Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine Holds 36th Annual Midwinter Seminar
Front row, Midwinter Seminar Speakers: Drs. Erin Klein, Daniel P. Evans, Adam Fleischer, David Yeager and Dyane E.Tower. Back row: IPMSA students: Christina Berg, Allison Damon, John Borzok, Kelli Iceman, Colin Mizuo, Ellie Wydeven (CE Coordinator), Jordan Sullivan, and Amanda Wheatley.
The “36th Annual Midwinter Seminar” was co-sponsored by the Illinois Podiatric Medical Students’ Association (IPMSA) and the Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS). The two-day CE program was held on February 7-8, 2014 at the Chicago Hilton in Chicago, and attended by more than 230 individuals. The Midwinter Seminar is the IPMSA’s largest fundraiser for the year and proceeds help support podiatric student activities and student scholarships.
It was an excellent way to learn from a variety of experts within the podiatric profession, as well as an opportunity to earn continuing education credits.
IPMSA Teaches Leadership and the Importance of Teamwork to Tomorrows Podiatric Physicians
By: Amanda Wheatley 2nd Year Scholl Student
First years students at Scholl College have the unique experience of a very rich extracurricular life. There are many different clubs you can join with many different focuses. I remember getting emails from some of these clubs (ACFAS, ACFOAM, AMA, APMA, APMSA), and proceeded tospend my first week of school just trying to understand what all the acronyms meant.
One acronym that kept popping up my first year was IPMSA. I knew they had monthly meetings with the staff, and with the heads of all the organizations. They seemed well organized and impactful at our school. I figured IPMSA would be a great fit for me, a “do-er,” since the students put on a conference every year for podiatrists, and the proceeds go to scholarships for students. Planning a conference couldn’t be too much different than planning some high school dances right?
I was always told by other institutions that I work well in groups. What I realize now is that they meant that I appeared to work well in a group. “Teamwork” in the classroom was delegating the parts of a rubric “evenly” among the number of people in your group. A Google doc was made and people would do their chunk and leave it to me to edit until it was good and cohesive enough to print. Real life problem solving is nothing like what they teach you in the classroom. Real problem solving isn’t about dictating what each person will do. It is messy and involves feelings, making compelling arguments for your case, seeing others point of view and being humble enough to compromise.
I ran for VP of Organizational Affairs. What I thought would be good PR for myself turned into one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in school. I learned how to coordinate a website, send a lot of emails, how to get sponsorship, delegate, coordinate large amounts of very important people, solve problems on the fly, and most importantly, how to work with people to get things done.
Being on a team mixed with my superiors and peers has taught me how to be an effective, professional negotiator, and an empathetic listener. I learned how to uplift my cohorts as we shared the same stress planning this event. It was fun to see my instructors in a different light and get feedback from them, but I think the most rewarding thing was to see how my classmates stepped up to their responsibility in the group. After years of being the only one to care in group projects, it was nice to finally have people I could build an effective professional relationship with, and trust that they would do their job.
Midwinter Conference taught my classmates and me a lot about our strengths as leaders. As doctors, I believe that one of our many hats is being able to effectively lead. We must compromise with our patients to give them care that is individual to them. We must work with other doctors to ensure that no diagnosis goes unnoticed because of lack of communication.This leadership model is not entirely special to just IPMSA either. Since IPMSA is a blanket organization for the others in Scholl, other clubs have the ability to gain these leadership skills too. A team approach to patient care seems to be the way medicine is going, and so skills that we can cultivate as students in clubs like this may give us the ability to be more effective doctors, and teammates in the future.