PRIMARY CARE LEADERSHIP PILOT PROGRAM BEGINS

NEOMED was selected as one of 12 schools across the nation to participate in the Primary Care Leadership Collaborative, a pilot program focused on advocacy and leadership development related to the future of primary care. The leadership collaborative kicked off with a two-day training summit at the AAFP National Conference for Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students in Kansas City, Missouri on July 26 and 27.

The pilot program is a “year-long learning collaborative with structured teaching, coaching, and support to enable teams of students and faculty members to have significant impact on the state of primary care delivery and education at their local institutions and in their communities.”  It is sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), Family Medicine for America’s Health (a collaboration among eight family medicine organizations in the U.S. to drive continued improvement of the U.S. health care system) and Primary Care Progress (an organization committed to strengthening the primary care community through leadership development and advocacy).

The NEOMED team includes John Boltri, M.D. (professor and chair, Department of Family and Community Medicine), Stacey Gardner-Buckshaw, Ph.D. (assistant professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine), Miah Brawley (M2), Renee Brumbaugh (M2), Bradley Eckert (M2), Darian Roberts (M4) and Laura Yeater (M2). The NEOMED team is working with a collaborative coach—Jamal Lawrence, M.D., a second-year family medicine resident at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, Georgia—and a student/faculty team from The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Participating schools were selected through a competitive application process in May. In addition to NEOMED, educational institutions selected for the leadership program are Arizona College of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Mercer University School of Medicine, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Medicine, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, University of Nevada School of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine and Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Bradley Eckert (M2) contributed this report.