Table of Contents

Departmental A

Upcoming Events

Focus of the Week - Clinical

Announcements

Faculty Presentations/Publications

Frankly Speaking Podcast

Clinical Services Spotlight

Department Awards

Each year, the department recognizes individuals who have contributed to the department’s mission of service and teaching. One of the teaching awards will honor a faculty member for outstanding work in Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice. We are seeking your nominations for these recognitions. These awards are important for the faculty and call for thought and reflection on those who deserve recognition. A nomination should include the person’s name, the award you are nominating them for, and a brief paragraph describing why the individual is deserving. Written nominations will be shared with the leadership team in advance of the team’s October meeting. Nominees will be presented, discussed, and voted on by the Leadership Team. Awardees will be honored on November 15th from12:00 - 1:00pm at the Department's Annual Awards Ceremony (in lieu of Grand Rounds. The awards are: Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity Excellence, Education, Outstanding Community Clinician and the Chair Award.

Upcoming Events

FMCH Grand Rounds

Tuesday, October 11th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm. "Medical Emergencies in Flight: Is There a Medical Provider on the Plane?", presented by Stacy Potts, MD, MEd.

Meeting ID: 191 986 273 Passcode: FMCH

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/191986273?pwd=NEtlZmNkdWlSUGwyeTJQU3dCeUs1QT09

16th Annual Louis A. Cottle Event

Tuesday, October 11th at 6:30pm, (being held virtually via Zoom) Hugh Silk, MD, MPH, FAAFP, presents: "Stories, Art, Music and Photographs-Reducing Burnout and Improving Patient Care Through the Medical Humanities".

(see attached brochure)

Medicaid Coverage for Postpartum Women

• More than two-thirds of the states have taken steps to extend Medicaid coverage for postpartum women from 60 days to 12 months.
• 13 states have implemented the Medicaid postpartum expansion. MA extended this coverage in April 2022 to women with income levels up to 200% of the federal poverty level regardless of immigration status.
• 19 states have authorized coverage expansion or are in the process of doing so. 
• Other advocacy initiatives can be found at the link below.
• https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/patient-support-advocacy/ama-advocacy-2022-efforts
• MA-supported issues can be found on the Massachusetts Medical Society page at https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/patient-support-advocacy/ama-advocacy-2022-efforts

Public Student Loan Forgiveness Limited-Time Waiver

Have you heard the exciting news about significant temporary changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program? The announcement means individuals like you, working full-time in qualifying employment, may be able to have all past federal student loan payments counted toward the required 120 payments for the program.

On October 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Education announced a change to PSLF

program rules for a limited time. Through October 31, 2022, borrowers may receive credit for past payments made that would not otherwise qualify for PSLF.

Here are the most important takeaways from the new rule:

• You have until October 31, 2022, to take advantage of the PSLF limited waiver opportunity.
• If you have Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) loans, you can consolidate them to a Direct Consolidation Loan and then complete the PSLF form after consolidation is complete to have your past payments counted.
• If you’re already pursuing PSLF and have loans with different numbers of qualifying payments, as part of the limited waiver you can consolidate all loans together and your consolidation loan will be credited with at least the largest number of payments on the loans that were consolidated.
• If you were making payments on Direct Loans that weren’t previously counted because they were not made under an income-driven repayment plan, be sure to submit a PSLF form for all past employment to have those payments counted.
• The employment requirements have not changed. You must have worked full time for a non-profit, government or tribal employer.
• PSLF still only applies to federal student loans. Private loans are never eligible. To learn more you can read the Tuition.io blog posts or the Department of Education announcement. 

Information for members of the American Academy of Family Physicians:

To report CMEs on the AAFP website, search activity number 95264 for a listing of all 2022 FMCH Faculty Development sessions, 91384 for a listing of all 2021 FMCH Faculty Development sessions, and 88033 for a listing of 2020 FMCH Grand Rounds.

Med Moth is scheduled for October 12th at 5:30pm in the Albert Sherman Center Multi-Purpose Room (Cafeteria). Med Moth is an event based on The Moth Story Hour where 6-8 members of the UMass Community (SOM, GSN, GSBS, and Baystate) share stories for 5-10 minutes each. Past talks have been about the speaker's journey into medicine, meaningful patient encounters, or other experiences that have shaped one's personal or professional identity in health care. Some have been humorous (a horrible first day of internship) and others have been more serious (coping with the guilt of making a medical error) but the topic is up to the speaker. We seek to highlight a diverse collection of voices and capture the richness of experiences of the members of our UMass-Chan community. 

Drs. Judson Brewer and Lia Antico in conjunction with the Brown Mindfulness Center is conducting a research study to test if a short mindfulness-based training is effective at reducing burnout in physicians. Participants must be physicians. If you are a physician and you are interested in helping us to learn about burnout, please contact Brown affiliated contact person at burnout-research@brown.edu. Use of this message for recruiting participants has been approved by Brown's Human Research Protection Program. Protocol # 2022003296. 

After many starts and stops, interruptions by COVID and clinical responsibilities, the following article was accepted for publication by Family Medicine based on a nationwide survey of mostly Family Medicine faculty and residents regarding border health training. The first author was one of our Global Health Fellows at the FHCW who is now practicing family medicine in Las Cruces, NM: Danielle Fitzsimmons-Pattison, Olga Valdman, Mary Alice Scott, Kate Sullivan, and Judy Savageau. Border Health Training for Family Physicians: Is There a Need and Interest? Family Medicine, 2022, in press.

Suzanne Cashman, DSc and Philip Day, PhD, working with medical students Read Allen, Julia Small, and Sabine Shaughnessy recently had a poster accepted for STFM’s Medical Student Education Conference in January 2023. The poster, “Health Equity and Advocacy in Practice (HEAP): Implementing and Evaluating a Skills-based, Student-driven Health Equity Elective” was a result of an optional enrichment elective for which Dr. Cashman served as faculty sponsor and Dr. Day helped evaluate. MassAHEC Director Linda Cragin, graciously supplied resources and support for the elective.

Frankly Speaking Podcast

A weekly Podcast series covering newsworthy topics in primary care medicine.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/frankly-speaking-about-family-medicine/id1194659367.

Please join us for an overview: The number of drug overdoses in the United States continues to rise in tandem with the growing opioid epidemic. In 2020, nearly 92,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States, which was an approximate 31% increase in just one year. This episode will highlight perceived barriers to harm reduction and show primary care providers how they can play a key role in overdose prevention. Guest: Mariyan L. Montaque, DNP, FNP-BC, presents: "Preventing Overdose Deaths with Naloxone: Harm Reduction vs Encouraging Use". - Frankly Speaking Ep 296.

COVID-19 UPDATES

COVID-19

• The CDC recently started tracking a new omicron subvariant called BF.7. It is now the third most prevalent strain in the U.S.
• Globally, there have been more than 614,385,693 cases of COVID-19 diagnosed. The number of deaths worldwide has reached 6,522,600.
• More than 94,965,623 cases have been identified in the US.
• MA has reached over 2,050,942 cases with 21,706 deaths.

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/massachusetts/

COVID -19 MA

• MA dashboard is now updated weekly and may lag behind the world-meter by a few days.
• As of September 27, there were 245 patients hospitalized for primary COVID-19 related illnesses and 694 patients COVID positive hospitalized.
• The 7-day average percent positivity is 7.71%.

COVID-19 UMMMC

• The 7-day average percent positivity is 16.4%. Compared to the prior 7-day average of 10.8%.
• In-house as of October 2, 58 cases. This is up 44% from this time last week.
• Of the 58 cases, 71% are fully vaccinated. There are 8 in the ICU with 6 being fully vaccinated.

Monkeypox

• The total confirmed cases of Monkeypox in the US is 25,851.
• The number of cases in MA is essentially unchanged at 396. The highest number of cases is reported in CA at 5,010.

Wellness Resources

The Caring for the Caregiver Program provides resources such as the Caregiver Support Line (508-334-HELP) and The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which offers a variety of services and supports (including virtual peer support and wellness tips. EAP can be accessed at 866-263-3525, or www.LiveandWorkWell.com, [company code UmassMemorial]. More information is available on the Caring for the Caregiver page.