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VAFP Board Resident Directors Paulius, Mui, MD (Shenandoah) and Kevin Lavender, DO (Riverside) are excited to present the first edition of the VAFP Residency SpotLight. Thank you to Drs. LaFave and Yabluchanska for your submissions. Each month, the VAFP will feature unique happenings from the Family Medicine Residency Programs across the Commonwealth. The VAFP hopes these SpotLights will encourage residents to learn from each other and show our student members how amazing it is to be a Family Medicine Resident in Virginia!
At VCU-Shenandoah Valley we added a “Resident-Led Lecture” that occurs every Monday at 12:15pm via Zoom. Any available resident can attend and we have the capability to record if requested. It was created because there was a request for more adult inpatient medicine lectures and no real peer-to-peer teaching was currently in place. Lecturers are scheduled on a volunteer basis and the topic is the resident’s choice.
Right now we keep it low-key with an informal format of verbal presentation covering key history, differential, workup and treatment plus any “pearls” on the topic for about 10-15 minutes with time for questions after. It definitely makes the lecturer accountable for being the “expert” and everyone ends up learning something new by the end. We additionally set up a Google Drive to complement the lectures where up-to-date guidelines and other practice changing articles are stored on the various topics for easy to reference material at a later time.
To contact Dr. LaFave, click here.
VCU-Bon Secours’ St. Francis Family Medicine residency program is one of the largest family medicine residencies in the state of Virginia. It is also known as a diverse program with an emphasis on camaraderie. Since the onset of the pandemic, the “Chief Hour” was established via a monthly Zoom in an effort to further integrate resident-led didactic learning. Chief Residents lead this hour-long session dedicated to skill-building and team work. The sessions have ranged from interesting topics on how to approach difficult conversations with vaccine-hesitant parents, learning to recognize the signs of burnout, playing medicine-themed “Family Feud” or taking the time to share feedback and ask questions about residency. The sessions are designed to be a safe space that encourages open and confidential conversations among residents. Most importantly, it has engaged the new intern class and allowed them to get to know their fellow residents a little better as they navigate residency in a remote, socially-distanced world. We hope to continue the tradition of “Chief Hour” in the years to come and that this form of integrative and resident-led learning contributes to the development of clinicians ready for their future careers!
For more information, contact Dr. Yabluchanska