Committee Reports

Membership Committee Report

As chair of this committee, I would first like to recognize the contributions of Karl Miller, MD, of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga Unit, who ably served our Society as a member of the Membership Committee. Unfortunately, Dr Miller died unexpectedly this past year. We miss his intellectual excellence, his wonderful wit, his kind and generous nature, and his dedication to all that our Society represents. We continue our work in his absence to represent the needs of our members within the organization. We are blessed with excellent members on our committee: Jane Corboy, MD; Diana Heiman, MD; Charles Henley, DO, MPH; Susan Labuda-Schrop, MS; Rick Ricer, MD; and Sally Weaver, PhD, MD, who carried on the tradition that Karl brought to our committee through our work this past year.

This past year we have worked to assess and understand the needs of our members and to recommend programs to help members further their careers in academic family medicine. We presented to the Board of Directors a recommendation to establish a competitive grant program targeted specifically to supporting educational research projects. The ERGO program (Educational Research Grant Opportunities) was directed by the STFM Board to the STFM Foundation for review and identification of funding.

We conducted focus groups with “best practice” community-based residency program directors and with program directors who are not members of STFM to understand their different needs and reasons for their link to STFM. Directors of nonparticipating programs wanted more products, such as curricular modules, from meeting participation that would help them maintain their program’s accreditation. Best practice programs wanted an opportunity to showcase their program through presentations and dialogue with other members. We plan to link this information to activities to reach out to nonparticipating program directors.

We also conducted a survey of our new members to understand how they got connected to STFM, what they value in our organization, and what their hopes and aspirations are. We are using this information to strengthen ties to new members and to engage them in the Society. A summary of these findings is posted on the FMDRL for review. In this spirit, we are also strengthening links to our fellow members because they are the future in academic family medicine and should be natural leaders in our Society. We proposed that the former Group on Fellows expand its focus and become a new group, the Group on New Faculty in Family Medicine. This group was approved by the STFM Board in 2008.

Finally, we have also worked on strengthening the New Member Orientation at the Annual Spring Conference. We continue to integrate participants’ feedback into redesign of these activities. At the 2008 annual meeting, we will add a lunch activity as an additional way to connect to our new members.

Membership in STFM continues to grow in spite of the trials and tribulations of academic family medicine. We believe that our organization is essential to supporting faculty in family medicine throughout the United States and the world.

Sim Galazka, MD, Chair

Membership Committee

Sim Galazka, MD, Chair
University of Virginia

Jane Corboy, MD
Baylor College of Medicine

Diana Heiman, MD
University of Connecticut/St Francis Hospital FMR

Charles Henley, DO, MPH
University of Oklahoma COM-Tulsa

Susan Labuda-Schrop, MS
Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine

Rick Ricer, MD
University of Cincinnati

Sally Weaver, PhD, MD
McLennan County Family Practice
Waco, Tex

Mary Ruhl, Staff Liaison