Opportunities for Educators: Lead, Learn, Disseminate

The Association of Pediatric Program Directors' Nominations Committee is soliciting nominations for the following positions, with each term of office to begin March 2025 (after the APPD Annual Spring Meeting). Nominees must be current APPD members through their pediatric program membership. This is a great opportunity for you or a colleague to get more involved in the growth and development of the APPD! Available Positions:

• One Secretary-Treasurer (three-year term, 2025-2028)
• One At-Large Member of the Board of Directors (three-year term, 2025-2028)
• One APPD Nominations Committee Member (two-year term, 2025-2027)
• One Chair-Elect of the Associate Program Directors' Section Executive Committee (three-year term, 2025-2028) – to serve as Chair-Elect (2025-2026), Chair (2026-2027), Immediate Past Chair (2027-2028)
• One Chair-Elect of the Coordinators' Section Executive Committee (three-year term, 2025-2028) – to serve as Chair-Elect (2025-2026), Chair (2026-2027), Immediate Past Chair (2027-2028)
• One Chair-Elect of the Fellowship Directors' Section Executive Committee (three- year term, 2025-2028) – to serve as Chair-Elect (2025-2026), Chair (2026-2027), Immediate Past Chair (2027-2028)
• One Chair-Elect of the Program Directors' Section Executive Committee (three- year term, 2025-2028) – to serve as Chair-Elect (2025-2026), Chair (2026-2027), Immediate Past Chair (2027-2028)
• One Chair-Elect of the Vice Chairs of Education Section Executive Committee (three-year term, 2025-2028) – to serve as Chair-Elect (2025-2026), Chair (2026-2027), Immediate Past Chair (2027-2028)
• One At-Large Associate Program Directors' Section Executive Committee Member (three-year term, 2025-2028)
• One At-Large Associate Program Directors' Section Executive Committee Member (one-year term, 2025-2026)
• One At-Large Coordinators' Section Executive Committee Member (three-year term, 2025-2028)
• One At-Large Fellowship Directors' Section Executive Committee Member (three- year term, 2025-2028)
• One At-Large Program Directors' Section Executive Committee Member (three- year term, 2025-2028)
• One At-Large Vice Chairs of Education Section Executive Committee Member (three-year term, 2025-2028)

View job descriptions here.

Application Details: All applications should be submitted online by Monday, December 9th at 11:59 p.m. Eastern and must include the following:

1. Letter of support
2. Biosketch including interest/qualifications for the position
3. CV/Resume
4. Photo / Headshot

Members may also nominate an individual to serve any of the available positions. To nominate an individual, please use the online nomination system and provide a letter of support. The letter of support should address your recommendation and the nominees' qualifications for the role.

The APPD is pleased to announce a call for one education specialist to help direct APPD LEAPES. The new member will join the APPD LEAPES Council which oversees LEAPES, a nationally recognized program in which pediatric GME education specialists engage and learn from seasoned educators. Council members are responsible for developing, implementing, and evaluating the APPD LEAPES program, as well as choosing participants.

If you are interested in becoming a candidate for a position on the Council, please see the criteria and details of the selection process on the APPD LEAPES Council application site. Completion of LEAPES is not a prerequisite.

All materials must be submitted by February 3, 2025

What We Offer:

The opportunity to make a meaningful impact in the community.

A platform to enhance your leadership skills and expand your professional network, while bringing back innovative strategies and best practices to strengthen your home program and institution.

Collaboration with a diverse group of dedicated individuals who share a common goal, fostering a national network that enriches your departmental influence.

Recognition for your contributions and the chance to shape the future of your program, reinforcing your department’s commitment to excellence in graduate medical education.

Apply here!

APPD is proud to announce the call for mentors for the SMERFS (Supporting Medical Education Fellow Scholars) program.

The APPD Supporting Medical Education Research Fellow Scholars (SMERFS) is a program that provides pediatric subspecialty fellows with instruction about scholarship with mentoring of a medical education research project. This program supports project development, collection of data, data analysis, presentation of the project and publication. The goal is for this research project to meet the American Board of Pediatrics' Fellowship Scholarly Work requirement.

Goal: To provide mentoring and support for medical education research for pediatric subspecialty fellows.

Objectives: By the end of the APPD SMERFS Program, fellows will:

• Describe foundational concepts in medical education research
• Develop a mentoring relationship with a medical education research expert
• Design and carry out a medical educational scholarly project with assistance of a mentor
• Present their medical education research at the APPD Spring Meeting during their last year in the program
• Draft a medical education research manuscript in preparation for publication

Travel support for mentors will be provided. The deadline to apply is January 31.

For more information and the application, please visit: APPD Supporting Medical Education Fellow Scholars (SMERFS) - Association of Pediatric Program Directors

The ACGME is pleased to invite the graduate medical education (GME) community to the 2025 ACGME Annual Educational Conference, being held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, February 20-22, 2025. The Annual Educational Conference brings together the largest GME community in the world and features a wide selection of curated experiences and content that apply to both seasoned and first-time attendees. In addition to educational content, #ACGME2025 gives participants the opportunity to network with thousands of GME professionals and changemakers who are shaping the future of academic medicine.

• March 25-28, 2025, in Atlanta, GA
• Click here to register

APPD LEARN is the APPD's Longitudinal Educational Assessment Research Network

APPD LEARN provides an infrastructure for multi-centered, collaborative research projects and a centralized data collection system. LEARN encompasses three research networks that share the APPD LEARN infrastructure and governance.

• The APPD Pediatric Residency Investigators in Medical Education (APPD PRIME) network was APPD LEARN's first network and focuses on research on Pediatric residents and residency programs.
  
• The APPD Subspecialty Pediatrics Investigator Network (APPD SPIN) is a medical education research network for the Pediatric Subspecialties to evaluate the education and assessment of fellows.
• The APPD Surveys Enhancing Educator Knowledge (SEEK), formerly the survey component of the Research and Scholarship Learning Community, is a research network that supports projects on program operations and projects designed to study novel curricular or evaluation instruments that will allow programs to address and measure ACGME competencies.

Open calls for proposals

Proposals are reviewed three times per year, next Deadline January 31, 2025. Learn more about submitting here.

Thank you for your interest in submitting your abstracts to the APPD 2025 Annual Spring Meeting! Submitted abstracts should be related to the field of pediatric medical education. APPD members and non-members are encouraged to submit, including trainees. Original research should focus on medical education, curriculum, educational scholarship, and quality improvement methodologies. Clinical abstracts will not be considered.

The submission review process utilizes a standardized scoring rubric and shielded grading system. Authors should be cautious in using institutional references in the body of the submission. Demographic information collected from the submitting author will not be considered in the review process.

Decisions regarding abstract selection will be emailed mid-January 2025. Accepted abstracts will be selected for live poster presentation at one of the two posters sessions held during the meeting. A few outstanding abstracts will be selected for oral platform presentations at the meeting. All accepted abstracts will be published in the journal, Academic Pediatrics. Abstracts are published exactly as submitted and cannot be edited before publication.

View Medical Education Abstract Submission Guidelines here, the deadline to apply is December 18, 2024.

The call for abstracts for oral presentations and workshops for Medical Education Day at Yale (Med Ed Day) is now open.

Med Ed Day, which will be held on Thursday, June 5, from noon to 7 p.m. on the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) campus, is an annual conference to share best practices, celebrate trainees and educators, and spotlight Yale's excellence and innovation in medical education. We encourage abstract submissions from Yale faculty, residents, fellows, students, and staff in the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, and across the university. Topics may include, but are not limited to: teaching, curriculum, assessment, mentoring, and/or educational leadership. The deadline for submitting an oral presentation or workshop abstract is Friday, Jan. 10, 2025.

Please note that a separate call for poster abstracts will open on Feb. 1, 2025. Med Ed Day registration will open in April. Attendance is free and continuing medical education (CME) credit will be available. Please send any questions to centerformeded@yale.edu.

Participants will be chosen via a thorough peer-review process.

The applicant must be committed to attending two consecutive conferences. For more information on the timing and location of the conferences refer to the Pediatric Hospital Medicine Conference website and the Pediatric Academic Societies Conference website.

The applicant must also be prepared to participate in both independent and online instruction during the months between the conferences. The applicant must identify a local mentor, or request assistance in finding one. Upon acceptance to the program, the applicant is expected to meet with the identified mentor on a quarterly basis, either in person or via phone/web-conference, to discuss progress towards meeting teaching goals. In addition, the mentor will observe and provide feedback for at least two of the applicant's teaching sessions. If necessary, teaching sessions can be video-recorded and shared with mentor at a later date.

To learn more about the APEX Teaching Program, check out this informational webinar.

The application period for the APEX Teaching Program anchored at the Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) Conference runs from November 15 through January 15. This track is restricted to pediatric hospitalists or advanced practice providers who specialize in hospital care. Deadline for PHM Track is January 15.

Next proposal deadline is January 31, 2025. You may access the submission portal here: APPD Research Submission Portal

APPD LEARN Studies Actively Recruiting for Programs:

• Politics and Pediatrics: Exploring the impact of state political policies on pediatric residency application and match preferences (PI: Rebecca Hart)
• The goal of this study is to describe and determine factors that influence decision-making related to residency program applications, ranking, and future practice among pediatric residents.
• Eligibility: All residency programs

If you are interested in learning more about this study, please email learn@appd.org.

Keep an eye out for the following upcoming opportunities:

• Relationship between ACGME milestone scores and pediatric resident remediation (PI: Eric Zwemer)
• Preparing Subspecialists to Meet the Mental Health Needs of Their Patients: An Assessment of Fellowship Training (PI: Rebecca Sanders)
• Resident and Program Characteristics Associated with Performance on General Pediatric Certifying Exam (PI: Rebecca Wallihan)
• APPD’s Annual Program Director Survey (APPD PD Executive Committee)
• Changes in Inpatient Time in Response to New ACGME Requirements (PI: Su-Ting Li)

The Special Projects Program provides financial support for projects that further the APPD’s mission and strategic plan. Through the process described below, the APPD may grant up to $10,000 per selected project. The Board of Directors will determine the funds available for this program annually. The number of awards will be dependent on the funds available, and the size of the grant requests of the selected projects. Proposals are due each January 7, 2025. Click here for more information.

The Large Research Grants on Education Program supports education research projects that will contribute to the improvement of education, broadly conceived, with budgets ranging from $125,000 to $500,000 for projects ranging from one to five years. We anticipate awarding grants with budgets across each of the following funding tiers -- $125,000 to 250,000; $250,001 to $375,000; and $375,001 to $500,000. Within each of our funding tiers, we evaluate projects within tier and strongly encourage applicants to submit for funding that best fits their project rather than applying for the highest amount. We accept Intent to Apply forms twice a year.

This program is “field-initiated” in that proposal submissions are not in response to a specific request for a particular research topic, discipline, design, method, or location. Our goal for this program is to support rigorous, intellectually ambitious and technically sound research that is relevant to the most pressing questions and compelling opportunities in education.

Applications Open: December 2024

Intent to Apply: January 14, 2025, 12:00 pm Noon (Central/Chicago Time)

Full Proposal Deadline: February 11, 2025, 12:00 p.m. Noon (Central/Chicago Time)

Program contact: Maricelle Garcia largegrants@spencer.org

Download more details here.

The GEA seeks to fund research projects that address important problems or questions in medical education. High-quality research proposals on the following topics are strongly encouraged, but proposals in other areas are also welcome: professional identify formation; learner well-being and mistreatment; learning environment; faculty development; interprofessional education; competency-based medical education, entrustable professional activities, and milestones; self-directed/self-regulated learning; and virtual learning and COVID-related educational changes.

The GEA may fund multiple projects each year up to $10,000 each. This is a two-year grant. The pre-proposal application process opens in the fall, and the full proposal application process opens in the spring.

Now Open! The deadline for Pre-proposal submissions is Friday, January 17, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Submit here.

Every year ASPE provides incentive grants to members who propose unique research or development projects related to the use of standardized patients in the health sciences.

All studies/projects must be consistent with ASPE’s mission and goals, specifically adhering to the Standards of Best Practice. Studies to extend our knowledge about live human simulation-based education as an educational methodology, as well as, identifying best practices in Standardized Patient (SP) education, novel SP use, or advances in methodology, are particularly encouraged.

Past awarded research includes:

• Validating communications skills instruments;
• Studying patient satisfaction data;
• Validating training techniques in feedback and role portrayal;
• Evaluating stealth SP projects; and
• Studying SP recruiting and retention.

Learn more here.

The COMSEP Teaching / Education Award is presented annually to an individual whose contributions to curriculum development and program leadership have been exemplary within the field of pediatric medical student education. The award recipient will have created novel educational methods or program structure, which has led to a high degree of learner satisfaction and improved educational outcomes. Optimally, these educational innovations have also been documented through scholarship (local and national dissemination) and the adoption of the award recipient's methodologies at other national programs.

The COMSEP Research / Scholarship Award is given to an individual who has contributed substantially to advancing the field of pediatric medical student education through their research and scholarly work. This recipient may also have a track record of mentoring students and younger faculty in the scholarship of medical education and may also have a demonstrated impact on changing student assessment and program evaluation at a national level.

The COMSEP Award for Excellence in Clerkship Administration is given annually to a clerkship administrator whose outstanding organizational contributions, leadership and interpersonal skills have helped to bring recognition to their institution’s pediatric clerkship and perhaps nationally. This individual should have a commitment to ongoing professional development as well as through participation in the activities of COMSEP and/or other organizations.

The COMSEP Achievement Award is given to a current or former COMSEP member whose substantial contribution to the organization - in several realms - has resulted in the ongoing success, recognition, and growth of COMSEP. This individual has taken a lead role on at least one project of great significance to COMSEP. Further, this individual has served as a model of commitment to the organization as well as to the professional growth and development of other COMSEP members through such activities as program development, meeting planning, governance and mentoring.

Application Materials: Applicant CV, 2 or more letters of support with at least 1 letter of support from COMSEP member and 1 letter from a former or current trainee or mentee.

Apply here: https://www.comsep.org/awards/

The AAMC Award for Excellence in Medical Education* honors an individual or a team of two individuals whose contributions have had a demonstrable impact on advancing medical education. As the AAMC’s most prestigious honor, the AAMC Award for Excellence in Medical Education recognizes the highest standards in medical education.

The awardee receives the AAMC Award for Excellence and a prize of $10,000. Nominations are due Jan. 24, 2025.

Learn more about our decision to rename the award and find the frequently asked questions.

Suggest Someone for This Award: NOMINATE

Accepting nominations beginning January 2, 2025.

This award recognizes an outstanding assistant-level faculty member who demonstrates leadership potential in addressing inequity in medical education and health care; demonstrates efforts in addressing educational, societal, and health care needs of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States; and is committed to a career in academic medicine.

The recipient receives a $25,000 grant to support a project performed in the United States to support racial and ethnic minorities. Recipients are required to accept the award at Learn Serve Lead 2024: The AAMC Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA.

Funding for the fellowship begins in November of the year the fellowship is awarded and must be used for direct costs. The recipient will be required to submit a final narrative and financial report by November 2026.

A medical school may nominate one current faculty member per year for this award. A candidate must:

• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• Hold the rank of full-time assistant professor in a LCME-accredited U.S. medical school department.
• Have held the assistant professor position appointment beginning no earlier than July 1, 2021.
• Have received only one appointment as assistant professor.
• Hold a MD, PhD, or have earned another doctoral degree.

Learn about Dr. Herbert W. Nickens’ contributions to academic medicine in Reflections on Diversity and Inclusion in Academic Medicine commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Nickens Awards.

Award Program Book: Download pdf