Annually, the Medical Student Section regions host Physicians of the Future Summits which allow for educational programs and further discussion on policy development relevant to each region and its membership.

In 2022 the region summits were held virtually Feb. 5.

• Region 4 had the honor of having Stephen Symes, MD, as guest speaker for the Region 4 conference. Dr. Symes is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami and the medical director of the Asylee Healthcare and Human Rights Clinic in Miami. He gave an incredible talk on the unique role of being a medical provider for refugees. He discussed the unique aspects of medical evaluations for this population and considerations for their care and treatment. We had an incredible discussion on how his clinic operates and how students can be involved in caring for these patients.
• The conference also held a research poster competition. After an application process, four outstanding students were chosen from the region to present their own research and posters. We are so proud of the incredible work that all our medical students are doing throughout the region. We are pleased to announce Patrick Smith as our region 4 poster competition winner. He is a second-year medical student at The University of South Carolina at Greenville. He won first place with his research poster entitled, "Utilization of Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) to Identify and Address the Needs of Adolescents and Young Adults (AYAs) with Cancer.”
• We also held a state-based advocacy session where we broke up into individual states and discussed important current topics happening within the health care field. Topics included: medical student education, reducing insulin costs, pharmaceutical benefit managers and scope of practice. We had incredible discussions with our conference participants surrounding these subjects. We then sent out issue briefs to our state leaders with additional information on each topic and an overview of our discussions to be distributed to all region members.

This year all regions convened for a joint session on Feb. 5 from noon.-2 p.m. Central, which was followed by separate region summits.

See the agenda tab for more information on the region 4 summit, or download the PDF.

The summit was held on the Zoom platform.

Visit the other region summit pages for details of their events.

• Physicians of the Future Summit—Region 1
• Physicians of the Future Summit—Region 2
• Physicians of the Future Summit—Region 3
• Physicians of the Future Summit—Region 5
• Physicians of the Future Summit—Region 6
• Physicians of the Future Summit—Region 7

Joint session agenda (Central time)

12:00 pm - 12:30 pm

GRAF and BOT updates

Brittany Ikwuagwu, MSS Government Relations Advocacy Fellow; Drayton Harvey, student member on AMA Board of Trustees

12:30 pm - 1:00 pm

Debt management

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Health equity

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Resolution workshop

Region 4 agenda (Central time)

2:00 pm - 2:10 pm

Welcome

Megan Ward, vice chair, MSS Region 4, Edward Via College of Medicine; Elora Friar, chair, MSS Region 4, Florida State University College of Medicine

2:10 pm - 2:25 pm

Policy update from November 2021 Special Meeting of AMA House of Delegates

Maggie Oliver, region delegation chair, MSS Region 4, University of South Carolina School of Medicine-Greenville

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Asylee Healthcare and Human Rights Clinic of Miami

Stephen Symes, MD, associate professor of Infectious Diseases, University of Miami

3:00 pm - 3:10 pm

Break

3:10 pm - 3:40 pm

Breakout activity

3:40 pm - 4:10 pm

Advocacy on current state & territory legislative initiatives

Elora Friar, chair, MSS Region 4, Florida State University College of Medicine; Carlee Rushlow, MERC, MSS Region 4, Florida State University College of Medicine

4:10 pm - 4:45 pm

Virtual Region 4 poster symposium

Megan Ward, vice chair, MSS Region 4, Edward Via College of Medicine; Aaisha Gulani, secretary/treasurer, MSS Region 4, University of Central Florida College of Medicine

4:45 pm - 4:50 pm

Closing remarks

Elora Friar, chair, MSS Region 4, Florida State University College of Medicine; Megan Ward, vice chair, MSS Region 4, Edward Via College of Medicine