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April/May 2010
Vol. 4, No. 4/5
Past Issues
Campus Roundup
NBOME
Names ATSU-KCOM's Melissa Stuart Item Writer of the Year
ATSU-KCOM's
John Collins Named MSACOFP Family Physician of the Year
NYCOM/NYIT
Implements New Program with HRSA Grant Funding
OU-COM Team
Provides Relief Care in Haiti
RVU Names
Robert Roehrich Executive Director of Assessment
RVUCOM
Students Collect Shoes for Haitian Children
UMDNJ-SOM
Students Utilize Project REACH
WesternU/COMP's
Michael Seffinger Named AAO President-Elect
WesternU
President Pumerantz Receives Distinguished Educator Award
Fellowships
and Scholarships
OU-COM
Issues Call for Applications to the HPF and TIPS Programs
SOMA Now
Accepting Scholarship Applications
APHA
Announces Public Health Fellowship in Government Opportunity
AACOM Sponsored Discount
Programs
If relocation is a priority this
spring, consider using AACOM's discount moving service program, designed
for faculty, students, family members and others on the move. Premier
Transfer and Storage, Inc., is dedicated to and supports the osteopathic
profession through this program. Click below for information on all of
AACOM's discount programs, which offer excellent service and savings to the
osteopathic medical education community.
Discount
Moving Service Program
Job
Connection
Wireless
Phone Program
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From
the President
Stephen C. Shannon, DO, MPH
 Health Care
Reform and Osteopathic Medical Education
Dr. Shannon reports on the challenges and
opportunities confronting osteopathic medicine as a result of the landmark
health care reform legislation.
Read more
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News and Events
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President Obama Signs Landmark Legislation into
Law
The legislation includes
key provisions of interest to osteopathic medical education. Read more
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AACOM Board of Deans Elects New Officers
At the 2010 AACOM
Annual Meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, the association's Board of Deans
elected new officers. Read more
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Leadership Updates
Several colleges
announce new leadership appointments. Read more
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U.S. News and World Report Rankings Highlight
Osteopathic Medical Education's Contributions to Primary Care
A number of
osteopathic medical schools ranked among the nation's top medical schools
in several categories. Read more
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COM Applications Top 13,300, Breaking Record
Again
More than 13,380 potential
medical students applied to osteopathic medical schools this year,
breaking the record for the fourth year in a row. Read more
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Profiling the 2009 AACOMAS Applicant Pool
Findings from a 2009
AACOMAS applicant survey reveal the percentage of respondents who
received offers of admission to medical school and explore these
respondents' choices. Read more
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AACOM Annual Meeting Highlights Health Reform
and Innovation in OME
U.S. Surgeon General
Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA, and other high-level plenary speakers
addressed more than 400 attendees at the AACOM Annual Meeting. Read more
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AACOM's Society of Osteopathic Medical
Educators Convenes at Annual Meeting
The Society of
Osteopathic Medical Educators met at the 2010 AACOM Annual Meeting,
honoring five faculty members for outstanding achievement and electing a
new Steering Committee. Read more
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AACOM Hosts Health Professions Recruitment Fair
AACOM's first annual
Health Professions Recruitment Fair and Workshops is being hailed as a
great success by more than 200 participants. Read more
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AACOM Announces 2011 Osteopathic Health Policy
Interns
Three outstanding
osteopathic medical students were recently selected to participate in the
2011 Osteopathic Health Policy Intern (OHPI) Program. Read more
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AACOM Releases 2011 College Information Book
The new publication
is a “must have – must read” guide for prospective osteopathic medical
students, pre-health advisors and others. Read more
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Three Osteopathic Medical Students Named
Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars
Selected scholars
will be spending time conducting research in China and Kenya. Read more
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Federal Updates
For current information on health reform and other important
AACOM public policy issues, please go to Advocacy Issues and Initiatives
and visit topic areas of interest.
Additionally, see the following websites for further
information on health reform developments:
American Osteopathic Association
Engelberg
Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings
Kaiser Family Foundation
Kaiser Health
News
Medical
Education Futures Study
New England
Journal of Medicine: Health Care Reform 2009
Politico
Reuters
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
AACOM Council
News and Updates
Council for Information and Technology (CIT)
Council of Development and Alumni Relations Professionals (Dev-Alum)
Council of Osteopathic Medical Admissions Officers (COMAO)
Council of Osteopathic Medical Student Services Officers (COMSSO)
Council of Osteopathic Researchers (COR)
Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents (COSGP)
Marketing and Communications Advisory Council (MAC)
Now Available!
2011
Osteopathic Medical College Information Book
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© Copyright 2010 AACOM All
rights reserved.
American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine • 5550
Friendship Blvd., Suite 310, Chevy Chase, MD 20815-7231 • (301) 968-4100 • webmaster@aacom.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe
to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail insideome@aacom.org
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News from the Association of American Medical Colleges
April 26, 2010
• AAMC president
discusses next steps for reform in Modern Healthcare
• New Analysis in Brief examines faculty tenure and
guaranteed salaries
• AAMC submits letter on CMS telemedicine policy
• Choices features combined internal medicine-pediatrics
specialty
• New Kaiser poll reveals public’s view of reform law
• On the Move
AAMC president discusses
next steps for reform in Modern Healthcare
In a commentary for Modern Healthcare, AAMC
President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., reflects on the passage of the
“Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” and the opportunities and
challenges it presents for transforming the U.S. health care system.
Kirch notes that the
new law will provide insurance coverage for 32 million Americans. In
addition, he points to several provisions that could result in meaningful
change to our current system, including programs that would establish and
fund community health teams to provide medical homes, supply coordinated care
for individuals with chronic conditions, and create health care innovation
zones. At the same time, Kirch emphasizes that other areas, such as
lifting caps on residency positions to support expanding medical school enrollment
and replacing the physician payment formula with a new system that ensures
access to care for Medicare patients, will need to be addressed as we move
forward with reform. A full copy of “Stay on target” is available
to subscribers.
New Analysis
in Brief examines faculty tenure and guaranteed salaries
A study highlighted
in the new AAMC Analysis in Brief,
indicates that medical schools are increasingly providing no financial
guarantee to tenured faculty members. Because of reductions in state
and federal funding, most institutions can no longer afford to give tenured
faculty a total “institutional salary.” In 2008, 41 percent of schools
offered no financial guarantee to clinical faculty, a 12 percent increase
from 1999. For basic science faculty, there was a 14 percent increase
in the number of schools that offered no financial guarantee. In the
latter case, faculty members were often expected to supplement their salaries
with external grant funding.
AAMC submits letter on CMS
telemedicine policy
The AAMC recently
submitted a letter
to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding a new
policy that would require telemedicine service providers to be credentialed
and privileged at all remote telemedicine sites. In the letter, the
AAMC requests that CMS not implement the policy and work with providers to
develop one that will not “discourage the use of this important health care
resource.” A large number of teaching physicians provide telemedicine
services at academic medical centers, and the requirement could be “an unreasonable
burden on the sites where patients receive telemedicine services” and could
severely limit its access.
Choices features combined internal medicine-pediatrics specialty
The April edition of
the AAMC’s Choices newsletter spotlights the combined specialty of
internal medicine and pediatrics (IM-Peds). The column highlights the
versatility of the specialty, which allows physicians to treat the entire
family in either a private practice or hospital setting and offers a range of
career options after training. Additional resources and statistics on
salaries and the 2010 Match day results are also included. To receive
notification of when new issues become available, send an email to subscribe-choices@lists.aamc.org.
New Kaiser poll reveals public’s
view of reform law
The first Kaiser Health
Tracking Poll conducted since health care reform passed, found that while
Americans support specific provisions in the new law, more than 55 percent
say they are confused about reform, and 56 percent say they do not have
enough information to determine how it will affect them personally. When
asked about their views on specific provisions that included extending the
time children may remain on the family insurance plan and dropping co-pays
for preventive visits, the majority viewed them all favorably and with
bipartisan support. Overall, Americans remain divided on their view of
the law with 46 percent viewing it favorably, 40 percent viewing it
unfavorably, and 14 percent undecided.
On the Move
President Obama has
nominated Donald Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., to be administrator of the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick currently serves as
president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and is a
professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Academic
Medicine online
Are women in academic
medicine still earning less than men earn? Are there still not enough
physicians in rural areas to meet patient needs? You can find the
answers to these and other critical questions in the April edition of Academic
Medicine. This month’s issue also features a case study on “A
Midclerkship Crisis,” and an editorial by Editor-in-Chief Steven L. Kanter,
M.D., that examines “Case Studies in Academic Medicine.”
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April 26, 2010 — Smoking, lack of physical activity, poor diet, and
alcohol consumption, when their effect is considered collectively, appear to
be associated with a substantially increased risk for death, according to a
new study.
Elisabeth Kvaavik, PhD, from the University of Oslo, Norway, and
colleagues note that most studies evaluate these risk factors as independent
entities, but "to fully understand the public health impact of these
behaviors, it is necessary to examine both their individual and
combined impact on health outcomes," they write in the April 26 issue of
the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The researchers interviewed 4886 individuals in the United Kingdom who
were at least 18 years of age in 1984 to 1985. Participants were allocated a
health behavior score, with 1 point assigned for each of 4 poor behaviors:
- smoking;
- fruits and vegetables
consumed less than 3 times daily;
- less than 2 hours of
physical activity per week; and
- weekly consumption of
excessive alcohol (>14 units [1 unit equals 8 g] of alcohol for women
and >21 units for men).
In addition, risk increased with an increasing number of poor risk
behaviors. Compared with those with no risk behaviors, the adjusted hazard
ratios for total mortality associated with 1, 2, 3, and 4 poor health
behaviors were 1.85 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.28 – 2.68), 2.23 (95%
CI, 1.55 –3.20), 2.76 (95% CI, 1.91 – 3.99), and 3.49 (95% CI, 2.31 – 5.26),
respectively (P value for trend < .001).
During 20 years of follow-up, 1080 participants died:
- 431 from
cardiovascular disease;
- 318 from cancer; and
- 331 from other causes.
Individuals with all 4 behaviors had about 3 times the risk of dying from
cardiovascular disease or cancer, 4 times the risk of dying from other
causes, and an overall death risk equivalent to being 12 years older than
those with none of these behaviors.
"Modest but achievable adjustments to lifestyle behaviors are likely
to have a considerable impact at both the individual and population level,”
the study authors write. “Developing more efficacious methods by which to
promote healthy diets and lifestyles across the population should be an
important priority of public health policy."
The Health and Lifestyle Survey was funded by The Health Promotion
Research Trust. The study authors have disclosed no relevant financial
relationships.
Arch Intern Med. 2010;170:711-718.
Ed. Note: There’s something terribly disturbing about this photo:
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