The AMA’s Resident and Fellow Section (RFS) met November 15–16 for the 43rd gathering of the section as part of the Interim AMA Meeting in San Diego. Over 160 residents and fellows of nearly every specialty came together to address issues pertaining to medical trainees. As part of this meeting, the RFS heard from Patrice Harris, MD, current AMA president, who spoke to how the AMA is working to enhance engagement among early-career physicians—a group who brings an important perspective to healthcare. Erin Sutton, JD, of the AMA Litigation Center talked to the partnership between the AMA and state medical associations and how the AMA provides legal support when a given legal case pertains to AMA policy. This partnership illustrates the importance of each AMA meeting where such policy is shaped, thereby giving the AMA policy to stand on when speaking on behalf of physicians.
Joanne Loethen, MD, far left, Resident and Fellow Section, discusses resolutions at one of the Missouri caucuses.
Todd Askew, AMA’s Senior Vice President of Advocacy, updated the RFS on ongoing advocacy efforts of the AMA including the continued excess of uninsured and underinsured patients in the U.S. Though the Affordable Care Act has dramatically improved the uninsured rate, there is still work to do. Among those uninsured in America, half are eligible for insurance through the exchanges but do not realize it and therefore unnecessarily continue without insurance.
Grayson Armstrong, MD, RFS member of the AMA Board of Trustees, expanded on the Reimagining Residency Initiative and how training programs across the country are breaking from the often outdated mechanisms of medical training - re-thinking how medical trainees prepare for their careers. Dr. Armstrong also expanded on AMA’s Integrated Health Model Initiative, a health care collaboration to improve patient outcomes by empowering physicians with the clinically valid health care data to make informed clinical decisions.
From a policy standpoint, the RFS asked the AMA to help address protections for and better processes by which medical trainees can continue training in the event of hospital or training program closure. This ask was in light of the recent Hahneman University Hospital closure that left 571 residents and fellows without a position for ongoing training. Other policy issues pertaining to residents and fellows included:
Advocating for minimum standards of parental leave for trainees. Residents and fellows should be ensured adequate time off while maintaining the ability to complete training on time;
Encouraging evidence-based practices to address trainee burnout prevention and mitigation; and,
Creating new ICD-10 codes for vaping-related lung injury so that these cases can be better tracked on a systemic level.
At the meeting, Missouri’s residents and fellows were represented by Anup Bhattacharya, MD, (WUSTL, Rad), Frances Mei Hardin, MD, (MU, ENT), Jared Lammert, MD, (MU, EM), and Joanne Loethen, MD, (UMKC, Med-Peds). For more information about the RFS, visit www.msma.org/resident-fellow-section.