UMass FMCH Tuesday Talk - November 9, 2021/EDUCATION
Welcome to the FMCH Tuesday Talk. Please continue to send us your announcements, celebrations, and accomplishments to FMCHtuesdaytalk@umassmed.edu.
Table of Contents
Upcoming Events
Focus of the Week - Education
Announcements
Frankly Speaking Podcast
Faculty Presentations/Publications
Department Member Recognition
Clinical Services Spotlight
Upcoming Events

FMCH Grand Rounds
Tuesday, November 9th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, "End of life conversations for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities: A Panel Discussion". Presented by: Robert Baldor, MD, Clare Burdett, RN, Anita Cameron, Diane Coleman, JD, MBA, Ellen DiPaola, JD, Deborah Dreyfuss, MD, John Geenty, Jr., JD, and Jennifer Reidy, MD. Meeting ID: 191 986 273 Passcode: FMCH
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/191986273?pwd=NEtlZmNkdWlSUGwyeTJQU3dCeUs1QT09

UMass Cancer Center
Wednesday, November 17th, 3:00 - 4:00 pm, "Community Engagement: Informing Awareness, Uptake, and Research to Improve Cancer Screening". Presented by Karriem S. Watson, DHS, MS, MPH.
Password: 919204

Faculty Development Workshop
Thursday, November 18th, 7:30 - 8:30 am, Optimizing Epic during a live patient encounter - Epic Workshop.
Please RSVP to Jennifer.Masoud@umassmemorial.org.

American Board of Family Medicine Maintenance of Certification
KSA (SAM) Workshop: “Care of Children”
Thursday, November 18, 2021, 8:00 – 10:00 AM
WEBINAR (no need to leave your desk) Link will be sent prior to 11/18/2021
We will complete the latest (just released) 60 question Care of Children KSA via a virtual CME event. You will record your answers while we work through the KSA, then after completion, log into your ABFM account and enter the results and claim your CME credits through the ABFM. Successful Completion of the Knowledge Self-Assessment (KSA) Module is eligible for up to 10 ABFM Credit Hours.
See the attached invitation for a WEBINAR to complete the ABFM KSA: Caring for Children. To register, please complete and follow the directions on the attached registration form.

Faculty Development Workshop
Thursday, December 2nd, 12:30 - 1:30 pm, Smartphrases - Epic Workshop.
Please RSVP to Jennifer.Masoud@umassmemorial.org.
Focus of the Week - Education

FMCH Vision 2030 Strategic Planning Fall Listening Sessions 
With 2021 drawing to a close, the department would like to continue work on a strategic planning process.  Vision 2030 is a project to look at the department’s long-term goals. What do you want our department to achieve by 2030? What will we be known for? We want your voice to be heard, please consider attending one (or more) listening sessions which will occur over the next two months. Site specific sessions will occur during standard meeting times to allow for easy access and minimize scheduling issues.
Upcoming:
  • Benedict Family Medicine: Wednesday, November 10th, 8:00 - 9:00 am.
  • Behavioral Health: Friday, November 19th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm.
  • Research: Friday, November 12th, 10:00 - 11:00 am.
Dates and times for theme based discussions are below. We encourage participation from any individual across the department with interest in these areas.
  • Diversity and Inclusion Efforts: Wednesday, November 17th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm.
  • Community Health: To be scheduled based on participant availability.
  • Undergraduate Medical Education - TBD.
Please RSVP to jennifer.masoud@umassmemorial.org for any of the theme bases sessions and specifically to be included in the scheduling of the community health session.

Medical Student Capstone Projects and Advisors
Students are currently seeking projects to be involved with and strong advisors for their capstone requirements. Please reach out to stacy.potts@umassmemorial.org if you are interested in advising and/or have a project that might be of interest.  

Mick Huppert Community Health Scholar Awards
If you are working on a community engaged initiative with a second year medical or nursing student, please reinforce for them this opportunity: For the fourth year, the annual Mick Huppert Community Health Scholar awards will be given to second year medical and graduate school of nursing students who have demonstrated a commitment to community engaged service and scholarship. Students should also have an interest in a career as a family physician or family nurse practitioner. Between two and four awards, each up to $2,500 will support awardees’ proposed community health initiatives. Medical and nursing student pairs will be considered and are encouraged. A pair would split one award. Click the link to get to the full announcement and application form. https://umassmed.edu/fmch/communityhealth/sep/mick-huppert-community-health-scholar-awards/
Announcements

TendHealth Faculty COVID Recovery Series
You matter! The Department wants to support you through your COVID recovery efforts. We have hired TendHealth to provide recovery courses for our faculty.  A series of four sessions over two months will guide you through recovery and build resilience. 
Objectives:
Learn new concepts, build resiliency, and find community through live courses.
The team of expert and diverse instructors bring together a community of like-minded health professionals to learn new skills and expand our insights.
Faculty will need to choose one cohort and stick with it for all the sessions. 
TEND is able to move the start date of the faculty cohorts back to hopefully avoid cancelling patient sessions. Here are the new dates:
Cohort 1: Mondays 8-9:15am, 11/15, 11/29, 12/13
Cohort 2: Fridays 4-5:15pm, 11/19, 12/3, 12/17
RSVP as soon as possible to Jennifer Masoud to reserve your spot in your chosen cohort, Jennifer.masoud@umassmemorial.org.

White Belt Training Opportunity - Upcoming LEAN Training
UMassMemorial Health is committed to disseminate LEAN management tools to all physicians and clinicians and offer leadership development to our providers. Practicing LEAN principles enables team building and promotes respect to our fellow caregivers. It’s a platform that fosters innovation and improves the care we provide to our patients — as well as to advance our own work environment. LEAN is practiced by many caregivers in our health care system. Physicians and clinicians should be educated and have the tools needed to implement successful huddles, idea board systems and process improvement efforts. Our department will offer LEAN white belt training through two upcoming grand rounds. The first session will be a great refresher for those trained many years ago and the second session will include important updates including how to use Innovation Station. For individuals who have not done LEAN training in the past, this is an opportunity to meet the institution's requirement for white belt certification.  
  • November 16th,12-1pm: LEAN White Belt: Part 1 
  • January 25th, 12-1pm: LEAN White Belt: Part 2 - Innovation Station
If you are unable to make these trainings and are in need of certification, additional Lean White Belt training registration is available through E-learning 4U.  

The medical school has started the annual employee giving campaign – UMass Chan Cares. Visit UMassChanCares.org by November 23rd to donate by payroll deduction, check, or credit card. Your donation may be directed to a variety of organizations and causes, including:
  • UMass Chan’s North Quadrant Support Services initiative, which is our partnership with the Worcester Public Schools.
  • Several funds administered by the Medical School’s foundation: Research Fund, Student financial aid, Diversity and Inclusion Fund and Veterans Fund for Health Research.
  • More than 1,000 nonprofit organizations through our partnership with the United Way of Central Massachusetts.

The MassAHEC Urban Health Scholars are collecting socks for a student run foot clinic at AIDS Project Worcester in December. New socks can be left in the box in the Mail Room on the 3rd floor of Benedict or email Linda.Cragin@umassmed.edu and she will pick them up. Thank you in advance.

The WFMR Structural Oppression and Anti-Racism (SOAR) Committee is planning a number of upcoming didactic sessions as part of the SOAR framework for residents. We are looking for faculty and residents interested in co-facilitating the following sessions:
  • Intersectional Feminism and Reproductive Justice on Tuesday, November 16th (specifically looking for faculty co-facilitator)
  • Anti-AAPI Racism (AY21)
  • Oppression Against Indigenous Peoples (AY21)
  • Anti-Latinx Discrimination (AY21)
  • Disability, Ableism, and Holding Medicine Accountable (AY22)
  • Immigration and Colonialism (AY22)
  • Medicine and the LGBTQ+ Community (AY22)
If you are interested or have questions, please contact Jordan Howard-Young, MD at
Jordan.Howard-Young@umassmemorial.org.

UMass Chan Medical School is leading a statewide collaborative to improve training for all medical students in serious illness communication, which was featured at the annual summit of the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care (http://maseriouscare.org/news/summit-2021). The summit focused on an equity-first approach to improve communication and care of people and families facing serious illness. Jennifer Reidy, MD, chief, Division of Palliative Care, is chair of the collaborative which includes faculty, administrators and students from Boston University, Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools. The group has created shared competencies, mapped current curricula and conducted student focus groups at each school. This data is timely with UMass Chan's curriculum revolution. For more information, check out the collaborative's website here: http://maseriouscare.org/medical-schools-collaborative

Please consider for in-person learning Pri-Med East 
Thursday−Saturday, December 9−11, 2021 at the Boston Exhibition and Convention Center. Many of our colleagues will be presenting for 19 AAFP CME hours. This year’s keynote speaker is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD on: “Themes From the Future of Medicine”. I hope to see you there.

UMass Chan Medical School is implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to information systems. MFA is a digital authentication method that requires two or more forms of verification factors before access is granted. Prior to MFA, only a valid username and password have been required. Adding a second form of authentication is a best practice. MFA registration is required for all who use UMass Chan information systems, including email. Students, faculty, and staff must register by Friday, December 17th. You will need to choose at least one secondary authentication method: a text to a mobile device; a phone call to a mobile device or landline; or an alert on the Microsoft Authenticator mobile app. Similar to our current use of the Duo app to access HR Direct, Microsoft Authenticator provides a secure method for multi-factor authentication. To learn more about multi-factor authentication and how to register, visit the MFA information page. The Help Desk will also host training sessions on Thursdays from noon to 12:30 to assist users in learning how to register. Register here for a session. By December 31st, all users will need to use MFA. If you have any questions, please contact the IT Help Desk via chat, email or phone (508-856-8653).

FMCH Teacherless Writing Group Opportunity
Are you wishing you could write more? Would you like to move it up on your priority list?
Would seeing friends and writing make it easier to put it up higher in your goals? Join family medicine faculty at our monthly Teacherless Writing Group where we read our work to each other, give and receive loving feedback and write for 12 minutes. We have been meeting on Tuesday nights, previously over dinner at Fatima’s, this past year on Zoom, and lately outside in warm weather. We are open to other options for time and place. If you would like to participate in a doodle poll for the date and time of our next meeting, send an email to one of the following members: Lucy Candib (lmcandib@gmail.com); Lisa Gussak (lisa.gussak@umassmemorial.org); Katharine Barnard (katharine.barnard@umassmemorial.org); or Stacy Potts (stacy.potts@umassmemorial.org). We hope you will join us!

Teaching of Tomorrow (TOT)
January 7-8 and March 25-26, 2022
Registration is Open! 
For over 25 years, UMass faculty from the departments of Family Medicine and Community Health, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics have trained over 1,500 clinical faculty and preceptors from across the Northeast and beyond. TOT focuses on building and refining foundational skills for effective clinical teaching in both the inpatient and ambulatory settings. Preceptors from any specialty and discipline will enhance their clinical teaching skills through discourse and practice. TOT also provides valuable opportunities to network with other clinician educators. Our award-winning faculty utilize the principles of adult learning, drawing on participants’ experience and building knowledge through dialogue. The conference provides frequent opportunities to practice and assess new skills in a safe and fun environment.
Audience:
  • Clinical educators – MDs, DOs, NPs, PAs, RNs, Behavioral Health, Pharmacists
  • Primary Care and Specialty providers
  • Teachers of students, residents, and advanced learners
  • Teachers in both In-patient and Ambulatory settings
Frankly Speaking Podcast

A weekly Podcast series covering newsworthy topics in primary care medicine.

Please join us to explore new data that shed light on the use of DOACs in valvular atrial fibrillation. Overview: For non-valvular atrial fibrillation, physicians, patients, and guideline organizations all prefer direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) over vitamin K antagonists, such as warfarin, for thromboembolic prophylaxis. For those with valvular atrial fibrillation, the data for safety and efficacy have been limited because randomized trials comparing DOACs to warfarin often exclude patients with valvular atrial fibrillation. Guest: Alan Ehrlich, MD, FAAFP, presents: "Using DOACs for Valvular Atrial Fibrillation". - Frankly Speaking Ep 249.
Faculty Presentations/Publications

Dennis Dimitri, MD, FAAFP was a co-author of an opinion piece in Commonwealth Magazine criticizing the Boston Globe’s participation in tobacco company misinformation campaigns. You can read it here.  https://commonwealthmagazine.org/opinion/globe-should-honor-its-1999-policy-on-tobacco-ads/.

Philip G. Day, PhD, had a paper published in Family Medicine and Community Health titled "Perspectives of primary care physicians on acceptance and barriers to COVID-19 vaccination". Day P, Strenth C, Kale N, et al. Family Medicine and Community Health 2021;9:e001228. doi: 10.1136/fmch-2021-001228.

The New England AIDS Education and Training Center, a HRSA grant hosted by the department under the leadership of Philip Bolduc, MD and Vanessa Carson-Sasso, MSW, presented at the New England Rural Health Association in Maine on: 
The Role of the Oral Healthcare Team in Ending the HIV Epidemic and Expanding the Hepatitis C Care Continuum in Rural Massachusetts: Innovative, Community-Driven Systems Change & Solutions for Hard-to-Reach Populations.

Students in the Oral Health in Underserved Populations, Population and Community Health Clerkship under the co-leadership of Hugh Silk, MD and Sue Feeney had a letter to the editor printed in the November 3rd issue of the Telegram and Gazette. The students are Isabella DiMare, May Dong, Allison Holt, Lauren McKenna, Suryateja Rao, and Ekaterina Skaritanov. https://www.telegram.com/opinion/editorials/ .
Department Member Recognition

The Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester has received a very competitive 2020-2021 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize recognizing the work being done to improve public health throughout the city. Thank you to all members of our department who have contributed to the Coalition’s work and the city’s Community Health Improvement Plan. There will be an in-person Public Health Celebration event on Tuesday, November 9th from 12:15 - 3:45 pm at the Worcester Pop-Up (20 Franklin Street). You are invited to attend to celebrate and enjoy a local lunch. 
Clinical Services Spotlight:
COVID-19 UPDATES

Worldview
  • The total cases of COVID-19 in the world as of 11/07/21 was 250,349,457 with 5,062,355 (2%) reported deaths. 
  • Reported active cases: 18,686,184 with 73,068 reported as serious. 

United States
  • Total cases reported in the US as of 11/07/21: 47,313,412 with 775,095 reported deaths. 

Massachusetts (11/05/2021)
  • Total confirmed cases as of 11/07/2021: 803,165.
  • The 7-day average percent positivity is 1.92%.
  • There are 502 hospitalized COVID patients with 145 in the ICU and 82 patients intubated. 
  • There are 18,689 confirmed deaths. 

UMMHC (11/06/2021)
  • Hospitalization- current census is 46 (23 at the medical center).
  • The 7-day average percent positivity in Worcester is 4.1% (gradually decreasing for the past 4 weeks).
  • In-house test positivity is 8.3% for symptomatic patients and 1.7% for asymptomatic patients.
  • Of the in-house cases, 30% were fully vaccinated. 
 
COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination 
Overall vaccination rates for UMMH entities have continued to improve over recent weeks. The system as a whole is now just over 96% and the Medical Group is just over 98%.
 
The information below regarding vaccine deadlines was previously sent to us by the administration. 
November 1 - 15
After November 1, unvaccinated caregivers who do not have an approved medical or religious exemption will have two weeks – until November 15 – to get vaccinated – either with the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. If they do not do so by November 15, they will be put on a two-week suspended leave without pay. Caregivers will have access to their benefits during this time, but they will be responsible for plan premiums as usually required by their employing entity, and they will not be able to use paid time off during this period. This also applies to all unvaccinated remote workers. 
  
December 1
Unvaccinated caregivers who have not received an approved medical or religious exemption and have not gotten either the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine or the first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine by December 1, will lose their jobs and be ineligible to work at UMass Memorial Health until they are vaccinated. Unless they receive a medical exemption from the second dose, any caregiver who gets their first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine by this deadline must receive their second dose within six weeks from the date of their first dose or face disciplinary action up to and including termination. This also applies to all unvaccinated remote workers. 
 
Flu Season
Flu season in the US occurs in the fall and winter. The peak season lasts from December to March but the flu can last until May. During the 2020-2021 season, only 0.2% of respiratory infections were flu. In previous years, the flu accounted for 26% to 30% of respiratory illnesses. With the expectation that the flu season this year will be more prevalent, providers must remember to consider the flu in evaluating respiratory illnesses. 
 
Flu symptoms are very similar to Covid-19 symptoms. 
  • Fever, chills, cough, congestion, runny nose, headache, fatigue, and muscle aches. 
  • These symptoms are very similar to the common cold and COVID virus. 
  • Compared to the common cold, COVID has a longer incubation period and more variation in symptoms. 

The flu vaccine deadline is approaching. All caregivers must be vaccinated or submit a request for the exemption by December 15. Please see the information on the Hub for additional instructions. The Religious Exemption Request Form for the flu vaccine has been updated for the 2021-2022 year and is now available on the Hub. This is the only form that will be relied on for reviewing requests.
 
Quality Matters
Quality Measures are standards that help us to measure the standards of care we provide to patients and populations. The True North health equity priority measures for 2022 include Well Child Care Visits and Osteoporosis screening. Benchmarks will be posted at a later date. 
Wellness Resources

The Caring for the Caregiver Program provides resources such as the Caregiver Support Line (508-334-HELP) and The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which offers a variety of services and supports (including virtual peer support and wellness tips. EAP can be accessed at 866-263-3525, or www.LiveandWorkWell.com, [company code UmassMemorial]. More information is available on the Caring for the Caregiver page.
Working on Wellness
Yoga Classes with Dr. Liz Erban
Please join department members for early morning gentle yoga, Wednesday mornings 6:30am via Zoom.

Much appreciation to Dr. Erban for hosting these outstanding classes. Join Zoom Meeting
Zumba with Dr. Anna Zheng

Zumba Monday 6am is on hold.
On hold until the new year in 2022. 

Thursdays 6:15pm: Live/in-person or ZOOM
Please join department members Thursday evenings at 6:15pm**(30 Anna Street: tall ceilings, spacious indoor location) and get moving with Zumba. Please note details and any changes via webpage: http://annazheng.zumba.com/. ZOOM still possible for all classes.
 
Much appreciation to Dr. Anna Zheng for hosting these outstanding classes. New to the class? If it's your first class or you are interested in joining, please email Dr. Zheng at ZumbawithAnnaZheng@gmail.com to register, complete brief health screen and receive the ZOOM link.