CME Subcommittee Chair: Arthur Frank, MD, MSPH
GME Subcommittee Chair: Linda Hill, MD, MPH
Review Course Co-Chairs: Eric Evenson, MD, MPH and Gershon Bergeisen, MD, MPH
Joint Council of Residency Program Directors Chair: Sindy Paul, MD, MPH
EPA Task Force Chair: Roy DeHart, MD, MPH

The Education Committee met by conference call October 22. Meeting by conference call prior to the meetings of the CME and GME subcommittees has proven to be very useful, giving the subcommittee chairs an opportunity to review their activities and receive input from others, and to plan their upcoming subcommittee meetings and activities. Key items addressed in this call, with resulting action items, include:

-Federation of State Medical Boards recommendation to states to institute a 3 year residency training requirement for licensure: There is concern that states may interpret this as clinical training, or that states wont accept the MPH year. Mike Barry will collect information from the program directors, from AAMC, and AAFP. Linda Hill will contact FSMB to see if they are amenable to issuing a clarification statement about the requirement. Depending upon the outcome of these actions, it was suggested that it would be useful for ACPM to develop a package of information for residency directors to use on a state by state basis to insure that the regulations issued by state medical boards do not make it more difficult for preventive medicine graduates to become licensed.

-Credentialing concerns continue to be received at ACPM from both organizations (HMOs, hospitals, insurers) and physicians seeking privileges about what clinical skills a preventive medicine physician is licensed and/or trained to do in an ambulatory setting. It was agreed to plan a one-half day breakout session at the next residency directors workshop to develop direct patient care competencies for general preventive medicine/public health.

-Addressing concern expressed by ACPM Board of Regents about the ABPM exam pass rate among GPM/PH candidates, it was felt that the new in-service examination should prove to be useful in providing feedback. Another strategy agreed upon is to plan a session at the residency directors workshop, possibly led by a test psychologist, geared to providing directors with methods to help residents improve their examination preparation.

Major activities of the subcommittees and staff since the March 1999 meetings have included:

Continuing Medical Education

-ACPM was reaccredited by the ACCME in late March for a four year period. An interim report, which will include a revised CME Mission Statement, is due in December 1999. The Board of Regents will be asked to approve the new version.

-In June, a three hour workshop from the course, Managing Care for Defined Populations,was presented as a pre-conference workshop at the American College Health Association by Nancy Sheehan, Mike Parkinson and Betsy Thompson. Approximately 50 ACHA members attended and gave it high marks.

-The second CME module on indoor air quality, developed under a grant from EPA, is nearing completion. It will probably be field tested at PREVENTION 2000 and then widely disseminated to state medical societies soon afterward.

-ACPM will be a co-sponsor of the January 2000 Healthy People 2010 conference, -Partnerships for Health in the New Millennium, and will provide the continuing medical education credits for participants.

-Recertification modules: the CME subcommittee is creating a template which will provide guidance for the development of each module for the recertification program. We will be looking for someone to serve as the project director and provide oversight to the entire activity and for volunteers to serve as module directors.

-New grant activity from ATSDR and ODPHP provide funding for development of new CME activities. Mike Barry, our new Associate Executive Director, Program Development, will work with advisory committees to develop these modules.

-HRSA has approved our proposal for a Cooperative Agreement, enabling plans to go forward for the 7th Annual National Workshop for Residency Program Directors. The GME subcommittee will provide direction to the planning committee in the development of this workshop.

-Linda Hill has led an outstanding effort to develop the first national in-service examination for preventive medicine residents. The first exam is scheduled for the week of December 6-10.

-The GMES has been concerned about the Federation of State Medical Licensing Boards recommendation for completion of 3 years of residency training before obtaining a medical license, and has requested further evaluation of the issue by ACPM staff. Suggested action includes surveying residency programs about impact on their graduates, and perhaps a letter from the ACPM expressing concerns. (see Policy Committee report)

-206 registrants attended the 12th annual review course, held August 28-September 1 in Arlington, VA. Dorothy Lane presented information on behalf of the ABPM during the luncheon. Rika Maeshiro and members of the Young Physician Section provided the always popular informal discussion/question and answer session to allay myths and anxieties about the examination.

-The committee will meet in November to review evaluations, course content, and to confirm faculty for 2000 Review Course.

-The Task Force, chaired by Roy DeHart, is moving forward on Module II, having met with EPA representatives to clarify concerns about citations, specific examples used, phrases, etc. We plan to finalize the module in November, field test it and have both modules ready to go by early spring 2000.

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