As the Summer winds down, and Fall approaches, families around the country turn their thoughts to “back to school” concerns: new shoes, new backpacks, school supplies or perhaps packing up an older child for college. I would like to suggest that we in our “Preventive Medicine family” also turn our attention to back to school considerations, back to school at our academic medical centers. First-year students are launching their medical careers. Second-year students are transitioning from classroom didactics to hands-on clinical training. Third-year students are immersing themselves in the core patient care subjects taught on the hospital floors, and fourth-year students, emerging from the trials of third-year, are preparing for residency applications. Indeed, even our PGY-1s are emerging from their “immersive patient care training” and our senior residents are contemplating whether to continue their studies with fellowship (or another residency) training, or to enter “practice” of some sort.
However, this year’s back to school at our medical schools and teaching hospitals is literally different than any other in history. Why? It is because this year, as has been previously reported in ACPM News, for the first time ever, the specialty of Public Health and General Preventive Medicine (and recently joined by our colleagues in Occupational and Environmental Medicine) will be participating in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP). This represents a tremendous opportunity for our specialty! It affords us increased exposure and access to medical students (and residents) across the country. It “normalizes” our application process, and by extension the perceptions that students, residents, educators and academic administrators will have of our specialty. [Indeed, hopefully it will not be long before they appreciate just how appealing our specialty is. Ours is the best, you know!] Most importantly, it affords applicants a seamless transition into our specialty, either via a transitional or preliminary PGY-1 year, or directly into PH/GPM training from another residency program (or mid-career).The last, and in my opinion critical component of this recruitment opportunity, is a concerted effort to let these folks know who we are. To be sure, there have been and will continue to be announcements from ACPM, NRMP and AAMC, but I think we need more of a grassroots approach. With that, I would politely ask, or perhaps more boldly challenge my colleagues across the country to do at least one thing at your medical schools or residency programs to raise awareness of our specialty. In the near term, perhaps give a presentation to medical students (providing food always helps) or current residents highlighting our specialty, write a campus newsletter article about our specialty’s entry into the NRMP, and the types of careers PH/GPM physicians enjoy or meet with your GME Committee or Residents/Fellows Committee to have that same conversation. ACPM has materials ready and available that can be used for such purposes, click here to view them. In the longer term, consider exploring the development of a fourth-year PH/GPM elective rotation, if your institution does not already have one, or perhaps even vie for a small slice of the much-coveted time in the first or second years of the medical school curriculum. By the way, you need not be a program director to do any of these things, or even an academic. Simply having a willingness to reach out to medical school administration will suffice. This call is going out to our entire membership.
Done correctly, I am cautiously optimistic that our entry into the NRMP, combined with a rejuvenated “ground game”, will significantly increase the number of high-quality residency program applicants, not only from current residents and mid-career professionals, but also from medical students. A greater number such applicants will, in and of itself, strengthen our specialty (and enhance the health of the population). It will also reinforce our ongoing requests for greater and more stable funding for our training programs, which will strengthen our pipeline of future professionals. So please think about what you can do in the next month, six months or year to raise the visibility of our specialty at your institution and in your region.
James A. Tacci, MD, JD, MPH, FACPM, FACOEM
Treasurer