Committee Reports

Communications Committee Report

I would first like to begin this report by giving praise to the Communications Committee that has so wonderfully served the Society: returning members Judith Gravdal, MD, and David Quillen, MD; and new members Lucille Marchand, BSN, MD; Antonnette Graham, PhD; Anne Musser, DO; Monique Davis-Smith, MD; and Tom Agresta, MD. All are hardworking and insightful individuals who continuously help meet the committee’s responsibilities to the Society. Their dedicated service and great insight can be seen in the many communications services offered by the Society.

Some highlights of the committee’s work include:

Family Medicine
The journal is our main and best-known publication, and it is one of our most-identified products. Editor Barry Weiss, MD, and Associate Editors Mindy Smith, MD, MS, and Michael Magill, MD, do an excellent job in journal oversight, development, and maintenance of quality. Our columns (For the Office-based Teacher of Family Medicine—Editor William Huang, MD; Innovations in Family Medicine Education—Editor Joshua Freeman, MD; Lessons From Our Learners—Editor William Grant, EdD; Literature and the Arts in Family Medicine Education—Editor Johanna Shapiro, PhD; Book Reviews—Editor Cathleen Morrow, MD; and International Family Medicine—Editor Jonathan Rodnick, MD) add both interest and value to our editorial mix.

The journal has cultivated its niche as the scholarly journal for family medicine education topics, and it is increasingly recognized in national and international circles. Current and archived full-text journal articles, along with advertising information and instructions for authors, are available on the public side of our Web site, www.stfm.org, offering better distribution and recognition of our members’ scholarly works. Family Medicine on-line continues to be one of the most-visited pages of the STFM Web site.

Awards
The committee is charged with the wonderful, but difficult, task of recommending honorees to the Board for the annual STFM Excellence in Education, Recognition, and Innovative Program awards. The committee reviews many nominations of outstanding members and their great accomplishments. This year’s nominees were no exception, and the committee has recommended highly deserving awardees who are a credit to STFM. Although everyone cannot be awarded these top honors, we congratulate all nominees on their accomplishments, and we thank them for their efforts. We encourage you to nominate deserving colleagues for next year’s consideration.

STFM Bookstore
The committee reviews submissions to our bookstore, and it continues to grow in scope and volume. It offers more than 300 publications, audiovisuals, monographs, and reprints, which are primarily written or edited by STFM members. In response to member demand, STFM has added a Software Category to the STFM Bookstore.

Electronic Communications
Our Web site, www.stfm.org, averages more than 20,000 unique visitors a month. The STFM Web site offers members on-line conference submission and registration, membership update and renewal, various links to family medicine education resources, STFM group information, STFM Bookstore offerings, and on-line full-text Family Medicine articles and classified ads.

STFM recently received a National Library of Medicine grant to create a Family Medicine Digital Resource Library (FMDRL). This library will include curriculum materials from all levels of family medicine education: preclinical, clinical, predoctoral, residency, and faculty development. Since curricular materials at several levels are clinically useful documents, a secondary goal of the FMDRL will be to build the system in a manner that enables its use as a clinical resource by family physicians for “just in time” lookup of clinical information at or near the point of care. The Communications Committee will monitor the progress of this grant and work with STFM groups to become involved with this exciting project.

The STFM electronic preceptor newsletter, The Teaching Physician, continues to be popular; more than 90 subscriptions have been purchased by departments and residency programs. Each subscription has the ability to touch hundreds of preceptors throughout the nation, ensuring great communication to this important segment of family medicine educators. We thank our volunteer editors of this newsletter: Caryl Heaton, DO; Richard Usatine, MD; Alec Chessman, MD, and Mark Ebell, MD, MS, for their dedicated service to this valuable resource. For more information about this newsletter, visit www.stfm.org/teachingphysician/index.htm.

Monograph Review
Committee members serve as content reviewers for monograph publications under development by STFM groups. We are currently reviewing projects from the Group on Pain Management and Palliative Care and the Group on Oral Health. Groups that are considering submitting monographs to STFM for publication should review the Monograph Submission Guidelines listed on the STFM Web site at www.stfm.org/monogph.html.

Jacob Reider, MD, Chair

Communications Committee

Jacob Reider, MD, Chair
Albany Medical College

Thomas Agresta, MD
University of Connecticut

Y. Monique Davis-Smith, MD
Mercer University

Antonnette Graham, PhD
Case Western Reserve University

Judith Gravdal MD
Lutheran Family Practice
Park Ridge, ll

Lucille Marchand, BSN, MD
University of Wisconsin

Anne Musser, DO
University of California-Irvine

David Quillen, MD
University of Florida

EX OFFICIO:
Barry Weiss, MD
University of Arizona
Editor, Family Medicine

STFM Staff Liaison
Traci Nolte