To my fellow members of Learner Access, Support, Opportunity, and Retention Group, and to the AAMC staff members who support us, thank you. Gratitude cannot adequately convey my esteem for this fine community, but for this year especially, it is the only fitting way to begin my message as your chair.
We are a team — a vibrant, interdisciplinary, incredibly dedicated team — and we are entering a part of our playbook marked by many changes. Some of these are as plainly defined as new committee names, while others are far more open-ended. I too am still getting used to the “legacy” descriptor applied to the GSA, a group that so many of us consider our AAMC home. Honoring the legacy of the GSA is good. Leveraging and building on every tenet of the GSA, its national committees, and its constituents from each region to broaden our collaboration and impact? Far better. Partnering with you to do so is a privilege I never would have imagined when attending my first AAMC meeting as a medical student. In that spirit of partnership, I feel strongly that “uncertain” and “exciting” can go hand-in-hand. Why?
- We were the first. Not a boast but fact: the GSA was the AAMC’s first affinity group, founded in 1957. And, from that year onward, collaboration has been our core. While we chart the path forward for our Communities of Practice to ensure ongoing representation and a voice for each region, we will be able to serve as an example to the additional affinity groups striving for the same collaborative framework and spirit.
- We are needed. Quite the understatement – given that our institutions, colleagues, and learners need us more than in any previous era of medical education. As student affairs specialists, we lean into that need by prioritizing the many individuals we serve. At the same time, we must also consider our own needs: support, connection, and professional development – three of the most critical themes among Learner Access, Support, Opportunity, and Retention Group’s priorities.
- We are quite accustomed to change. In a time and a climate when so many established policies and practices are changing, on a monthly if not weekly basis, the demands we shoulder are expanding. Some of the most rewarding and career-affirming GSA projects I have ever been a part of were a response to issues and obstacles that were not ours to choose but rapidly became ours to champion. Being adept at change does not mean having all the answers. Rather, it means being empowered to look to each other for resources and strategies to find those answers. The Learner Access, Support, Opportunity, and Retention Group will continue to cultivate the shared expertise that allows us to face any change and challenge ahead, backed by the camaraderie that keeps our batteries charged.
We are at a crossroads – and, as members of the Group, must ask two questions:
- How are we going to maintain the identity and the mission of the GSA, developed over the last seven decades, while building and growing as Learner Access, Support, Opportunity, and Retention Group?
- How can Learner Access, Support, Opportunity, and Retention Group best serve its members, who dedicate themselves to the support and success of learners, for the next seven decades?
With heartfelt gratitude and excitement, I look forward to working with you as we answer both, on behalf of the medical learners who will remain the ultimate focus of our collective efforts, energies, and care.
All my best,
Alex Grieco, MD
Chair, Learner Access, Support, Opportunity, and Retention Group