UMass FMCH Tuesday Talk - April 30, 2024/DIVERSITY

Welcome to the FMCH Tuesday Talk. Please continue to send us your announcements, celebrations, and accomplishments to FMCHtuesdaytalk@umassmed.edu. 

Table of Contents

Upcoming Events

Focus of the Week – Diversity

Announcements

Department Member Recognition

Frankly Speaking Podcast

Upcoming Events


FMCH Grand Rounds

Tuesday, April 30th, 12:00 - 1:00pm"Latent Tuberculosis Update", presented by 

Rebecca Thal, NP-C, AAHIVS.

Meeting ID: 191 986 273 Passcode: FMCH

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/191986273?pwd=NEtlZmNkdWlSUGwyeTJQU3dCeUs1QT09

Focus of the Week - Diversity

Jennifer Bradford MD, MPH; Director of Social Justice and Inclusion

Josephine Fowler, MD, MBA, Vice Chair of Clinical Services

HeatherLyn Haley, PhD, Program Director


Would you like to be more involved in departmental diversity work?  Join us on Zoom next Friday, May 10th at 10:00am as we work on finalizing a departmental Diversity Statement. 

National Minority Quality Forum 2024

The NMQF meeting this week highlighted the importance of intersection with healthcare, government, Healthcare industry, and community.


Key elements of successful quality programs:

  • Expanding the team beyond the clinical environment.
  • Soliciting partnerships with community leaders and organizations.
  • Working with patients/ people in their community.
  • Partnering with other entities with similar goals of bringing quality care to the community.
  • Minorities receive the majority of their healthcare coverage through Medicaid and Medicare (almost 70%).
  • The data is available, and we must act on the data.
  • Consumer demand for equitable healthcare is emerging.


One of the best quotes of the day, "Representation does matter."- Congresswoman Kelly


Fake BORIM Investigation/Extortion Scam Targeting Physicians

Physicians across the country continue to receive scam calls from individuals posing as investigators from their state licensing board or the DEA. The caller will falsely state that the licensee is under investigation and that their medical license is in jeopardy or has been suspended. The caller might ask for additional information including NPI, DEA registration number, and financial information, and may state that the call was being recorded on a secure line. The scam calls may also show up as the Board of Medicine’s main number. If you receive a call, please consider the following:

No employee of the Board of Medicine will ever contact you by email, text, or phone and demand money, or request confidential personal information, or account information and force you to respond immediately.

If you receive a call such as the one described above, please contact the FBI’s Boston Field Office at 857-386-2000 or the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) Duty Line at 571-362- 8487. You may also report the threat to the FBI online at https://ic3.gov. If you receive a call, email, or text from an individual claiming to be from the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, you may call our office at 781-876-8230 to confirm a member of the BORIM team is attempting to contact you.

Announcements


ForHealth Consulting, a division of UMass Chan Medical School, is conducting an evaluation of the 1115 Medicaid waiver programs. One of the programs is about workforce incentive initiatives including student loan repayment program, residency grant program, etc. The evaluation needs to assess the impact of these financial incentives on primary care clinicians and behavioral health providers to work and stay at community health centers. The evaluation team plans to conduct a survey among clinicians (and prospective clinicians) about financial and non-financial incentives that are impactful on their choices of workplace. To develop the survey, the evaluation team hopes to have a brief discussion during the next 2-3 weeks with 3-5 primary and BH clinicians and/or graduating students about the relevance of incentive scenarios. It will take 10 - 15 mins. If you’d like to contribute to this process and/or to share your opinion by email, please contact Yara Halasa-Rappel, PhD, DMD.

(yara.halasarappel@umassmed.edu). Your information will allow the evaluator to gather information that the State Medicaid agency may consider to combat the issue of provider shortages. Thanks for your interest! 


Upcoming Meet the Author Event at UMass

May 9, 2024, 5:30pm, UMass Chan Medical School - Lazare Auditorium

Worcester District Medical Society and the Lamar Soutter Library are proud to offer this Meet the Author Event featuring Dr. Sunita Puri. Dr. Sunita Puri is the Program Director of the UMass Chan Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship and Associate Professor of medicine. A graduate of Yale and a Rhodes Scholar, she completed medical school and residency in internal medicine at UCSF and her palliative medicine fellowship at Stanford. She is a contributor to the NY Times, LA Times, and JAMA. She is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, a critically acclaimed literary memoir examining her journey to the practice of palliative medicine, and her quest to help patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of a serious illness.

Please RSVP here.


UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center is hosting a Teddy Bear Clinic on

May 18th, 2024. This year’s Teddy Bear Clinic is sure to be an exciting adventure that kids will love. Not only will they get to learn more about the doctor's office but also meet some educational professionals who will help teach them about proper hygiene and healthy habits. If you are interested in hosting a booth, please fill out the form here: https://forms.office.com/r/QhusB1NXCw. Please note, all booth volunteers who are not already UMass Memorial employees will need to be onboarded by our volunteer services group and will need to be pre-registered with UMass Chan to be on site. If you have any questions or would like to talk more about the Teddy Bear Clinic, please feel free to reach out to Alison.LeBlanc@umassmemorial.org


The next meeting of the FM POCUS Workgroup is May 30th from 7:00-8:00am.

The workgroup has recently re-launched with an aim to improve collaboration around POCUS clinical and educational efforts. All are welcome. Please email 

erin.cathcart@umassmemorial.org if you are interested in joining! 

Please complete the 2024 POCUS Needs Assessment at the link below. The survey is intended to gather additional data about the current state of POCUS within FMCH and be used to guide future work. The survey is IRB exemption approved. It will likely take 10-15 minutes to complete. 

https://umassmed.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2craREY8JQIwk6y


The Gender Affirming Care Learning Collaborative (GAC-LC) is sponsored by the UMass Chan Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (FMCH) and Co-Led by Melissa Gleckel, MD, and Amber Cahill, PsyD, who will be joined by visiting expert faculty across the UMass system. The purpose of the GAC-LC is to provide primary care clinicians within the UMass community a place to learn about the foundations of providing gender affirming care to adults from faculty peers and experts. The goal is to fuse silos of knowledge and enhance interdisciplinary, cross-system, and collaborative care to meet the needs of our gender diverse and transgender community in Central Massachusetts. The GAC-LC will offer a 6-session Foundations in Gender Affirming Care for Adults series that includes monthly 60-minute virtual meetings (typically first Wednesday of the month, 12:15-1:15). Each session will offer 1-hour of CME credits, sponsored by the New England AIDS Education & Training Center; ​​https://www.neaetc.org/

See announcement for more information

How to Register: 

See GAC-LC Annoucement for additional information.

Department Member Recognition


Welcome to Heather Garron who will be supporting the educational mission of the department. Her office is located on the 3rd floor of Benedict. Her email is 

Heather.Garron@umassmemorial.org

Frankly Speaking Podcast


A weekly Podcast series covering newsworthy topics in primary care medicine.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/frankly-speaking-about-family-medicine/id1194659367.


Please join us for an overview: Effective treatments for dementia remain elusive. In this episode, we're discussing dementia treatment developments gathered from recent publications, covering topics of drugs, exercise, and liver disease. Stay informed and equipped to offer the latest guidance to patients with dementia and their families. Guest: Robert A. Baldor, MD, FAAFP, presents: "Dementia News Roundup" - Frankly Speaking Ep 378.

Wellness Resources


The Caring for the Caregiver Program provides resources such as the Caregiver Support Line (508-334-HELP) and The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which offers a variety of services and supports (including virtual peer support and wellness tips. EAP can be accessed at 866-263-3525, or www.LiveandWorkWell.com,

[company code: UmassMemorial]. More information is available on the Caring for the Caregiver page.

Yoga Classes with Dr. Liz Erban



New members always welcome. 

Please join us at 6:30-7:30am for a gentle awakening yoga session led by the talented

Liz Erban. All are welcome. 

Happy third year anniversary to the yoga class.  

https://umassmed.zoom.us/j/91343267992?pwd=ZHF3NHVrVlR1MVdMV09HSE5lTzdsQT09

Past editions of the Tuesday Talk Newsletter are available at 

https://www.umassmed.edu/fmch/ under Resources.