (Liz@aminc.org).
Member Spotlight: Dr. Deepthi Mani, MBBS, FACP
By Rahaf Baker, MS4, MPH
Dr. Mani was born in the state of Kerala, in South India and grew up with a love for real life stories – from the stories behind someone’s’ visible scars to stories about her late grandmother who died of leukemia in rural India. Her family was deeply influenced by the illness and death of her grandmother, and Dr. Mani aspired to become a good listener and story teller, and to enrich and make a difference in the lives of others through service in healthcare. She attended medical school in Kozhikode , Kerala right after high school. When 23 years old, she found herself yearning for a change in her life after never being away from home and wanting to practice more of evidence-based medicine rather than the common local practice in a resource limited setting. She joined her husband in WA in 2006 and trained at the Spokane Residency Internal Medicine Program. She has fond memories of competing in the ACP jeopardy competition as a resident, and the Spokane team winning and moving on to the national competition held in Toronto, Canada in 2010. She went on to practice as a hospitalist in Puyallup, WA and has remained an active member in ACP – she has not missed an ACP WA chapter meeting in the past ten years!
Dr. Mani loves that ACP fosters a sense of community within its membership, providing an avenue to reconnect with friends and mentors, and serving as a professional home for all internists practicing from a variety of settings. Dr. Mani enjoys attending the Women in Medicine events, currently serves on the ACP Executive Committee and chairs the newly formed IMG (International Medical Graduate) council. She is currently working with leadership to increase outreach to IMG members to involve them more within the chapter activities and events. Her advice for those in training: “Medicine is a long term commitment, stay engaged and connected with colleagues through your workplace and organizations like ACP, learn from how they tackle their challenges to ensure that you do not burn out.” On the hardest days, Dr. Mani enjoys reading through her collection of patient and medical students hand written notes, whose comments and stories help her reflect on and reconnect with the meaning and purpose in her work. In her spare time, she loves reading with her 5-year old son and has amassed an extensive knowledge of trucks and dinosaurs!
Certificate in Physician Leadership
In partnership with the American Association for Physician Leadership, ACP offers a flexible, 18-month-long Certificate in Physician Leadership program. Participants may select among tracks in Hospital Medicine or Primary Care. The program includes a combination of formal training through 43.5 hours online coursework, online group discussions facilitated by leaders in internal medicine, and a capstone project that will demonstrate successful mastery of leadership concepts. This program offers exclusive training by leadership experts and important career-building skills. In addition, ACP provides participants with access to a number of professional development and membership engagement opportunities. Participants may apply online by June 1, 2019 to enroll in the cohorts that begin work in July 2019.
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