Your primary care day program will serve to educate your peers on career paths in primary care. A day long program can include several components: a lunchtime lecture, a dinner discussion and an opportunity to "shadow" local primary care physicians. For the lecture, contact the directors of either your primary care clerkship or your hospital's internal medicine, pediatrics or family practice residency programs. They can discuss current strategies to promote primary care in undergraduate and graduate medical education.
Introduce the dinner discussion with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's videotape for the 1994 National Primary Care Day. Invite practicing primary care physicians from your community, academic primary care physicians and residents in primary care tracks so you can have a variety of perspectives represented in the discussion.
Your school's director of primary care clerkships should be able to assist you in locating nearby primary care physicians who would be interested in participating in a "shadowing" program with medical students. The "shadowing" program should target first year students but be open to anyone at your school. Students who participate in the "shadowing" program can gather afterwards to assess the experience.
Target Audience: All medical students at your school.
Participating Groups: Local chapters of the following national medical student organizations: AMA-MSS, AMWA, SNMA, AAFP, AMSA and AAMC-OSR.
Budget: Noon luncheon $150, Dinner discussion $150, Advertising and handouts $25, Total $325
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant Office of student affairs
School: Yale University School of Medicine New Haven, CT
The research residency symposium is an opportunity to foster interest in the development of physician-investigators, to highlight residency training programs that allow time for clinical investigative training during graduate medical education, and to discuss the research career options available to physicians. The program also explores the increasing availability of residency programs which encourage residents to pursue their research interests concurrently with graduate medical education. The goal is to guide interested students on how to combine clinical and research interests in a meaningful way and which medical specialties lend themselves to the combination of clinical practice, teaching and research.
If possible, coordinate program development with other schools in your area in order to distribute responsibility for the symposium's logistics. Key functions to be addressed include:
Location. How big a venue do you need? How many participants are you expecting? How many rooms, for how many concurrent breakouts? Will participants be able to get there easily? How much does the space cost?
Speakers. These should be physicians who are research investigators as well. Get invitations out to your first choices early, you need to allow time for possible refusals before you obtain firm commitments.
Residency Programs. Invite research focused residency programs to exhibit at your program.
Publicity. Depending on the scale of your program, you may want to pursue national participation by mailing a flyer to the student affairs offices of all U.S. medical schools. Locally, use posters and press releases to promote your program.
Treasurer. To track the program's funding (both institutional support and registration fees) and expenses, making sure everything gets paid for.
Registration. Each participant will need a badge and a meeting agenda. Someone has to distribute these and answer questions as the attendees arrive.
Target Audience: Medical students interested in a research career.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapters.
Budget: A program drawing 200 to 300 students will run at least $2,000 (rental of auditorium, projectionist's fee, food and beverage costs, etc.).
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grants.
School: The following New York schools: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Cornell University Medical College, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn School of Medicine
Specialty day is an excellent fall program which will provide first and second year students with general information on a wide range of areas of medicine, from primary care to medical and surgical subspecialties. The program will introduce students during their basic science years to the characteristics of the different specialties, giving them a more informed framework with which to plan their careers.
A keynote speaker/lunch program will serve to start your specialty day. The keynote speaker can be a physician of any specialty, but should be an engaging speaker and equipped to provide an overview of the various fields and advice on how to evaluate the characteristics of a specialty with respect to one's interests and strengths. In addition, the program will supply participants with practical information on the timeline of critical events such as the Step exams, residency application deadlines, interviews and the match. Four to six breakouts led by your physician participants will follow the keynote speaker. To make sure the students see a full cross-section of medical practice, the physicians leading these small group discussions should represent at least a dozen different specialties. The physicians will make short presentations and then field student questions. You should plan to provide handouts concisely summarizing data on the various specialties.
You will find it helpful to form a committee within your MSS chapter specifically to work on this program and to recruit other interested students to lend a hand with the preparations. You should work closely with your associate dean for student affairs to schedule the event and to enlist full administration support. Your planning activities follow:
Identify and invite potential speakers.
Develop a budget.
Contact clinical departments to invite physician participation.
Compile the information for your handouts.
Follow up with participating speakers and physicians for confirmation.
Begin publicity efforts and order food/beverages.
On the day of the event, you need to secure MSS chapter volunteers to coordinate the flow of events, greet participants, and provide miscellaneous support. Do not forget a wrap-up meeting at some point afterwards so you can evaluate your program and generate ideas for how it can be improved the following year.
Target Audience: First and second year medical students.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Lunch and beverages $350, Posters and handouts $50, Total $400
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant, Student affairs department, Student government
School: Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI
The residency day program targets third year students with a spring program which provides specific guidance on the residency application, interview, matching and selection process. You should begin your residency day in the morning with a keynote speaker such as your dean of student affairs, who can speak authoritatively on the factors to consider in evaluating programs and your administration's role in the process, including a discussion of the dean's letter. Then you can follow the opening presentation with a panel discussion on debt management and loan forgiveness, with representatives from loan institutions, the National Health Service Corps and the military.
Over the noon hour you can invite fourth year students who have just matched to join the third year students for a lunchtime discussion of the match and to answer personal questions. In the afternoon you should schedule a program director from one of your hospital's clinical departments to talk about what they look for in an applicant. The remainder of the afternoon can be dedicated to breakouts on individual specialties and/or special topics such as writing your personal statement and CV, using the AMA's FREIDA program, and women and residency. You will need to invite program directors from other departments in your hospital to lead the breakouts on various specialties. As a supplement, have your MSS chapter develop a handout summarizing pertinent data on the match.
For the other planning activities, please refer to the specialty day abstract.
Target Audience: Third year medical students.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Lunch and beverages $350, Posters and handouts $50, Total $400
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant, Student affairs department, Student government
School: Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI
The residency fair provides an opportunity for students from your school - if there are other schools in your area, include them - to meet with representatives of fifty or more residency programs. Since each participating residency program will pay a fee for their booth ($100 - $200), your chapter not only recovers program costs but generates funds for other chapter activities.
Most hospitals spend thousands of dollars a year to promote their residency programs and will view a residency fair as a cost effective way to personally introduce their program to a larger number of students.
The program takes about three months to develop. You need to start early in order to secure meeting space and confirm which residency programs will be participating. Hotel banquet halls, school gymnasiums and large conference rooms are options. You need to be sure the space is large enough for all the booths and students you are expecting.
The bulk of your work will be selecting which residency programs to invite and processing those invitations. Here are a few points to keep in mind:
Decide how many hospitals you want represented and which specialties will be of most interest to your fellow students. In general, you will find primary care specialties have a higher response rate than other specialties.
Look at a map and decide if you want to invite programs from adjacent states. Addresses, phone numbers and program directors can be found through AMA- FREIDA, the AMA's Directory of Graduate Medical Education or your school's student affairs department.
You will need to extend 150 to 200 invitations in order to assure at least fifty residency programs participate. Repeating the program will obviate this step as almost all participating hospitals will elect to return in following years.
Mail letters to each hospital program selected explaining your residency day program, with the date, time and location of the event. Your RSVP should include a firm due date and space for special requests, such as electrical outlets. Be sure the hospitals understand the participation fee must be paid in advance of the event.
Bear in mind individual hospitals often administer multiple residency programs and may want to send their education department director in order to promote all their programs.
Use door prizes to encourage students to visit the maximum number of booths. To accomplish this have a raffle in which students get one ticket per some number of booths visited. Distribute a sheet to each student listing all the participating programs and have each hospital representative initial his/her program after talking with the student. The more booths a student visits, the more tickets they "earn," increasing their chance of winning a door prize. This strategy serves to expose students to programs they might not have considered and, in turn, will make the hospitals feel they have met with a larger volume of interested students.
Target Audience: Medical students. If you are near other medical schools you might want to coordinate a larger program with them. You could invite more residencies or increase your student participation.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter. Inviting other medical student organizations to participate will help increase student attendance.
Budget: Rental of Meeting Space $500, Promotional Material (flyers, posters, ad in the school paper) $100, Door Prizes $100, Total $700
Funding Sources: The program should easily pay for itself with a substantial return to the chapter(s). An average program with fifty residencies represented @ $150 each, will take in $7,500. Less projected expenses of $700, the program will still realize $6,800. An AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant can be applied for to help defray initial expenses.
School: Wright State University School of Medicine Dayton, OH
This medical education program features a presentation on some topic relevant to pharmaceuticals in the practice of medicine (such as economics or ethics) which will draw student interest. If you want to develop your program as a fundraiser, invite six to twelve pharmaceutical companies to sponsor booths as part of your program. At $200 to $250 each, this revenue will easily cover meeting and speaker costs.
You will need to secure an appropriate space and confirm a date for the program well in advance. Then you should decide on a fee and extend formal invitations to the pharmaceutical companies you select. Also, some companies may be able to supply a speaker or put you in touch with one through the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. Your choice of a program theme may be influenced by the specific speaker you want; however, avoid anyone openly hostile to the corporate sponsors. Keep your administration apprised of the program; not just for approvals, but as a source of ideas and support.
Your program schedule should include time for participants to meet with pharmaceutical firm representatives. Offering food and refreshments will help in this regard. Finally, prepare program evaluations which will accommodate all participants, including the exhibitors.
Target Audience: This program is geared to all medical students, faculty and staff.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Program costs include rental of meeting space, advertising, speaker's expenses, and any food or refreshments served.
Funding Sources: Program revenue (eight drug company booths @ $225 is $1800) should readily cover all associated costs.
School: Medical College of Wisconsin Bowman Gray School of Medicine
This educational program addresses and defines the responsible use of animals in biomedical research. The program opens with a video ("Hope") which tells the stories of children whose lives have been saved as a direct result of animal research. Possible speakers include:
Your university's internal committee of animal research regulation
A medical ethicist from the Animal Welfare Committee
A drug company representative from their research and development office
The AMA's Office of Science, Technology and Public
Health (contact: Karen Gorell, 312/464-4538)
[opposing view] People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
With your panel of speakers confirmed, prepare questions to ensure the crucial questions are covered.
Topics to consider include:
The benefits of animal research
Animal rights vs. animal research
The elements of responsible research
A moderator can pose these questions to the panel and then open discussion for audience questions. Resources are available from the DMSS which cover the following handout topics:
Medical and veterinary breakthroughs made possible by animal research
State laws concerning animal research
Names of animal rights activist groups
Contacts for additional information
Other organizations you might contact include:
The Foundation for Biomedical Research
Incurably Ill for Animals in Research (iiFAR)
The American Physiological Society
You need to reserve a lecture auditorium large enough to ensure you can comfortably accommodate your group. If your budget permits, you should serve food and refreshments to increase attendance. This is especially important if you plan to invite students from other medical schools. To help guide the development of your program, distribute a written survey to assess student knowledge of and attitudes toward animal research. Such a survey is also a useful supplement to the program evaluations, so you can gauge what the participants learned.
Target Audience: Medical students and interested physicians.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS Chapter.
Budget: $250 to cover photocopy and publicity costs, refreshments and food, equipment rental and, if necessary, travel costs for speakers.
Funding Sources: An AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant and student council funds.
School: Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA
This program will introduce first year medical students to what the practice of medicine is like outside the classrooms of the basic science years. As an after dinner function, invite a panel of five community-based physicians to talk to your group about what motivated their career decisions and what the basic routine of their practices is like. The panel should represent a reasonable cross-section of physicians - for example, a pediatrician, an ophthalmologist, a family physician, a surgeon and an obstetrician/gynecologist - all of whom practice outside the academic setting.
Following these initial remarks, you can open the floor to students for questions. At an appropriate time, adjourn the group for refreshments and to encourage informal interaction between the panelists and the students.
Not only will this program inform medical students about the life of a physician and help establish relations between students and community physicians, it will also serve as a great AMA-MSS membership tool. You should schedule MSS outreach recruitment efforts and a chapter meeting in the days immediately following the program so you can capitalize on the interest generated. At this time you can distribute an evaluation form to learn what worked and how the program can be improved.
Target Audience: Primarily first year medical students but the program is open to any interested person at your school.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Refreshments $100, Flyers $25, Total $125
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant.
School: University of Virginia School of Medicine Charlottesville, VA
The mix of loan programs is a shifting mosaic of changing acronyms and requirements. This program is designed help your peers make informed choices about their educational loans.
You should work with your office of financial aid to develop your program. They will help you construct a seminar which educates students about the funds they borrow to pay for a medical education and how this indebtedness will affect them during their residencies and beyond. The program should address the following topics:
The relative advantages and disadvantages of the various loan programs with respect to interest accrued during medical school and/or during internship/residency training.
How to read the fine print. A discussion of deferment schedules, consolidation of loans, repayment schedules and forbearance.
You should plan to invite several financial experts to talk to the students. These individuals can explain interactions the students will have with the financial institutions carrying their loans in the years to come. In addition, they can lead more informal group discussions and field questions.
Target Audience: The students at your medical school.
Participating Groups: The AMA-MSS chapter.
Budget: Promotional flyers and handouts $50, Lunch and refreshments $250, Total $300
Funding Sources: AMA-MSS Policy Promotion Grant.
School: Hahnemann University School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA