By Susan Milam Miller, M.D.
Jerry M. Wiener Resident Representative to AACAP Council
What do medical students, residents, and early career psychiatrists need from AACAP, and what does AACAP need from us? These are the two basic questions I am charged with as I begin my service as the Jerry M. Wiener Resident Representative to Council and co-chair of the Medical Students, Residents, and Early Career Psychiatrists Committee. In this column, I will be highlighting those initiatives that support our community of trainee and early career members and those that foster mentoring connections between us and more senior members of AACAP.
The MSRECP Committee traditionally sponsors several events at the Annual Meeting tailored for our constituency. This year in Toronto, led by the vision of new committee member Andrés Martin, MD, we engineered an experience that brought small groups of trainees together with one to two mentors to help anchor trainees’ experiences at the meeting through working relationships. The Mentorship Program sparked to life when 40 medical students and residents recruited via email and word-of-mouth joined 10 mentors in the Resident Resource Room. Through the magic of self-sorting, 7 mentorship groups emerged. Small groups focused on career interests ranging from public policy, teaching and research, through consultation and collaboration with pediatricians, to effectively juggling family and work responsibilities. Each group found their own times and places to meet, and at the end of three intense and event-filled days participants reported back on their groups’ activities in a closing gathering. Highlights included discussions of balancing professional and personal life, specific advice from successful early-career researchers on securing first grants, and general career development encouragement, as exemplified by a group that focused on the “five-year career plans” of its members.
Our one-year plan as a committee will surely include bringing this program into full force at the 2006 Annual Meeting in San Diego. The lessons that we learned in Toronto will help us refine a larger program next year. Among other planned improvements, we will facilitate protected meeting spaces and times, have a larger pool of mentors to choose from, and advertise the program earlier and more widely. The energy and enthusiasm of this year’s mentorship groups continues via email and other regular contacts. Future issues of this newsletter and its sister publication, the DevelopMentor, will feature writings by students and residents who have put their unique experiences into words.
The wave of excitement that was felt by trainees in Toronto has been building within AACAP for several years with the hard work of the MSRECP Committee and my predecessors in the Jerry M. Wiener Resident Representative position. My immediate predecessor Scott Moseman, MD created a national email network of Resident Representatives that we will continue to utilize for communication to and from trainees at their home institutions. Currently, representatives and a list-serve exist for child and adolescent psychiatry residents and we are examining several different options to expand this network. Through the Resident Representative network many residents have successfully joined committees within AACAP, expanding our presence and voice in our organization and allowing many more trainees to serve AACAP directly. This early launch into the work of organized medicine through the committee structure known as AACAP “components” enhances our ability to effect change on our profession.
My work and the work of all of us who fall under the Medical Student, Resident, Early Career umbrella is far from over. As we make our ways through the many stages of training and early career development, we must continue to collaborate with each other and reach ahead to mentors in the more experienced membership of AACAP. As our Academy focuses on recruitment and supporting the child psychiatrists of the future, we must continue to grapple with those two questions: What do medical students, residents, and early career psychiatrists need from AACAP, and what does AACAP need from us? What do you need and what can you give? Please be in touch so that we can answer these questions together.
Dr. Milam Miller is a second-year child psychiatry resident at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA. She can be reached by email (susan.milam@stanfordalumni.org) or by telephone (916-734-3574) and encourages all interested medical students, residents, and early career psychiatrists to contact her to get involved in the work of AACAP.
Jerry M. Wiener Resident Representative to AACAP Council
What do medical students, residents, and early career psychiatrists need from AACAP, and what does AACAP need from us? These are the two basic questions I am charged with as I begin my service as the Jerry M. Wiener Resident Representative to Council and co-chair of the Medical Students, Residents, and Early Career Psychiatrists Committee. In this column, I will be highlighting those initiatives that support our community of trainee and early career members and those that foster mentoring connections between us and more senior members of AACAP.
The MSRECP Committee traditionally sponsors several events at the Annual Meeting tailored for our constituency. This year in Toronto, led by the vision of new committee member Andrés Martin, MD, we engineered an experience that brought small groups of trainees together with one to two mentors to help anchor trainees’ experiences at the meeting through working relationships. The Mentorship Program sparked to life when 40 medical students and residents recruited via email and word-of-mouth joined 10 mentors in the Resident Resource Room. Through the magic of self-sorting, 7 mentorship groups emerged. Small groups focused on career interests ranging from public policy, teaching and research, through consultation and collaboration with pediatricians, to effectively juggling family and work responsibilities. Each group found their own times and places to meet, and at the end of three intense and event-filled days participants reported back on their groups’ activities in a closing gathering. Highlights included discussions of balancing professional and personal life, specific advice from successful early-career researchers on securing first grants, and general career development encouragement, as exemplified by a group that focused on the “five-year career plans” of its members.
Our one-year plan as a committee will surely include bringing this program into full force at the 2006 Annual Meeting in San Diego. The lessons that we learned in Toronto will help us refine a larger program next year. Among other planned improvements, we will facilitate protected meeting spaces and times, have a larger pool of mentors to choose from, and advertise the program earlier and more widely. The energy and enthusiasm of this year’s mentorship groups continues via email and other regular contacts. Future issues of this newsletter and its sister publication, the DevelopMentor, will feature writings by students and residents who have put their unique experiences into words.
The wave of excitement that was felt by trainees in Toronto has been building within AACAP for several years with the hard work of the MSRECP Committee and my predecessors in the Jerry M. Wiener Resident Representative position. My immediate predecessor Scott Moseman, MD created a national email network of Resident Representatives that we will continue to utilize for communication to and from trainees at their home institutions. Currently, representatives and a list-serve exist for child and adolescent psychiatry residents and we are examining several different options to expand this network. Through the Resident Representative network many residents have successfully joined committees within AACAP, expanding our presence and voice in our organization and allowing many more trainees to serve AACAP directly. This early launch into the work of organized medicine through the committee structure known as AACAP “components” enhances our ability to effect change on our profession.
My work and the work of all of us who fall under the Medical Student, Resident, Early Career umbrella is far from over. As we make our ways through the many stages of training and early career development, we must continue to collaborate with each other and reach ahead to mentors in the more experienced membership of AACAP. As our Academy focuses on recruitment and supporting the child psychiatrists of the future, we must continue to grapple with those two questions: What do medical students, residents, and early career psychiatrists need from AACAP, and what does AACAP need from us? What do you need and what can you give? Please be in touch so that we can answer these questions together.
Dr. Milam Miller is a second-year child psychiatry resident at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA. She can be reached by email (susan.milam@stanfordalumni.org) or by telephone (916-734-3574) and encourages all interested medical students, residents, and early career psychiatrists to contact her to get involved in the work of AACAP.
