Graduate and Postdoctoral Training

Medical college educators and learners from 55 Association of American Medical Colleges-affiliated institutions throughout the northeastern U.S. gathered at the University of Vermont April 13-15 for the Northeast Group on Educational Affairs (NEGEA) annual conference. Nearly 300 academic medicine faculty, residents, fellows, and students attended the meeting, where they connected with colleagues, shared innovations, learned about new research, and obtained resources for training the next generation of physicians to advance patient care.

 

NEGEA is one of four regional groups of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), a professional community dedicated to advancing medical education through faculty and curriculum development, educational research, and assessment in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education. The Northeast Group includes AAMC member institutions in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.
 
“This is the premier medical education conference in our region, for educators across the continuum of medical education,” said conference host chair Kathryn Huggett, Ph.D., assistant dean for medical student education and director of The Teaching Academy at Larner College of Medicine. Judith Brenner, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education at NYU Long Island School of Medicine, served as the 2023 conference chair, and Amanda Broder, member event coordinator for The Teaching Academy, served as the conference’s program administrator.
 
This was UVM’s first time hosting the annual event since 2010 and the NEGEA’s first in-person gathering since 2019. Originally, UVM was slated to host the 2020 conference, but plans were altered due to the pandemic.

 

“It was an honor for Larner to be invited to host this conference, and our regional colleagues were especially grateful to meet in person after three years of virtual meetings,” said Dr. Huggett. “We received many comments about the high quality of the program and how it seemed more like a national, rather than a regional, conference,” she added.

 

Activities took place in classrooms, lecture halls, and meeting spaces throughout the Larner College of Medicine and at UVM’s Davis Center, and provided an opportunity to showcase the university’s world-class education and research facilities and adjacent teaching hospital while invigorating medical educators with in-person workshops, presentations, and networking.

 

The conference theme, “Fostering Personal and Professional Vitality in Academic Medicine,” emphasized the importance and excitement of coming together, in person, to share knowledge and ideas, noted Broder. The keynote speakers’ talks underscored this theme. Kimara Ellefson, M.B.A., national director of strategy and partnerships for Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine, delivered a plenary talk on “Together We Flourish: Pursuing a Wholeness of Being and Doing in Medical Education.” Joseph A. Tyndall, M.D., M.P.H., FACEP, executive vice president of health affairs and professor and dean at Morehouse School of Medicine, presented on “Challenges and Opportunities for the Future in Undergraduate Medical Education: A Tale of Two Cities.” Elizabeth Gaufberg, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Professional and Academic Development, discussed “Of Vital Importance: Integrating the Arts and Humanities into Medical Education.”

 

Overall, said Broder, the event provided “a chance for medical education faculty, staff, and students to connect and reenergize.”

 

According to Huggett, 32 percent of the attendees were in the Student, Resident, and Fellow (SRF) category, and a highlight of the three-day conference was the SRF track preconference session on April 13, which 30 people attended. UVM faculty members co-leading the SRF track session included Katherine Dolbec, M.D.’10, associate professor of emergency medicine, and John Priester, M.D., clinical instructor and emergency medicine resident, who presented “Teaching for Learners”; and Anthony Williams, M.D., assistant professor of family medicine, who presented “Upstander Training and Allyship.” 

 

“[The session] provided a unique opportunity for SRFs who sought to improve their teaching and educational scholarship skills — and may even be interested in a career in academic medicine,” said Huggett.

 

Regular conference session topics ranged from incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion in the medical curriculum to using simulation and new technology for teaching and leveraging students’ personal well-being to assist patients in achieving health goals. 

 

Additional Larner College of Medicine faculty, student, and alumni presenters at the conference included:

 

For more information about the NEGEA steering committee, presenters, and the full conference schedule, visit the Teaching Academy’s NEGEA 2023 Conference web page.