Sumayah Abed, MD, Sameera Davuluri, MD, Adriene Fowler-Payne, Daniel Fijabi, MD, and Steven Brown, MD, at STFM's Annual Meeting. 

UAB Department of Family and Community Medicine faculty and staff traveled West to present at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Annual Meeting.

Designed to focus on opportunities and challenges in family medicine education, the conference attracts more than 1,500 family medicine professionals annually. It includes more than 500 educational and interactive seminars, lecture-discussions, papers, and poster presentations.

Family and Community Medicine faculty and staff led two sessions at the conference in Los Angeles.

Assistant professors Jill Marsh, M.D., and Steven Brown, M.D., director of the department’s point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) initiative, led a scholarly roundtable, “Utilizing a Multi-Faceted Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) Curriculum to Advance Family Medicine and Primary Care at UAB Heersink School of Medicine.” Every student in the UAB School of Medicine now has access to a POCUS device thanks to the department’s contribution of $2 million in grant funds. But beyond simply purchasing the devices, the department has spearheaded a multi-faceted curriculum that includes a longitudinal integrated UME curriculum, GME initiatives, and intensive faculty development. Marsh and Brown discussed the lessons, successes, and challenges from UAB’s POCUS curriculum launch and facilitated discussion on how similar programs could be implemented at other institutions.

Marsh also partnered with instructional designer Jon Ezell, Ph.D, MLIS, for the lecture, “Expanding Use of Underserved and Primary Care Modules From Small Program to All Medical Students.” To help other medical schools adapt their content for integration into a broader medical school curriculum, Marsh and Ezell discussed their background expanding the use of two interactive online modules used in UAB’s Comprehensive Urban Underserved and Rural Experience (CU2RE) program to all of the school’s MS1s. The modules—one on social determinants of health and another on cultural consciousness—needed to be modified and sessions scaled for a larger audience. Plus, the department had to coordinate with extradepartmental administration to address the practicalities of delivery and assessment.

Two Department of Family and Community Medicine faculty members who are part of STFM’s 2023-2024 Medical Student Educators Development Institute (MSEDI) Fellowship also presented posters at the conference. Assistant Professor Sumayah Abed, M.D., director of the Dean’s Primary Care Scholar’s Program, presented the poster “From Theory to Practice: A Hands-On Approach to Community Health Education in Medicine.” Family Medicine Clerkship Director Sameera Davuluri, M.D., presented “Creating a Longitudinal Primary Care Pre-Med Program.”

Assistant Professor Minakshi Shukla, M.D., chair for the STFM New Faculty Collaborative, was also represented in multiple session projects alongside peers in the program, which provides one year of coaching, learning, and networking opportunities with senior leadership and other new faculty. Shukla’s work with the collaborative included:

• Land Your Dream Job: Insider Tips for Residents and Attendings
• Turning Your Work Into Scholarly Work
• Resident Physical Lifestyle and Diet Survey: A Multistate and Program Analysis