MDAFP Convening new Residency Learning Collaborative
In 2023 The ABFM Foundation announced the availability of planning and programming grants to seed the development of new family medicine residency networks and enhancement of existing networks. The grants were available with a focused purpose to advance the preparedness of family physicians for practice and improve the health of communities. There were two grants:
These grants were developed in response to major revisions of residency standards that are ambitious and require many major changes for family medicine residency programs. Regional and national residency learning networks/collaboratives can accelerate the diffusion of new changes while building capacity for innovation.
The purpose of the Planning Grant is to support the initiation, conception and planning phases leading to the creation of family medicine residency networks that support family medicine GME innovation that advances the outcomes of GME and transformation of clinical practice. The purpose of the Seed Program Grant is to develop, create and/or expand sustainable infrastructure for learning networks/collaboratives that invite residency programs’ leaders, teaching practice medical directors, faculty, and residency coordinators to intentionally share and adopt improvements and innovations in GME.
This aligns with one of the MDAFP strategic plan’s area of focus to grow and maintain a sufficient family medicine workforce. The MDAFP Board of Directors agreed that this initiative is important and a great way to support our residency programs, so approved this endeavor for MDAFP to take this on. Dr. Kyle Fletke, MDAFP Board Director (he’s Associate Program Director for the University of Maryland Family Medicine Residency Program), quickly jumped in and volunteered to be our champion leader. Along with my staff, we dove right in to begin preliminary work to get this started and applications ready.
Dr. Fletke has been instrumental for our chapter with this undertaking. We were able to convene leaders from Family Medicine residency programs in Maryland, DC and West Virginia’s Rural FM Residency Program to develop our new Residency Learning Collaborative quickly to develop our initial plan, develop a charter and solidify the grant applications. Thanks to this team effort, our applications for both grants were awarded to MDAFP.
The residency programs participating in our new learning collaborative are: MedStar Franklin Square, Meritus, University of Maryland Baltimore, University of Maryland Capital Region, Howard University, Wright Center National, Medstar Health/Georgetown-Washington and West Virginia Rural Track. The collaborative will utilize the clinical expertise of physicians and medical clinicians across the region (Maryland, DC, West Virginia) to educate residents and faculty in an array of clinical areas. Based on the planning group’s polling and discussions, the initial curriculum key content areas will be LGBTQ+ Health and Substance Use Disorders (primarily opioid use disorder). To build a cohort of faculty across the region knowledgeable in these content areas, the initial 12 months of the collaborative will focus on faculty development. The focus will shift to resident education in the 2nd and 3rd years of the grant period, after a cohort of faculty members across the region have been sufficiently trained. Participating clinical sites will implement new and creative clinical care models across the region, leading to improvements in patient care and clinical outcomes. Faculty and resident participants will pursue educational and clinical scholarly activity opportunities developed from this collaboration. The collaborative will seek to build a robust primary care workforce to improve the care of patients across the region. Additionally, members of the collaborative will engage with local and national representatives to advocate on behalf of patients who identify as LGBTQ+ or who have a substance use disorder.
Focusing on our future is really good for our state and I am excited for our work to provide support for our family medicine residents and residency programs. This learning collaborative will provide Marylanders with well-trained family physicians who render the highest quality care for their patients and provides education, advocacy, representation, and leadership for the specialty of family medicine. We’ll keep you informed about the progress of our new learning collaborative and share any new educational offerings for all members that may also result from this group. In the meantime, feel free to reach out if you would like to learn more about our plans for the initiative.
Becky Wimmer
Your Executive Director
