Jennifer Myers, MD of the University of Pennsylvania reflects on her two years as a Macy Faculty Scholar. Dr. Myers was part of our inaugural 2011 Class.
What were your greatest accomplishments as a Macy Faculty Scholar?
My project focused on aligning graduate medical education (GME) with Penn Medicine’s quality infrastructure in order to enhance resident education and engagement in healthcare quality, safety and value. During the time period of the Macy scholarship, we accomplished many goals including expanding a longitudinal pathway for residents interested in quality improvement careers to all programs within GME, launching a house staff quality and safety leadership council to provide a forum for bidirectional discussion and collaboration between residents and our health systems’ quality and safety leaders, and started a series of faculty development programs designed to identify and educate a cadre of quality and safety educators at Penn.
How has being a Macy Faculty Scholar impacted your career?
Becoming a Macy Faculty Scholar was a true honor and privilege and had a profound influence on my career. It afforded me the time to focus and successfully transition my career into medical education leadership and innovation in the area of health care quality and safety. Of equal importance was the opportunity to gain a new network of supportive colleagues and mentors.
What’s next for your project?
We are continuing to grow and expand our integration efforts in quality and safety between GME and the Penn health system by creating infrastructures and educational resources for quality and safety education within our residency and fellowship programs. This work is timely for us given the ACGME’s Next Accreditation System and its focus on engaging residents in the quality and safety activities of their teaching hospitals. We look forward to sharing our work through national conferences and publications in the hope that some aspects of our collaborative model of educational integration could be a model for other teaching hospitals.
Learn more about the Macy Scholar program.