4/17 Legislative Lobby Day: Meet California Legislators and Gain Leadership Development Skills

All SFMS members are invited to participate in the 2012 CMA Legislative Leadership Conference/Lobby Day. Join more than 400 physicians, residents, and medical students from across California as they convene in Sacramento to lobby their legislative leaders as champions for medicine and their patients.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

9:30 am to 5 pm

Sacramento Convention Center

 

The morning includes speeches from a number of key legislative leaders, including lunchtime keynote speaker California Governor Jerry Brown. Other exciting speakers include:

• California Attorney General Kamala Harris
• Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez
• Former Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte
• Los Angeles Times political reporter Anthony York

Click here for a flyer with more information. A tentative agenda can be viewed here.

Please note this is a member-only event, and registration fee is waived for all SFMS members. To register, please contact info@sfms.org or (415) 561-0850.

Hotel Details

CMA has secured a discounted rate of $159/night for members at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento for 2012. Online reservation instructions are available here. Reservations can also be made by calling (800) 325-3535 or (916) 447-1700 – ask for the California Medical Association corporate rate.

Funding Available for 2012 CMA Leadership Academy

SFMS has funds available to pay for 2 to 3 physicians who are emerging leaders to attend the 2012 CMA Leadership Academy at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim from April 27-29.

Over the years, the CMA Leadership Academy has provided wonderful programs by national experts designed to build critical thinking about the health care system and to develop individual leadership skills. This year’s program entitled “Follow the Money: The Transformation of Medical Practice”, promises to be another great opportunity for physicians to hone their public policy and leadership skills.

If you or someone you know is interested in applying for funding, please have the candidate send a one paragraph statement indicating interest and potential as a future SFMS leader to Posi Lyon at plyon@sfms.org by Friday, March 23. The physicians chosen will receive funding to cover registration fees, coach airfare, and three (3) nights at the Disneyland Hotel.

The final candidates will be selected the week of March 25.

Feel free to share this request widely with other SFMS members.

Sebelius Announce $9.1 million in Aid to Medical Students

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius visited a health clinic in downtown Los Angeles on Monday and announced more than $9 million in funding to help medical students repay school loans if they agree to work in underserved areas.

Sebelius said the program would encourage more students to pursue careers in family medicine and help relieve a shortage of primary care doctors.

“Most Americans who live in underserved areas don’t have access to basic care,” she said during the visit to Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center. “It is not just a problem in some rural, isolated communities. It’s a big problem in cities, like here in L.A.”

Sebelius toured the Eisner clinic, which serves more than 26,000 patients each year, and took part in a panel discussion about community health clinics. Clinics nationwide received an influx of financial support from the federal health reform law, designed to improve quality of care and reduce costs.

In the past, Sebelius has said that not enough attention was paid to workforce issues. But that has changed, and now there is more effort to expand that workforce, including training primary care doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

The loan repayment program, also funded by the federal law, is part of the National Health Service Corps and provides up to $120,000 to students who commit to spending three years as primary care doctors in areas where there are shortages.

The corps was created in 1972 and has tripled in size over the last three years. The program already provided loan repayment for medical residents, while the new effort reaches students while they are still in medical school.

Source: Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2012.

2012 NHSC Loan Repayment Now Accepting Applications

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program (LRP) announced the opening of the 2012 application cycle is taking place during the last week of January 2012. With two levels of funding, the NHSC LRP offers primary health care providers loan repayment assistance in exchange for working in rural, urban and frontier communities. Full-time and half-time options are available for primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, certified nurse‐midwives, physician assistants, dentists, dental hygienists and mental health providers to provide culturally competent, interdisciplinary primary health care services to underserved populations located in selected Health Professional Shortage Areas.

Learn more about eligibility requirements and qualifying educational loans by visiting the NHSC site.

Physicians: Mobilize Your Practice and Improve Patient Care Delivery

A study conducted by the Joint Commission reported that miscommunication between caregivers during patient hand-offs plays a role in an estimated 80% of serious preventable adverse events. In a time when medical professionals are exploring ways to improve quality of care, why haven’t we tackled the simplest and most cost effective way to achieve this—improving communication? More than 90% of physicians report using a smart phone, and SFMS is excited to announce a new member benefit that leverages this technology to share patient information throughout the local medical community.

All SFMS resident and practicing physician members enjoy exclusive and free member-only access to DocBookMD, a HIPAA-compliant smartphone app to connect with local physicians and pharmacies. DocBookMD gives you the entire San Francisco physician database on your mobile devices. You can:

• Network with local physicians to develop relationships for referrals
• Find colleagues to consult on medical decisions
• Obtain second opinion from a fellow colleague immediately—getting a text or email back from a doctor who, in some cases, can save a patient’s life

As an added bonus, all new SFMS member registrations between December 13 and December 20 will be entered into a prize draw for a brand new iPad2.

“I find DocBook to be an extremely useful mobile application that allows me to communicate with my colleagues in a secure manner.  In fact, I use it to help colleagues with difficult dermatologic cases that cannot be seen at my office immediately.  I am so glad that the San Francisco Medical Society is able to offer this as a free service for its members.” —Lawrence Cheung, MD, SFMS Member

To download…

Go to the App Store or Android Market to download DocBookMD. All you need is your SFMS ID number to register for free. Need help locating your ID number? Contact Lauren Estrada at lestrada@sfms.org or (415) 561-0850.