For Residents

GME funding is at risk; contact Congress today

Medical residency funding will take a hit under the federal budget sequester, which will take place March 1 unless Congress intervenes first.

Congress has limited graduate medical education (GME) funding for years, having placed a cap on the number of residency slots in 1997. The sequester would reduce Medicare financing of GME by 2 percent for nine years beginning April 1, despite an imminent physician shortage. Estimates place the shortage at 62,900 physicians within two years and 130,000 physicians by 2025.

Call on Congress to preserve GME funding today. Send your members of Congress an email through the AMA's Save GME campaign.

Wanted: clinical article submissions for JAMA

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is seeking submissions for JAMA Clinical Challenge articles and the journal's new feature, diagnostic test imaging.

JAMA Clinical Challenge articles are regularly published in JAMA and involve the interpretation of a clinical image. While the new diagnostic test imaging series has not yet been published, JAMA is now accepting submissions for it.

These articles are ideal for writing teams of medical students or resident physicians partnered with attending physicians. JAMA's instructions for authors provide details on the requirements for both article types.

Interested authors should start by sending an email to JAMA Deputy Editor Ed Livingston, MD, and viewing a recently published example of a JAMA Clinical Challenge article. For more information on how to submit figures, read The JAMA Network's Guidelines for Figures in Accepted Manuscripts. JAMA will not consider manuscripts that do not follow these guidelines.

AMA members receive full online access to The JAMA Network, which includes JAMA and nine specialty journals. Activate your subscription today.

IHI issues sequel report on improving GME

A new report from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) seeks to answer how primary care best practices for quality improvement should be embedded in medical education.

Using existing case studies and examples, the report identifies best practices in the ambulatory care setting. The researchers found that residents play a very active role in transforming primary care environments throughout their training. For example, residents have been instrumental in establishing standard operating procedures for new care teams and in selecting quality improvement priorities for their care delivery systems.

The researchers also found that there may be an interesting tension emerging in ambulatory care, in which the focus is both on individual patients and the population the clinic serves.

IHI notes that the report is intended to highlight the benefits of education in team-based practice, interprofessional learning and leadership skills for training physicians.