Emory Family Medicine Residency Program
Annual Report
July 1, 2015 - June 30, 2016
General
The Emory Family Medicine Residency Program (EFMRP) completed its 21st year of training residents. During the 2015-2016 academic year25 residents were in training. Seven of our residents completed the program, of which 3went into private practice or academic medicine in the state of Georgia. Two were accepted as fellows in the highly competitive Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) with the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
The program continues to staff its Family Medicine service (FMS) at Emory University Hospital Midtown, which is the sponsoring hospital for the Emory Family Medicine Residency Program. This is an excellent teaching service with the full academic training and clinical services support of Emory Healthcare. It is also ranked nationally in the top 10 for outstanding quality for academic medical centers.
Our faculty and residents continue to be recognized for their leadership and outstanding work in medical education, residency training and clinical research. Dr. Naheed Lakhani was recognized for her outstanding scholarship, leadership and community service in her role as Co-Chief Residentwinning the prestigious Keith Ellis GAFP Scholarship Award. Dr. Susana Alfonso, one of the core facultyand interim director for the Emory Family Medicine Clinic was recognized as one of Atlanta’s Top Doctors in 2016. Dr. Megha Shah was awarded a Pipeline to Proposal grant through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) entitled “Developing ASHA: A community based coalition to address diabetes among the South Asian community in Atlanta”. Dr. Ashley Owen was accepted to complete training withMINT, theMotivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.
Residents in our program were proliferative in their scholarly work during this academic year presenting posters at the Annual GAFP Scientific Assembly. Dr. Nicolle Martin and the team of Dr. Tony Bullon and Dr. Priya Gulati placed first and third place respectively in the resident poster category.
This year marked the beginning of our Global Health initiative with the program sending our chief residents, Dr. Naheed Lakhani, PGY3 and Associate Program Director, Dr. Oguchi Nwosu to Ethiopia for one month to participate in programmatic activities that are helping to develop the first Family Medicine residency training program in that country. Additionally, Dr. Vivian Leung, PGY3 spent a month in Rwanda with Emory Pediatrics faculty and residents providing medical education in rural health clinics. Dr. Kim Le, PGY2 spent a month in Ecuador, teaching and providing medical care with Project HEAL, an international medical group that she had worked with during medical school.
Dr. Vivian Leung and Dr. Nicolle Martin, PGY3, participated in a Medical Journalism elective in New York City, working with the team of medical journalists at ABC news gaining experience in researching and reporting on important medical issues.
Our residency program continues to attract large numbers of applicants both nationally and internationally. This year there were2,107 applicants. The program successfully matched all positions in March 2016. Through the generosity of Dan and Kathy Amos and the Amos Family foundation, the program continues to expand its training, with the goal of becoming a 10/10/10 program. With the Class of 2019, we recognized our second LaHouse Scholar, Dr. Mohammed Ali. He is an Associate Professor at Emory in the Rollins School of Public Health and Global Health Institute, whose extensive research and work in the area of diabetes and cardiovascular health make him a deserving recipient of this award. We are honored that he has chosen to remain at Emory for his Family Medicine training.
Our involvement with the Emory Family Medicine Interest Group continues to attract medical students and undergraduates to Family Medicine. Dr. Ambar Kulshreshtha, who graduated from our program in 2015 and is now a junior faculty member in our department, was instrumental in bringing the first chapter of Primary Care in Progress to Emory. This past fall, we were thrilled to have Dr. Reid Blackwelder, a graduate of the Emory School of Medicine and past President of the American Academy of Family Physicians as our honorary guest speaker to help bring attention and interest to primary care at Emory.
The program’s website is:
Faculty/ Staff Changes
The Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine is Dr. Theodore Johnson II. He is also the Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and the Director of the Division of General Medicine and Geriatricsat Emory University School of Medicine.
The Program Director of the Family Medicine Residency Program is Dr. Teresa Lianne Beck, effective May 1, 2015. Dr. Beck has been a clinical faculty and Assistant Professor within the department since 1999. She had been Assistant Program Director and Interim Program Director since July 2007 and 2013 respectively.
Dr. Isabel Lowell has been appointed Assistant Program Director effective July 1, 2014.
Dr. Oguchi Nwosu has been appointed Associate Program Director effective July 1, 2014.
The interim Clinic Director for the Dunwoody Family Medicine Center is Dr. Susy Alfonso.
Ms. Brittany Summerlin, program coordinator for the Emory Preventive Medicine Residency Program, is our interim program coordinator effective June 2015.
2016graduates
Nicolle Martin, MD, MPH Academic practice, Atlanta GA
Vailoor Jairaj, MDHospitalist, Atlanta GA
Adebeyo Akinatyao, MD, MPH Private practice, Atlanta GA
Vivian Leung, MDEIS (CDC), Atlanta, GA
Naheed Lakhani, MD, MPDSydney, Australia
Bipin Bagga, MDPrivate practice, Albuquerque, NM
Sufyan Siddiqui, MDPrivate practice, Denver, CO
All 2016 graduates passed their ABFM board exams on first attempt.
Family Medicine Center
All Family Medicine residents and faculty practice in the Emory Family Medicine at Dunwoody clinic and provide inpatient care at Emory University Hospital Midtown. The Dunwoody site offers full service primary care, as well as a wide variety ofoffice procedures. We’ve expanded our clinic hours to include Saturdays, early morning and lunch time hours for patients with busy work schedules. We offer behavioral counseling on site. The Dunwoody clinic provides teaching and training to Family Medicine residents, medical students, PA and NP students in Ambulatory Care at the Emory University School of Medicine.We have added e-visits and telephone visits in order to improve access and quality of care for patients with chronic illness.
The clinic continues to support a Lifestyle Clinic to help patients with chronic disease management and to assist them with overcoming barriers to making healthier lifestyle choices. Individual consultation with Preventive Medicine specialists and group visits are provided for patients who seek additional assistance in successful long term weight loss.
The clinic web site is:
Graduates
We currently have 167graduates in practice. Approximately 70% are practicing in Georgia.
Future Directions
We anticipate future expansion of our Dunwoody site as we strive to provide care for a larger portion of our local population. Our practice offers care coordination and reporting of quality indicators for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity in our practice.
We plan to open another Family Medicine clinic on or near the Emory University Hospital Midtown campus in 2017. We continue to dedicate faculty resources to teaching medical students and have become moreinvolved with the FMIG at Emory. We have recently hired one new faculty, and we are in the process of recruiting others, so that we may continue to provide excellent teaching forour residents and medical students.
Resolutions for the COD
Require that all controlled substance prescriptions, specifically opioids and benzos, be prescribed electronically. This avoids the issue of lost, stolen or forged paper prescriptions and allows for better tracking of prescribers who do not follow medical safety standards. It also enhances the ability of the state’s prescription drug monitoring program to provide more accurate data collection. Many other states already do this. Let’s not be the last to come around.
Teresa Lianne Beck, MD, FAAFP
Program Director, Emory Family Medicine Residency Program
Chief, Family Medicine Inpatient Service, Emory University Hospital Midtown
Department of Family & Preventive Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine