Having visited north, west, east, and south thus far in my travels for AFMRD, I stayed close to center for my final visits as its 2024-25 president.
In February, I met with Morgan Schiermeier, MD, program director (PD) at Capital Regional Medical Center(CRMC) Family Medicine residency in Jefferson City, MO on what also happened to be the Missouri Academy of Family Physicians advocacy day in the state capital. Stopping by the advocacy event en route to Dr. Schiermeier, I found CRMC residents in attendance. We briefly discussed the critical role family physicians play in educating legislators on health care policy. Upon learning I was heading to their clinic, they gushed, “Oh, Dr. Schiermeier is just the best human ever! You’ll love talking to him!” (I am fairly certain my own residents do not gush this way about me.)
Appropriately intrigued, I proceeded to CRMC, where I spent an indeed delightful hour with Dr. Schiermeier. The deadline to submit NRMP rank lists was approaching and so, perhaps unsurprisingly, our conversation turned to recruiting. We acknowledged many programs have seen a decline in the number of applications over the past couple years and this may be a good thing as GME works to reduce application fever. Dr. Schiermeier described the challenges a community program, particularly in a smaller town, might face in marketing itself to medical students. He laughed, saying, “Sometimes I feel like our residency is the best kept secret in Missouri!” We weighed the merits of different resources available to family medicine applicants, ranging from the American Association of Medical Colleges’ Residency Explorer or the American Medical Association’s FRIEDA or the American Association of Family Physicians residency directory to open forums such as medical student threads on Reddit.
“It’s hard to keep different resources consistently up-to-date, especially when you think of all the other tasks we do as PDs,” I commented. Some program administrators or coordinators may be better than PDs at updating these resources. In fact, Dr. Schiermeier and I agreed there’s a lot that program administrators are better at than we are, so we closed our visit by popping into the office of CRMC program coordinator, Charlene Dowell, to express our gratitude!
Behind every good AFMRD member is a great AFMA member! Many thanks to CRMC program coordinator Charlene Dowell!
In March, I headed to Fort Smith, AR to visit Chris Fortson, MD, at the Mercy/AR College of Osteopathic Medicine Family Medicine residency and Katherine Irish-Clardy, MD, at the University of Arkansas Medical School West Family Medicine residency. In this quiet two weeks between rank list submission and Match Week, our conversation turned to the tension between graduate medical education training and the job market. We discussed elective planning to prepare residents for post-graduate practice, communities in most need of our best-trained residents, and a health care landscape that doesn’t always support their ability to practice where or how they are needed. If we didn’t solve these problems over lunch, we at least agreed it was good to normalize they are communal, rather than isolated.
Being a PD can feel lonely or isolated at times. The juxtaposition between residents, faculty, department chair, administrators, and other stakeholders often means no one else at the program shares quite the same perspective we do. These visits went a long way to dispelling any sense of isolation I may have felt. I am so grateful to all the programs that permitted me to visit this year…many, many thanks to all the PDs and residency leaders who shared their time and wisdom with me!
Many thanks to Chris Fortson for a great tour of Fort Smith and its family medicine residencies!
Sarah Cole, DO, FAAFP
AFMRD President