Funding Recipient Spotlight: Professional Development for the Learn Serve Lead Conference

Posted in: Blog, Funding

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This is a guest post written by the grant awardee, Naomi Bishop, an associate librarian at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine – Phoenix.

I attended the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Learn Serve Lead Conference in Seattle, Washington earlier this month. AAMC is the annual meeting for physician educators, clinicians, health system leaders, and medical students. The first session focused on free speech, and the conclusion was that students must be exposed to diverse and even offensive opinions to grow as physicians. Opposing viewpoints, controversial issues, and diverse political views should be discussed in medical school so that students can learn how to build trust with patients and grapple with how to respond to views that differ from their own. This session was relevant to the rise of misinformation and the role of physicians in providing accurate quality information on vaccines and other topics, including transgender health and COVID-19.

The second session I attended was titled Health Justice: What it Means and What Academic Medicine Can Do. This session promoted a health justice agenda in service of achieving health equity. Two important questions posed by panelist were 1) where the barriers to health justice? and 2) how academic medicine can best contribute to the collaborations necessary to ensure all communities thrive? I enjoyed hearing from other institutions on how their campuses are addressing health justice. One program at Georgetown University is the health justice alliance–this program provides legal aid to patients through a medical legal partnership. This session was important to see medical education highlighting health equity and giving a voice to communities.

Another session I attended was on gun violence as a public health crisis, which focused on the need for medical professionals and academic medicine to advocate for change in addressing structural violence, prevention, and safety. Firearm injuries are the leading cause of death among children’s and teens in the U.S. There needs to be more screening and firearm safety discussions with patients and families. This session made me think about what libraries can do to promote firearm education and safety in our communities.

AAMC was a great opportunity for me to meet faculty and librarians from other medical schools and learn about topics related to my work in a medical school library and gave me some insights into possible outreach and community engagement that I can do here in Arizona. The highlight of my trip was meeting a woman from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation and learning about how compassionate care can be the gold standard for our patients.

References:

1. Patchen, Loral PhD, CNM; Richardson, Roxana JD; McCullers, Asli MPH; Girard, Vicki JD. Integrating Lawyers Into Perinatal Care Teams to Address Unmet, Health-Harming Legal Needs. Obstetrics & Gynecology ():10.1097/AOG.0000000000005417, October 26, 2023. | DOI: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000005417.
2. Barron A, Hargarten S, Webb T. Gun Violence Education in Medical School: A Call to Action. Teach Learn Med. 2022 Jun-Jul;34(3):295-300. doi: 10.1080/10401334.2021.1906254.
3. Clary, C., Lambarth, L., Kaushik, R. Locked and (Un)-Loaded Discussions: A Pediatric Resident Safe Firearm Storage Counseling Curriculum. MedEdPORTAL. 2020; 16:11028. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11028.