Dear Colleagues-Friends,

Last week, Learn Serve Lead 2018, the annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) brought together 4,500 attendees from medical schools and teaching hospitals all across the country to discuss the transformation of our nation’s health care through education, research and patient care. It was a highly informative and productive meeting and truly gratifying to also appreciate that as exemplified by many VCU contributions at the meeting, we are at the forefront of medical education.

We were extremely proud that more than 30 colleagues from our medical school, VCU Health and the VCU Inova Campus were in attendance to present or contribute to at least 35 concurrent sessions, discussion groups and posters. Topics ranged from trainee wellness, the changing physician workforce, mistreatment, inclusivity and quality, learning and assessment, specialty choice, to interprofessional collaboration. Our number of presentations exceeded three times that of last year, and our colleagues represented the high quality medical education that you all deliver on the MCV Campus with distinction and pride.

Many of our colleagues are serving academic medicine through various roles in the coming year:

  • Dr. Kelly Lockeman was recognized at the AAMC Southern Group on Education Affairs (SGEA) business meeting as a 2018 recipient of a $7500 grant from the Section for Medical Education Scholarship Research and Evaluation (MESRE) for a multi-institutional study with co-investigators at the University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Campus. She also was accepted as a workshop facilitator in the Medical Education Research Certificate Program (MERC) in 2018 and will serve as the SGEA rep to the MESRE Communications Working Group.
  • Dr. Michael Ryan is a member of the executive committee for the AAMC’s Core EPA Pilot.
  • Drs. Alan Dow and Stephanie Goldberg are serving on the AAMC Council of Faculty and Academic Societies (CFAS) Administrative Board.
  • Dr. Keith Baker took over as chair of the BA/MD Affiliate Group, which is a special-interest group outside the AAMC of 25-30 medical schools that have early assurance or BA/MD programs.
    Additionally, Dr. Marsha Rappley finished out her prominent and successful leadership role as the past-chair of the AAMC Board of Directors and continues her service in leading the search for the new AAMC president. These collective contributions and the 180th anniversary of the founding of our medical school were also recognized at a VCU School of Medicine reception on Nov. 3, where the successes of our faculty were recognized amidst alumni, friends, and association leadership.

AAMC president, Dr. Darrell Kirch gave his final address as the fourth president of the association, reflecting on the past 13 years of his tenure to say that while much has changed for the better in academic medicine, there is still much work do to on trainee resilience and wellness, social determinants of health, interprofessional education, health disparities and maintaining humanism while advancing technology in medicine. In his chair’s address, Dr. Roy Wilson, president of Wayne State University and outgoing chair of the AAMC Board of Directors underscored the needs to work on these issues and said, “Be good to medicine and medicine will be good to you,” especially in terms of a deeper career satisfaction. Both inspiring presentations can be viewed online.

As you know from your own activities and presentations at national organizations and conferences, opportunities like these are immeasurably important in raising the profile of our School of Medicine. My compliments to all on such a great showing for our school!

With every good wish for your continued good work,

Peter F. Buckley, M.D.
Dean, VCU School of Medicine
Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, VCU Health System