With the start of July, we welcome a new academic year! It is exciting that we are joined by 95 residents, including 16 med-peds residents and 6 students in the Primary Care program along with 80 fellows. We are honored to be a part of our trainees’ educational journeys. We have 16 new faculty joining us this summer and you can find their names in the newsletter. We look forward to helping each one of them launch their academic careers at UNMC. We also welcome four new chief residents and you can find their pictures in the newsletter as well.
We had a wonderful zoom residency graduation banquet in mid-June and a number of residents were recognized with awards along with Dr. Ryan Mullane who received the Sir William Osler faculty teaching award from the residents. A special congratulations to Drs. Steve Ebers (mid-size program) and Brittany Hance (large program) who received one of UNMC wide house officers of the year awards (resident) along with Dr. Saeed (fellow-PCCMS division). Dr. Craig Piquette received the UNMC GME Robert S. Wigton Most Valuable Program Director award this spring as well. Twelve of our faculty officially received academic promotions July 1st and they are also listed. Congratulations to each for achieving a milestone in their careers!
We are focusing in the month of July on recognizing when we are being curious versus judgmental in our interactions with others. When someone presents us with an idea or process change, we need to pause a moment and see if we are responding from a perspective of curiosity or judgement. We can remind ourselves to use “stay curious” phrases (like “that is an interesting idea, tell me more”) instead of immediately responding with why the idea won’t work. This month we are challenged to reflect on the benefits of coming from curiosity versus judgement in both our workplace and home.
The last several weeks have provided many opportunities to learn more about the influence of systemic racism in our country and in our community, including UNMC and our department. Dr. Jasmine Marcelin is leading a taskforce for our residency program to more intentionally address inclusion and diversity within our training program and I am grateful for her leadership and the taskforce’s work. If you have ideas about how we as the IM department can be more intentional in enhancing inclusion and diversity, please reach out to me with your thoughts.
Remember we have a monthly IM department meeting on July 16th at 5pm by zoom. Hope you can participate. Enjoy these summer days with longer hours of sunshine and some favorite summer activities (COVID adjusted)!