In this edition:
Message from the Chair
Message from CFAS Chair-Elect and Program Committee Chair Adi Haramati, PhD
AAMC Coronavirus Resources and Information
Tell Us How You’re Doing in Response to Coronavirus
Message from the Chair
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the March issue of the CFAS Rep Bulletin. I am grateful for this direct communication line to your inbox. I hope you will make it bidirectional and will continue to let us know how we can serve you better.
Coronavirus Response. While I was disappointed to forgo this year’s co-located CFAS spring meeting in San Diego with the Council of Deans and Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems, I was proud of the AAMC’s prompt reassessment of priorities and the swift decision to support deans, CEOs, and faculty to fulfill our fundamental roles at our institutions and in our communities by cancelling. The AAMC is now providing daily updates on Coronavirus Impact on AAMC Professional Development Events and Services, and a collection of resources to help us to stay well and do good.
Spring Meeting Cancellation. I am deeply appreciative of the exceptional work by the CFAS Program Committee under the leadership of CFAS Chair-Elect Adi Haramati, PhD. Adi and the Program Committee are taking steps to preserve the much-anticipated sessions planned for this year’s meeting and make them available to you, either as webinars or sessions at future AAMC or CFAS meetings.
Continuing Committee Work. Last week, the CFAS Administrative Board discussed the importance of supporting our committee chairs to maintain momentum for ongoing projects and to continue to leverage the expertise, creativity, and dedication of our CFAS reps as the voice of academic faculty. A list of CFAS committees is posted online and reports from each committee are also published as they become available. If you are not already active in CFAS committees, please consult information on our webpage and to let us know how you would like to be involved.
Strategic Planning. Alongside activities demanded by the unprecedented challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, the AAMC and CFAS are continuing Strategic Planning efforts. Please continue to let us know how we can focus work in CFAS to better serve and represent all our faculty colleagues in academic medicine. You can always reach out to me personally with your feedback, and in the near future, when we are able to shift our attention, we will be reaching out to you for direct feedback.
For now, I want to acknowledge your hard work given that so many of you are on the front lines of this pandemic. Please stay well as you continue to serve your communities.
Gabriela K Popescu, PhD
CFAS Chair, 2019 - 2021
Message from CFAS Chair-Elect and Program Committee Chair Adi Haramati, PhD
Dear Colleagues,
It is hard to believe that had our conference not been cancelled, we would have just ended the 2020 AAMC Councils Co-located Spring Meeting, where CFAS and the AAMC’s Council of Deans and Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems were scheduled to meet for the first time. I was very proud and excited by the agenda that the CFAS Program Committee had in store for you. We had more than three dozen speakers over the three days of the meetings, most of whom were your CFAS colleagues, presenting on an array of topics ranging from leadership to equity and from medical education to wellbeing.
I want to congratulate the CFAS Program Committee for their incredible work, which always had the diverse professional interests of the CFAS community at heart as it planned a program of such rich and timely themes. The highlights of the meeting were the three plenary sessions on the “CFAS-only” day covering USMLE Step 1, the social mission of medical schools, and addressing equity in academic medicine.
All of these topics and the rest of the content we had planned will remain relevant despite having to cancel our meeting due to the extraordinary public health circumstances surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. We already have begun conversations about how to transition some of the sessions to webinars or to build on them for future in-person meetings.
It remains too soon to announce how that will unfold, but we will find a way to make sure we present these sessions to you, and more importantly, that you get to participate in and contribute to the conversation. For now, we all have our own tremendous challenges at our institutions and in our personal lives as we address this international crisis.
I wish you, your colleagues, and your families to be safe, healthy, and resilient.
Adi Haramati, PhD
CFAS Chair-Elect
AAMC Coronavirus Resources and Information
The AAMC has curated resources on the new coronavirus specifically geared toward the academic medicine community. The page, which contains information on students, education, and the response from academic health centers, will be updated regularly. The AAMC and LCME have also issued guidance calling for medical schools to pause all student clinical rotations until at least March 31. This pause will allow the medical education community, including learners, to develop appropriate educational strategies and alternative clinical experiences to best assure safe, meaningful clinical learning for students. It will also help with current concerns about the availability of personal protective equipment. The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine also offered similar guidance for DO students.
AAMC President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offering recommendations on behalf of the AAMC, including increasing the availability and capacity of testing, ensuring adequate supplies and stewardship of personal protective equipment, and holding patients harmless for the cost of testing and treatment.
The AAMC additionally posted information on AAMC professional development events and meetings that have been affected by the coronavirus.
Tell Us How You’re Doing in Response to Coronavirus
During this unprecedented public health crisis, we ask you to keep the lines of communication open so we can provide you with the resources and information that would be most useful. It is helpful for the AAMC to understand in detail what is happening on the ground at the medical schools, teaching hospitals, and academic societies we serve. Please email Eric Weissman at eweissman@aamc.org, or call Eric directly at 301-437-2572 with updates or feedback from your perspective. You can also reach out with questions or comments to CFAS Communications Specialist Alex Bolt.
We are especially interested in hearing what is happening on the academic society side. We invite all CFAS-member society executives to share your plans and strategic approaches for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. We will be reaching out to all society execs separately in the coming days.
If you are looking for information about CFAS, find what you need on our website, from the names of CFAS leaders, to updates on committee and working group initiatives, to upcoming offerings and meetings, and finally, current and previous editions of CFAS News.
Do you have an article or study coming out? A new promotion or professional accomplishment? Let us know and we’ll feature it in an upcoming edition of the CFAS Rep Bulletin.
Previous editions:
February 2020 | January 2020 | October 2019