Plenary Sessions

Friday, January 25
8:30-10 am

“Passion Is the Future of Family Medicine”
Christine Stabler, MD, Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, Pa

The future of family medicine has been much discussed and debated. Innovations in the delivery of care, a diverse market basket of services, and personalized care have been promoted as vehicles for success. Christine Stabler, MD, will propose a new vision that focuses on the future providers of care—students who will inevitably be the future of family medicine—and how to develop, encourage, and support the passion for care, advocacy for the patient, and commitment to progress in family physicians-to-be.

This plenary will outline the research to date on the development of interest in family medicine among medical students, identify strategies to promote the aspects of family medicine that emphasize passion and advocacy, and highlight involvement with undergraduate students in activities that demonstrate the “goodies” that a career in family medicine will provide. Examples of successful ventures as well as new ideas for the development of passion will be discussed.

Dr Stabler is a native Philadelphian who “never saw a tree until she went to college” according to her husband. An exciting, albeit short, stay in State College, Pa, as a part of a 5-year pre-med/med program exposed her to trees, but a passion for concrete and pigeons brought her back to Philadelphia to Jefferson Medical College. Residency in Lancaster, Pa, and practice in suburban Lancaster and Philadelphia completed her preparation for her chosen career in academic family medicine.

Dr Stabler is the deputy director of the Lancaster General Hospital Family Medicine Residency. There she chairs the Education Committee and is responsible for curriculum development, procedural training, and student programs for the residency. She is a past president of the Philadelphia Academy of Family Physicians, past chair of the AAFP Commission on Membership and Member Services, and a current member of the AAFP Commission on Education.

Dr Stabler holds academic appointments at Temple University, University of Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania State University. Her clinical practice includes inpatient medicine, full-spectrum non-surgical obstetrics, and ambulatory procedures.

Saturday, January 26
8:15-9:15 am

“Helping Trainees Survive the Medical Socialization Process With Their Souls Intact”
Kenneth Ginsburg, MD, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania

Why do so many physicians lose the capacity to fully experience their emotions? Why do so many of us burn out? Is it because we entered the profession without the capacity to care about the pain we witness? On the contrary, we entered the profession fully committed to delivering compassionate care. However, physicians are exposed to the most passionate themes of human existence on a nearly daily basis. It can simply be overwhelming, and many of us learn to sequester our feelings away in order to cope with the deluge. Once these very real feelings are locked away, it becomes more difficult to access the full range of emotions needed for the most satisfying lives and practices. This sessionb will focus on how to prepare trainees for a lifetime of service while giving them the tools to manage their own emotions. Further, it will discuss how to prepare trainees for what can often be an emotionally toxic training process.

Kenneth Ginsburg, MD, is an associate professor of pediatrics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and The University of Pennsylvania. He practices social adolescent medicine: medicine with special attention to prevention and the recognition that social problems, stressors, and poverty impact upon health. He is the medical director for Covenant House, Pennsylvania, a care system that serves homeless, street, and marginalized youth in Philadelphia. While the shelter-based clinic serves all of the health needs of its patients, it focuses on stress as the underlying force that drives most behaviors that risk good health. Dr Ginsburg developed the teen-centered method that is a mixed qualitative/ quantitative methodology used to facilitate youth to generate, prioritize, and explain their own proposed solutions to social problems and to teach clinicians how to better serve them. Recognizing that professionals have limited impact on the well-being of youth, he has tried to equip parents with the needed skills to prepare their children for a safe passage through adolescence.

Dr Ginsburg lectures widely to parent and professional audiences, and has published several books, including But I’m Almost Thirteen: An Action Plan to Raise a Responsible Adolescent, A Parent’s Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Your Child Roots and Wings, and Less Stress, More Success.

Dr Ginsburg will also present a special session on Saturday from 11:15 am–1:15 pm titled, “Reaching Adolescents by Building on Their Strengths: Resilience in Action.”

Sunday, January 27
10:00-11:30 am

"Together on the Edge: Homeless Health Care and Medical Student Education"
Tanya Page, MD, Outside In Medical Clinic, Portland, Ore

Homeless and underserved populations have limitations in their ability to access appropriate health care services. They have specific and interesting health care needs, and numerous barriers to health care, especially preventive care. Despite the large number of underserved and their great health care needs, training in care of these populations is underrepresented in medical school. While there are community programs and clinics focused on underserved health care, students often find no easy access to this training, and find that they have to individually pursue their own experiences. Long term this will likely be detrimental to the already insufficient supply of underserved care providers, as providers with previous experiences in community-based health care centers are more likely to choose these sites for their medical career.

Tanya Page, MD, will review the need for health care focused on the homeless and underserved, with case presentations of patients from Outside In, a Portland community clinic for homeless clients and youth. She will share the journey that has led to her own career in homeless health care, at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), and Outside In. The available opportunities for medical students to gain involvement in underserved care through electives, rotation placements, research, and involvement in national organizations will be reviewed, as well as the need for increased medical student exposure to underserved care. She will also discuss the importance of working underserved medical care into medical education so that medical students will learn to care for underserved clients now, and in their future practices, regardless of specialty.

Dr Page attended Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Finishing medical school in 2002, with distinctions in research, she moved west to pursue excellent family medicine residency training. Dr Page completed the OHSU Family Medicine Residency in 2005, and has been working at Outside In since October of the same year. Currently, she is involved in providing continuity chronic care, as well as urgent care, in the main clinic site and the mobile medical van. She is involved in the Health Care Disparities Collaborative, creating chronic care protocols and disease registries in the clinic. In addition, she works with a collaborative team of researchers at OHSU and Outside In to study health care and access issues for homeless individuals. As a faculty member in the OHSU Department of Family Medicine, she also enjoys attending on the family medicine inpatient service, as well as precepting residents and students at the Outside In Clinic.