Latest updates on ACP's priorities, initiatives

ACP obesity initiative to advance equitable obesity care

Using physician education, advocacy, and partnerships, ACP hopes to support a stigma-free culture in which patients and clinicians collaborate to prevent and manage the increasingly common chronic condition of obesity and to ensure equitable access to care. The College also hopes to help counter public misinformation about the causes of obesity, related stigma, and equity issues in treatment.

A new comprehensive webpage features links to resources in ACP's Obesity Management Learning Hub and a collection of Annals of Internal Medicine obesity-related articles and content, including the ACP/Annals Forum “Overweight and Obesity: Current Clinical Challenges.” Additional resources include information about the ACP App Library, developed in collaboration with ORCHA and designed to identify the safest, most secure, and most effective mobile health apps, including weight management.

Chapters honored with 2023 John Tooker Evergreen Awards

The John Tooker Evergreen Awards Program provides an opportunity to recognize the valuable contributions of ACP Chapters as they strive to enrich, educate, and engage membership. In 2023, ACP recognized seven winning Chapter initiatives.

• California Southern III: Wellness Wave. The Southern California Region III Chapter's Wellness Wave was a “for us, by us” student-driven initiative led by the Council of Medical Students to empower medical students to connect with mentors, experts, and their colleagues locally and nationally to develop 38 student-led interview videos, and a separate Wellness Wave website.
• Central America: Medical Education and Community Blossoming. Guatemalan residents from the Central America Chapter developed four committees and utilized social media to publicize activities across Panama and Guatemala. After the committees were formed, resident membership grew by 80% and the Chapter's resident population grew by 60%.
• Georgia: Heart Sounds Workshop. The Georgia Chapter's Medical Student Committee planned to increase the visibility of ACP among medical students through two-hour heart sound workshops delivered to Internal Medicine Interest Groups (IMIGs) at various Georgian campuses. The Chapter targeted medical school campuses in more remote/rural to address the College's (and one of the Georgia Chapter's) strategic goals to develop more diversity, equity, and inclusion in learning opportunities and engagement with chapter activities.
• New York: Health Disparities Fellowship Program. The New York Chapter developed a Health Disparities Fellowship Program to identify how state-level advocacy impacts health disparities. Fellows were invited to attend ACP meetings and were asked to serve on the Chapter's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force and develop content on health care inequities for the chapter.
• New York: Leadership Academy. The New York Chapter expanded on a one-day Leadership Meeting to a Leadership Academy, inclusive of six monthly online sessions where participants could build and practice leadership skills. Participants were invited to attend the Chapter's Leadership Meeting where they could demonstrate leadership skills through interactive educational programming.
• North Carolina: Well-being Communication and Collaboration for Community. The North Carolina Chapter strategized to increase membership by offering individual well-being resources during the early years of the pandemic while creating a sense of community. The Chapter developed live, and evergreen content publicized via newsletters, through a collaboration with several ACP chapters with limited programming, and ACP Well-Being Champions.
• Wisconsin: Narrative Medicine: Celebrating Internal Medicine Physicians. The Wisconsin Chapter's Women in Medicine Committee developed a year-round chapter activity and provided training to members who wanted to improve their creative writing skills and connect with colleagues. The Women In Medicine and Medical Student Committee hosted a narrative medicine competition that culminated in a published e-booklet.

In addition, ACP awarded special recognition to two Chapters for their efforts in implementing innovative programming: Florida for Residents/Fellows Program and Michigan for Engagement among Resident/Fellow Members.

Also in 2023, the Mary Bieter Evergreen All-Star Award recognized exceptional and sustained chapter activities that have supported and adapted to the internal medicine landscape. For the first time in 30 years, ACP's membership base was asked to vote on their favorite All-Star nominations. Descriptions of the winning chapters are as follows:

• California Southern Region III: The DEI Shift Podcast: Changing the Way We Think, Talk, and Practice Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The DEI Shift Podcast was created to change the practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion within medicine. It was developed and led by an extremely diverse team from premedical students to attending physicians from various racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, geographic, and specialty backgrounds. Over four seasons, a global audience has downloaded over 18,250 podcast episodes across six continents, in 81 countries, and nearly 2,000 cities.
• Massachusetts: Health and Public Policy Committee. Every year, Massachusetts' Health and Public Policy Committee develops advocacy priorities based on the feedback of its membership base. Members are empowered to participate in advocacy issues ranging from contacting local legislators to joining subcommittees on particular advocacy matters. Massachusetts developed a replicable educational video that illustrates effective ways to advocate using chapter members as actors.
• Texas: Thirty Years of General Internal Medicine Statewide Preceptorship Program (GIMSPP) – I.M. Proud Since 1992. The General Internal Medicine Statewide Preceptorship Program (GIMSPP) is a mentorship program that offers first- and second-year medical students an opportunity to spend time with a practicing internal medicine physician in a community-based hospital/clinic or academic center for two-, three-, or four-week period. Since 1995, GMSIPP has placed 3,532 medical students with physicians across the state of Texas.
• Members' Choice Award: Central America: Medical Education and Community Service for Promoting a More Holistic Internal Medicine Specialist. Over the past three years, the Central America Chapter has developed tools to increase engagement across membership bases and borders. Guatemalan residents across five medical schools mobilized to create four distinct committees to publicize chapter programming and form community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy effectively grew medical student membership by 60.2% and Central America has plans to duplicate efforts in El Salvador in 2024.

For more information, email Dana Acord at dacord@acponline.org.

ACP's firearms resources include online hub, videos

ACP has released new resources for members as part of an ongoing commitment to addressing the public health issue of firearms-related deaths and injuries. The new online hub features Annals of Internal Medicine articles and content, ACP policies and recommendations, information on collaborations, and multimedia resources, including:

• a new Physician to Physician Conversations video from Sue Bornstein, MD, MACP, Immediate Past Chair of ACP's Board of Regents, providing practical tips and strategies on talking to patients about firearms safety,
• videos from the ACP and Annals of Internal Medicine Story Slam, “Gun Injury: Stories of Hurt, Hope, and Resilience,” featuring storytellers sharing moving stories of their firsthand experiences related to firearms injury, and
• a summary and recording of ACP's and Annals of Internal Medicine's virtual forum discussing the firearms health crisis.

The hub includes information on ACP's recent advocacy efforts, which include joining the Healthcare Coalition for Firearm Injury Prevention and supporting the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first new law in decades designed to reduce firearms violence. Also available is a Toolkit: Reducing Firearm-Related Injuries and Deaths, created to help members advocate for policy changes within their states.