Dear Colleagues,
November is a special month for Yale GIM for many reasons! This year, the SGIM New England regional meeting was held at Harvard Medical School, and it marked the inauguration of our very own Ben Gallagher as president of the organization – congratulations Ben! The meeting had a great Yale GIM turnout (photos to follow in a Yale General Internal Medicine Update) with faculty and trainees presenting numerous oral presentations and posters of their work. We also had two award winners at the meeting - congratulations to Nate Wood for his receipt of the “Excellence in Clinical Education” award, and to one of our medical students Kaitlyn Stoehr, for her receipt of the “Best Innovation Abstract” award! Thilan Wijesekera was the senior author on Kaitlyn’s abstract. BRAVO to Ben, our award winners, and all who made this a great meeting! Thanks to Ben’s efforts, next year’s meeting will be held at Yale! More to follow.
This November also brought us the annual meeting of the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP). This year the Yale program faculty and trainees joined together with faculty and trainees from five other NCSP programs - Penn, Duke, Michigan, UCLA, and UCSF. The annual meetings rotate between the six NCSP sites and this year’s meeting was hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. As you would expect, the Yale program shone brightly with multiple outstanding presentations by our scholars.
Clinical and clinician scholars have been with us in one form or another since 1969 with the first iteration of the program funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the Commonwealth Fund. In 1972, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation became the new sponsor of the clinical scholars Program, ultimately training for over 1200 Scholars over 46 years. When the RWJ Foundation ended funding in 2015, the PDs and deans at Michigan, Penn, UCLA, and Yale responded in a visionary manner by uniting their respective schools of medicine and nursing, with the VA, and with community partners to create the NCSP. Since then, the NCSP has graduated eight cohorts of nearly 300 nurse and physician leaders - who are already having an enormous impact on healthcare in the US. A substantial number of individuals from both the clinical and clinician scholars programs have joined the Yale faculty over the years, enriching Yale GIM and YSM more broadly with their innovative approaches to advancing healthcare for all.
Speaking of innovation, this month’s Yale GIM News provides articles detailing many examples of our faculty advancing patient care, research, and education in medicine. Read on to learn more!
Of course, November also brings us “The Game” – Yale vs. Harvard football. We got a glimpse of the Bulldogs at our annual GIM Day at the Yale Bowl earlier this fall and they did not disappoint this past weekend defeating Harvard 45-28 in front of huge and boisterous crowd at the Yale Bowl. Not only did the game result in an Ivy League Championship for our Bulldogs, but they also qualified for the first ever FCS playoff bid for an Ivy league team! Yes indeed, GO Bulldogs!
November also brings us the Thanksgiving holiday! As a result, things will slow down academically this week, and we will all enjoy more time with family and friends. With December around the corner don’t forget to mark your calendars for our annual GIM Research and Scholarship retreat on Tuesday December 9, and our annual GIM Holiday party on Friday, December 12, to which your entire family is invited!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Patrick
Patrick G. O'Connor, MD, MPH
Dan Adams and Amanda Adams Professor of General Medicine
Chief, Yale General Internal Medicine
Head of Advisory House, Yan House
Yale School of Medicine