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Dear ACPM member:
What an exciting time to be
in preventive medicine! Never before has
prevention and public health received so
much attention from policy makers, the
media, organized medicine, and the general
public. And ACPM is right in the thick of
it! Because of the efforts of ACPM and
other public health advocacy groups,
prevention continues to be an important
staple in health reform legislation.
However, health reform is at a critical
juncture, as Congress is working to bridge
the gaps between the House- and
Senate-passed bills and make crucial
decisions on which elements will be
retained and which will be extracted.
That is why ACPM has been at the table
every step of the way, and will remain at
the table, working to ensure that
preventive medicine remains front and
center throughout this debate, and that
policy makers understand the value of
investments in prevention for improving
the health of Americans.
ACPM’s impact of course is
being felt well beyond the halls of
Congress. The College continues to expand
its visibility and influence both within
and beyond the preventive medicine
fraternity. Within the specialty ACPM has
become the “go-to” source for education
and for supporting diplomates’ pathway to
certification and recertification; we are
revamping our Preventive Medicine
residency training programs to assure an
appropriately trained preventive medicine
workforce to meet the needs of the
communities and patients of tomorrow; and
we are working tirelessly to grow the
preventive medicine pipeline with
long-term financing. Outside the
specialty, we are arming policy makers
with information about effective
preventive services and their value in a
reformed health system, and clinical
practitioners with prevention practice
education and recognition.
The recent successes of the
College have been made possible because of
your support! We need that support to
continue to ensure we remain on the
pathway toward a stronger and more robust
organization, whose impact and visibility
continue to grow, that will lead
preventive medicine out of the shadows to
assume its rightful place of prominence in
health care. I urge you to review the
ACPM 2009 highlights and to renew your
membership now to ensure an even better
2010 for your specialty society.
On a final note, the Board
of Regents adopted a policy in 2008 to tie
membership dues to an inflationary
factor. However, given the difficult
economic times, we have decided to freeze
membership dues at 2009 levels. To renew
your membership for 2010, go to
https://www.acpm.org/members/default.cfm.
If you have any questions about your dues
or ACPM activities, please contact
Jennifer Edwards at
jedwards@acpm.org.
I look forward to your
continued involvement with ACPM!
Sincerely,
Mark Johnson, MD, MPH,
FACPM
President
ACPM Highlights, 2009
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As a result of
unrelenting ACPM advocacy and education,
HHS announced the availability of $9.0
million in combined funding through the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
(stimulus) and the FY 2010 budget for
the Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA) for preventive
medicine residency programs (PMRs).
This is a seven-fold increase over
current federal support levels and the
largest influx of federal support for
PMRs in decades. Maintaining this level
of commitment to these programs
throughout the yearly appropriations
process remains a top priority for ACPM.
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Through the hard work of
ACPM staff and members, Congress
is finalizing its health care reform
package that includes a new funding
authorization of at least $43 million to
stabilize support for all PMRs for years
to come.
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After years of advocacy
by the public health community and ACPM,
the Food and Drug Administration finally
has regulatory authority over tobacco.
The Family Smoking Prevention and
Tobacco Control Act marks a milestone
toward the goal of significantly
reducing, and eventually eliminating,
the death and disease caused by
tobacco. The new law represents the
strongest action taken to date to reduce
tobacco use, the leading cause of
preventable death.
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ACPM’s Graduate Medical
Education Committee has been extremely
active in recent weeks developing
strategies, principles, and
recommendations in anticipation of
proposed new training requirements by
the Preventive Medicine Residency Review
Committee, which were released in
mid-January. The requirements are
changing in response to pressure from
the ACGME, Federation of State Medical
Boards, ABMS, and others to assure a
high quality physician workforce and
more standardized and
clinically-relevant training programs
across all specialties. ACPM is
leading the response to these proposed
requirements to assure that Preventive
Medicine will continue to be a viable
medical specialty serving the needs of
patients and populations alike.
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Maintaining certification
for American Board of Preventive
Medicine diplomates is a requirement for
many ACPM members. The College has all
the MOC tools you will need to
recertify. As members of the College,
MOC lifelong learning credits are
complimentary. In addition, ACPM
recently launched a
full set of MOC Part IV practice
assessment tools, which are
available at greatly reduced costs for
members. To learn more about MOC,
including the new Part IV tools, please
visit:
www.acpm.org/education/moc_descr.htm.
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Preventive Medicine 2009
in Los Angeles was a huge success, and
the Preventive Medicine 2010
planning committee is putting the
finishing touches on another outstanding
program for ACPM’s marquis event, to be
held February 17-20 in Washington, DC.
ACPM Fellow Steve Woolf is confirmed as
the KBS speaker and other headliners,
such as Assistant Secretary for Health
Dr. Howard Koh, US Surgeon General Dr.
Regina Benjamin, and Sen. Tom Harkin,
are expected to speak. The meeting will
host over 700 attendees and feature
sessions on Clinical Preventive and
Lifestyle Medicine, Public Health
Practice, Prevention Policy, Career
Development, Medical Quality and much
more. It is not too late to register.
Please visit:
http://www.preventivemedicine2010.org
to learn more and to register.
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ACPM hosted another
highly successful Preventive Medicine
Board Review Course in 2009, drawing 206
physicians to the 22nd annual event—the
largest turnout for the course in nearly
a decade. The course features the only
comprehensive review of preventive
medicine. In addition to helping
physicians prepare to take the
Preventive Medicine Board Exam, the
course attracted significant numbers of
physicians preparing to take their
recertification exam, as well as
physicians enjoying a refresher in
preventive medicine and taking advantage
of more than 40 CME and Maintenance of
Certification (MOC) credit hours. ACPM
also offers, at steep discounts to
members, the full three-volume hard copy
syllabus and/or the
course DVD-ROM (56.25 hours of CME
and MOC!), which includes all audio and
conference materials from approved
sessions.
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ACPM is focused on
strengthening the delivery of clinical
preventive services, through major
initiatives such as lifestyle medicine,
aspirin utilization, and Time Tools
(brief, clinical prevention education
tools). Visit
www.acpm.org to learn more about
these initiatives.
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ACPM provides an
independent, authoritative voice for
health professionals, policy makers, and
consumers alike on today’s complex
prevention issues. This includes being
a leading advocate in health reform for
the value of prevention; responding
to the furor over the recent
USPSTF mammography screening
recommendations; and assuring
consumers have ready-access to
scientifically-based information about
their nutritional choices.
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ACPM continues to expand
its strategic alliances and partnerships
to further its reach in advancing a
disease prevention and health promotion
agenda. In addition to the plethora of
public health and prevention-related
coalitions and partners with which ACPM
works on a daily basis, ACPM also has
broadened its reach to corporate
partners with aligned interests and
prevention agendas, fueled by ACPM’s
Corporate Roundtable.
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ACPM is committed to
shoring up its infrastructure to serve
its members better, with new investments
being made in office space and plans in
the works for a new association
management system and web site, to name
a few.
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