APPD MIDWESTERN REGIONAL MEETING
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
APRIL 26, 2006

Regional Meeting Attendees: Jay Nocton MD, Karen Wickline MD, Ken Cheyne MD, Ginny Sherrill, Pat Jacobi, Lorraine Brewer DO, Connie Love, Stacy McConkey MD, Jefri Palermo, Joan Cain MD, Kristi Lundblad MD, Mark Butterly MD, Debbie Lowen MD, Brian Bostwick MD, Beth Kramer MD, Michelle Miner MD, Julie Rhodes, Neena Shah MD, Karen Judy MD, Tom George MD
The inaugural meeting of the Midwest Region was held on Wednesday April 26, 2006, just preceding the national APPD meeting. The agenda was created after a survey of the Midwest regional members last winter and the topics presented and discussed were: “Resident Continuous Quality Improvement Projects at the Children’s Hospital of Iowa – what’s worked, what hasn’t” Stacy McConkey MD, Associate Program Director, University of Iowa; “Dealing with the Difficult Resident” Jay Nocton MD, Program Director, Medical College of Wisconsin and “Measuring resident performance in professionalism and practice-based learning: a new metric” Jefri Palermo MA, C-TAGME Program Coordinator and Tom George MD Program Director, University of Iowa. This two hour meeting resulted in active discussion and exchange of ideas related to these three topics. The slides from these presentations will be e-mailed to all the attendees and will be available to those interested by writing to thomas-george@uiowa.edu. We were very pleased with the turnout and discussion for this first regional meeting! The Midwest Region is grateful to the APPD for arranging the room and facilities needed.

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APPD MIDWESTERN REGIONAL BREAKFASTMEETING
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
APRIL 28, 2006

Attendees: Mark Butterly, MD, Roberta Johnson, Bhagya Puppala, MD, Kristi Lundblad, MD, M. Virginia Barrow, MD, Ken Cheyne, MD, Karen Judy, MD, Kathleen Finta, MD, Beth Hahn, Susan Bartel-Smith, Sharon Unti, MD, James Nocton, MD, Barbara Murray, MD, Michelle Miner, MD, Julie Rhodes, Peter Smith, MD, Jordan Hupert, MD, Brian Bostwick, MD, Elizabeth Kramer, MD, Teresa Woods, MD, John Widness, MD, Stacy McConkey, MD, Jefri Palermo, Katherine Melhorn, MD, Stephanie Kuhlmann, DO, Melissa Stevens, Ann Fandrey, Donald Riley, John Andrews, MD, Denise Bratcher, DO, Lorraine Brewer, DO, Patricia Miller, Deborah Lowen MD, Joan Cain, MD, Neena Shah, MD, Patricia Jacobi, Ginny Sherrill, Karen Wickline, MD, Angela Collier, Elese Bates, Michael Lotke, MD, John Walburn, MD, Cindy Colpitts Connie Love (Regional Coordinator) and Tom George, MD (Regional Chair)

The Midwest regional breakfast on April 28th was very well attended with 45 members present. Several items were discussed:

1. The ACGME Case Log; regional members felt that only one proposal should be sent to the ACGME System and endorsed Proposal A. Sending both proposals was felt to detract from the APPD’s desire to respond as a unified body.

2. First Midwest Regional Meeting April 26th 2006: members who had attended that meeting shared that they felt that the format and creation of the agenda worked well. There was significant interest in meeting again prior to the APPD meeting in 2007, and with advance notice, most members present felt that they would be able to plan their travel accordingly to be in Toronto in time for a regional meeting on Wednesday, May 2 2007.
There followed a discussion about the possibility of having a separate fall regional meeting; it was felt by those present that the distances and expense involved in travel made this difficult. In lieu of this, those present were in favor of a teleconference to be held in September or October, 2006. Regional members will be surveyed as to topics of interest and an agenda of items to be discussed will be created for this regional teleconference and for the Spring 2007 meeting.

3. Election of regional representatives: Following discussion of various possibilities, it was recommended that the region should plan for a web-based election of a regional coordinator and a regional program director who will serve as regional representatives for the period 2007-2010 per the APPD recommendations from 2005. This election will be held in the spring of 2007.

4. Residency Fairs. The usefulness of programs attending residency fairs was brought up for discussion. Several attendees described their less than satisfactory experiences with these regional fairs in that no residents were ever matched as a result of having presented at regional fairs. In addition, the expense and travel involved with little or nor return was reported as reasons why many programs don’t participate in them, other than those at their home medical scools. One attendee did describe having had several potentials residents interact with the candidates and that they have had success with this process.

5. Resident Retreats. Several attendees shared their themes for retreats that included educational efforts eg “Balancing personal and professional lives”, “Developing teaching and leadership skills” while some retreats involve no structured educational effort and the retreats serve as a social and rejuvenating experience for the residents, facilitated by games and other events to enable residents to get to know each other better. Additional topics discussed were timing of the retreats (eg prior to the winter blues versus during the winter blues for interns), how coverage was arranged and payment methods for supporting these retreats was also discussed. None of the retreats are held on site, many within the city that the program is in off site and some out of town. Some retreats do invite families of the residents to attend part of the retreat. In some of the smaller programs, attendings cover for resident absences for retreats and in the larger programs, there is cross-coverage by other residents. The majority of retreats last between one and two days.

I greatly appreciate the turnout at the regional meeting and at the regional breakfast. We hope that this is the start of fruitful interaction and exchange of ideas among regional members.

Respectfully,

Tom George
Regional Chair, Midwest Region
Program Director, Children’s Hospital of Iowa
University of Iowa

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