The monthly FCM Bulletin provides updates from our Executive Leadership Team and Business Office
AUGUST 2020
Welcome to the first FCM Bulletin!
The FCM Bulletin is our new monthly internal communication that enables our Executive Leadership Team and Business Office to provide you with timely and relevant departmental updates from each of our mission pillars (Patient Care, Education, Research, Community Engagement) and our Business Office.
Thanks again to all of you who took the FCM Communications Survey (read survey results here). The majority of those who took the survey responded positively to receiving a monthly communication from FCM leadership. The Bulletin fits into our overall communications plan to keep you updated about all areas of the department and will give you a chance to respond directly to the leader of a particular mission area.
We intend the FCM Bulletin to complement our other department communications, including FCM Matters, faculty meetings/Grand Rounds, Chair Chats and listserv communications/announcements. The purpose of our first Bulletin is to enable our Executive Team leadership to introduce themselves and provide an overview of what they will highlight in forthcoming issues.
The FCM Bulletin will be published the second Thursday of each month (adapted for holidays, when needed). We welcome your feedback.
Welcome to the Clinical Practice section in the first FCM Bulletin.
This is an excellent time to initiate this communication format, as the past months have shown us how rapidly our concepts and the ways we deliver clinical care can adapt and change. I appreciate everyone’s dedication to the excellence of care we provide to our community, and I have been amazed by the innovation and teamwork that continues to rise in our department.
My goals for this monthly bulletin are to improve both the communication and knowledge of how the clinical aspects of our department function and to highlight how clinical care connects to our other pillars: education, research and community outreach.
Please feel free to email me questions/thoughts/statements, as that will enhance the quality and value of this portion of the bulletin. For this issue, I would like to provide an overview, and in the coming months highlight a site of care and a tie-in to one of our other pillars.
Our current sites for the delivery of care are:
Alvernon Family Medicine Clinic
Abrams Family Medicine Clinic
South Campus Inpatient Hospital Service
Tucson Campus Maternal and Child Health
Mobile Health
Whole Health Center
Sport’s Medicine at North Hills and South Campus
Palliative Care at the Cancer Center
Our different types of programs:
Integrative Medicine
Obesity treatment with our Clinical Weight Loss Program
Addiction Medicine
Primary Care for the Severely Mentally Ill
Cancer Survivorship
Transgender Health
COVID-19 Ambulatory Clinic and Transitions of Care at Abrams FCM
We have many leaders at our sites supporting our clinical mission. I will also highlight one each month and discuss their commitment and support to our department. We are stronger together and will continue to rise to serve the diverse and very valuable populations of our community.
Welcome to the Education section of the FCM Bulletin!
As I reflect on our department’s mission to “advance the health of individuals through innovation and leadership in education…,” I am proud of and grateful for our department’s broad range of educational activities.
For the first bulletin, I would like to share the department’s educational goals and values, provide an overview of the education activities we are involved in, and invite you to give me your input on the types of updates, highlights, and metrics you would like to see in this bulletin throughout the year.
As the Vice Chair of Education, my goal is to create and sustain a pipeline of future family medicine leaders. To accomplish this, our involvement in the education, recruitment, and retention of students interested in family medicine careers needs to begin in high school, when kids start really thinking about their future careers. But it doesn’t end there. We need to remain visible, inside and outside of the classroom, interacting with students at all levels: college, graduate school, medical school, and residency.
To accomplish our goals, although we need to target a wide range of learners, we need to focus our educational efforts on those experiences that also embrace our departmental values of diversity and inclusion, social responsibility, collaboration, compassion, innovation, and excellence.
Here is an overview of our department’s educational involvement:
Variety of undergraduate college courses and graduate level courses on a range of topics, with the overarching theme of addressing health disparities in the clinical context.
We are working on an easy way for department members to view all of our course offerings.
Undergraduate certificate program in Development Disabilities, directed by Jacy Farkas, MA, ABD – sponsored by the Sonoran UCEDD.
Summer Undergraduate Experiences
BLASIER Program (Border Latino and American Indian Summer Exposure to Research) – led by Allison Huff-Macpherson, DHEd
FRONTERA summer internship program (Focusing Research on the Border Area) – led by Alejandra Zapien Hidalgo, MD
AZ INMED (Arizona Indians into Medicine) Program sponsored through NARTC – Teisha Solomon, PhD
Pre-clerkship phase College of Medicine courses
Life Cycle Block – directed by Tejal Parikh, MD
Doctor and Patient/Societies – co-directed by Paul Gordon, MD
Pathways in Health and Medicine – directed by Colleen Cagno, MD
Transition to Clerkships – directed by Colleen Cagno, MD
OSCE – directed by Paul Gordon, MD
Family Medicine Clerkship, directed by Eamon Armstrong, MD
Family Medicine Electives
Sub-Internship, directed by Carlos Gonzales, MD
Student health – directed by Tejal Parikh, MD
Variety of other electives
Medical School Distinction Tracks
Bilingual Medical Spanish Distinction Track – directed by Alejandra Zapien Hidalgo, MD
Community Service Distinction Track – directed by Carlos Gonzales, MD
Global Health Distinction Track – directed by Jerry Koleski, MD
Rural Health Distinction Track – directed by Carlos Gonzales, MD
Medical School Threads
Health Disparities – Julie Armin, PhD
Residency Programs
Alvernon – Program Director, Jessie Pettit, MD
South Campus – Program Director, Kyle Meehan, MD
Fellowship Programs
Sports Medicine – Director, Holly Beach, MD
Integrative Medicine – Director, Angela Puthenveetil, MD
As you can see, this is long list, so if I have forgotten something, or gotten something wrong, please contact me with your additions/corrections.
In the coming months, I hope to highlight these programs so we can all appreciate the amazing work that our department is doing, as well as provide updates and metrics on our educational activities. I invite you all to share your views and ideas on what else should be included in the bulletin in the future. Thank you all for the fantastic, innovative work you are doing in support of our department’s educational goals.
Welcome to the Community Engagement section of the FCM Bulletin.
Since joining the department this past November, I have been so appreciative of the warm welcome that everyone has shown me and the help people have provided in my orientation to the university and department. I have been so impressed while learning more about each of the community engagement programs and the deep level of commitment by the department to helping those most vulnerable, disenfranchised and in need. I’ve been inspired by the sense of community in Tucson and the strong collaborative spirit that exists among the different organizations in the area.
This launch of the FCM Bulletin will provide a great opportunity to highlight the important work that the department is doing in the community. In addition to spotlighting some of the department’s projects in the community, we will also share information on the key work going on in the community engagement programs including:
American Indian Youth Wellness Initiative (Program Lead – Francine Gachupin, PhD, MPH): The one week residential camp serves youth from tribes across Arizona where they learn healthy eating habits and ways to make exercise fun, consistent and habitual.
ArtWorks (Program Lead – Yumi Shirai, PhD): Provides adults with disabilities the opportunity to develop their artistic potential, while learning important skills and also providing training to UA students.
Camp Wellness (Program Leads – Randa Kutob, MD, MPH and Cheryl Glass, MBA-HCM, MCHES): This 9-week program helps people with serious mental illness and substance use disorders learn skills for leading healthier lifestyles.
Mobile Health Program (Program Leads – Ravi Grivois-Shah, MD, MPH, MBA and Alicia Dinsmore, MA): Provides comprehensive primary and maternity care to patients with limited access to health care, at multiple sites throughout Southern Arizona.
Native American Research and Training Center (Program Lead – Jenny Joe, PhD, MPH): Serves as a resource in health-related research and training for Native American communities nationwide.
Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities (Program Lead – Wendy Parent-Johnson, PhD, CRC, CESP): Through research, training and model programs, ensures people with disabilities can fully engage in and be part of the community.
Tucson Family Advocacy Program (Program Lead – Anne Ryan, JD): Health care providers and lawyers work together to improve the health and well-being of low-income patients and their families.
Workforce Development Program (Program Leads – Randa Kutob, MD, MPH and Adria May Powles, LBSW): Trains individuals with serious mental illness and/or substance use disorders to become peer mentors in health and recovery.
This monthly publication will also provide the opportunity to focus on new community partnerships that the department is developing. We will also communicate the ways that the community engagement programs are working with the other key mission areas of the department- clinical/patient care, education and research.
Welcome to the Research section of the FCM Bulletin.
The research areas explored and research activities conducted by FCM members are as diverse as the department’s many programs, patients, learners and communities we serve. An overarching theme of FCM's research activities is understanding and reducing health disparities and promoting health equity.
Research areas include:
Behavioral health: mental illness, addiction and substance use disorders
Cancer and cancer survivorship
COVID-19: ambulatory and post-acute care
Disabilities
Drug and alcohol epidemiology and policy
eHealth and mHealth
Health services delivery
Latinx health
Medical student and graduate medical education
Native American health
Neonatal abstinence syndrome
Obesity, diabetes and other related cardiometabolic disease
With the continued hard work of our existing research faculty and the addition of new research faculty, FCM's research activity continues to strengthen as evidenced by increases in papers published, grants and contracts submitted and awarded. More specifics on FCM papers, sponsored grants and contracts will be forthcoming in a future FCM Bulletin with department metrics in each mission area.
To continue supporting this growth in research activity, we will be rolling out three monthly meetings to stimulate research and increase our ratio of funded-to-submitted proposals:
Research Faculty meeting: co-led by Drs. Uma Nair and Alicia Allen, the purpose is to facilitate community building within the research faculty in the department and foster collaborations with clinical faculty.
Research Administrationmeeting, co-chaired by Ed Rose and myself, attends to the administrative aspects of research within the department – from the internal to the university levels: administrative briefings; policy and procedure development and implementation; linking to university units such as the office of Research, Innovation & Impact, the Research Administration Office, and the Institutional Review Board, and other administrative issues as they arise.
Research Developmentmeeting: led by myself, is a pragmatic meeting dedicated to internal review, comment, and critique of proposal concepts; specific aim pages; and any and all parts of a research grant proposal. This meeting is open to all FCM researchers including research staff. This meeting operates on a “review-to-play” basis: attendees will be expected to review, comment, and discuss documents circulated by faculty, in return for having their proposals reviewed by the group.
Research activity continues to strengthen in FCM. The statistics below were provided by Ed Rose (thank you!) and are for sponsored grants and contracts only (and keep in mind that the 2020 data are year-to-date [YTD]). From 2016 to 2019, the proposed total has been in the $20-22 million range – a range already achieved halfway through 2020. Also remarkable is that the award total for 2020 YTD is nearing $10 million.
We anticipate this trend to continue as we continue rolling out three monthly meetings to stimulate research and increase our ratio of funded-to-submitted proposals. Uma Nair and Alicia Allen are co-leading the Research Faculty meeting to facilitate community building within the research faculty in the department. The Research Administration meeting, co-chaired by Ed Rose and myself, attends to the administrative aspects of research within the department – from the internal to the university levels: administrative briefings; policy and procedure development and implementation; linking to university units such as the office of Research, Innovation & Impact, the Research Administration Office, and the Institutional Review Board; and other administrative issues as they arise. The Research Development meeting is a pragmatic meeting for internal review, comment, and critique of proposal concepts; specific aim pages; and any and all parts of a proposal.
This meeting is open to all FCM researchers including research staff. This meeting operates on a “review-to-play” basis: attendees will be expected to review, comment, and discuss documents circulated by faculty, in return for having their proposals reviewed by the group.
Welcome to the Business Office section of the FCM Bulletin.
Claudia Gallego and Lisa Welsh will provide updates that impact the FCM Business Office functions of the department. They will also share HR and organizational updates for both UA and Banner.
About Lisa Welsh, FCM Banner Assistant Department Administrator:
My responsibilities are to oversee the Banner administrative functions for the FCM business office including recruitment of new clinical providers, creating and providing analytical information to department leadership and processing all elements of the clinical compensation plan. I have a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in healthcare administration and have been with Banner for 15 years. Overall, utilizing my knowledge and experience, I assist with the development and implementation of strategic business plans for Family Medicine. As a wife and mother of two young boys, I truly enjoy supporting all the work that Family Medicine provides to our community and take pride in our great team!
Claudia Gallego, FCM UA Assistant Department Administrator:
I manage the day-to-day business in the FCM Central Business Office and serve as the University of Arizona finance and human resources department lead. I assist with strategic, financial and operational planning and implementation and coordinate with Lisa on issues affecting the Banner Health Network. I have been with the UA for more than 14 years and have completed the University of Arizona Financial Administrator and Successful Supervisor Professional Development Series. I have a bachelor of science degree in business management. I am proud to be part of FCM and feel great satisfaction in providing administrative support. I take pride in being part of the department’s mission to improve the health of individuals, family and communities.
