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In this Issue:
- Governor's Message
- ACP Primary Care Task Force and the Imagination Project
- Literature in Medicine Retreat 2025
- Winter Meeting
- 2025 Alabama-Mississippi Annual Scientific Session
- Winter Season and COVID-19
Ross B. Vaughn, MD, FACP, ACP Governor
Governor's Message
Dear Alabama Chapter Members,
As we look ahead to the winter season, I am delighted to update you on several exciting programs for our chapter.
I particularly wish to invite you to our upcoming Winter Meeting on the campus of the University of South Alabama on Saturday, February 15, 2025. This meeting continues the theme of innovation as we bring together thought leaders and fellow practitioners offering a rich line up of educational sessions. This year, our focus will center on Precision Medicine. This field is transforming the way we approach patient care, allowing us to tailor treatments based on genetics, environment, and lifestyle. Our sessions will cover the latest advancements, practical applications, and case studies, equipping us with tools to bring precision medicine into our daily practice. By learning how to integrate these cutting-edge approaches, we can enhance patient outcomes and advance the quality of care across Alabama.
In addition, we are excited to continue our Literature in Medicine Retreat, a beloved component of our annual programming that offers a unique chance to reflect on the art and humanism in medicine. Through reading and discussion, we explore the narratives that shape humanity. The retreat will be held on the evening of Friday January 24 through Sunday January 26, 2025 at the Hotel Trilogy in Montgomery.
Finally, I am pleased to announce the formation of our Primary Care Task Force. This initiative aims to address the pressing challenges facing primary care internal medicine physicians in Alabama, from workforce shortages to access and policy issues. By convening a diverse group of voices from our membership, the task force will develop actionable recommendations and advocacy efforts to strengthen and support primary care in our state.
I look forward to seeing each of you at the Winter Meeting, where we can connect, learn, and inspire one another as we advance internal medicine in Alabama.
Warm regards,
Ross B. Vaughn, MD, FACP
Governor, Alabama Chapter
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ACP Primary Care Task Force and the Imagination Project
Alabama ACP has formed a task force charged with re-imagining primary care internal medicine in the state. Task force members include Drs. Mike Soppet (chair), Russ Bedsole (vice-chair), Juanita Heersink, Luke Mueller, Erin Snyder, and Sujana Reddy.
For some time, ACP has been concerned about the declining number of internal medicine physicians choosing the calling of traditional inpatient-outpatient (hybrid) or outpatient-only practice. General internal medicine has historically filled a key role in providing primary or principal care to adult patients. Contemporary trends indicate an increased role for physicians trained in Family Medicine (FM) or Medicine/Pediatrics (Med-Peds) to fulfill this responsibility. This emphasis on increased breadth of care to a large and ever-growing panel of patients is an entirely logical and appropriate evolution in modern medical care given the great need in our society. However, the aging and increasingly medically complex patient population still calls for an increased depth of knowledge, time expenditure, and intensity of outpatient care not optimally served within the 15-minute office visit of a primary care physician. We believe this is the area of primary care which the general internal medicine physician can optimally serve. No longer limited to only the complex patients of Medicare age, an increasing number of our younger patients are now living with multiple complex disease processes which impact their lives. Often these complex medical conditions are accompanied by severe socio-economic challenges which restrict our ability to optimize care. These challenges in the young or the old impact and sometimes overburden our health care system. At the very least, they provide an inefficient distribution of resources in our state and nation, sacrificing both cost-efficiency and health augmentation.
Realizing these changing circumstances, our chapter has embarked upon a journey of discovery which we have titled 鈥淭he Imagination Project.鈥 Its essence will be to review the origins, development, and career of the general internal medicine physician from the premedical to the retirement years. The goal of the Primary Care Task Force will be to attempt to discover how the modern general internist is selected, educated, trained, and supported in their career. Furthermore, we hope to identify the hurdles, areas of friction, and bottlenecks which prevent the best deployment of the skills of the general primary care internal medicine physician.
As the project name suggests, we aspire to imagine what the future of our specialty would ideally look like. We believe if we can imagine such a future role then we can take concrete steps to fulfill it. Through periodic reports to our chapter council and membership, the task force will share its discoveries and recommendations.
Mike Soppet, MD, MACP
Literature in Medicine Retreat 2025
Next year's Alabama Chapter ACP Literature and Medicine Retreat will take place at the Trilogy Hotel in Montgomery from Friday evening January 24th through Sunday morning January 26th, 2025. The hotel is located at 108 Coosa Street, directly across the street from the entrance to Central Restaurant. Professor Randy Davis will again lead the discussions. The reading selections for the Retreat are as follows:
Novel: Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes (Edith Grossman translation)
Short story (novella): The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
Play: All's Well That Ends Well, by William Shakespeare (edition: The Oxford Shakespeare)
Poetry: New and Collected Poems, by Richard Wilbur
On Friday evening, we will watch a film of The Old Man and the Sea. On Saturday there will be discussions of three works, then Sunday morning will be a discussion of the poetry, as has been our format in the past. We will have dinner as a group on Saturday evening--details to follow at the Retreat. Complimentary continental breakfast will be provided in the meeting room on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Lunch on Saturday will be 鈥渙n your own.鈥 There are several restaurants within easy walking distance of the Trilogy Hotel, as well as a restaurant in the hotel.
The registration fee for the Retreat is $175 per person or $350 per couple (spouses/significant others are invited to the Retreat).
Please mail your check for the registration fee, made payable to ALABAMA CHAPTER ACP (NOT TO ME!) to:
Bill Boyd, M.D., FACP
3402 Lockwood Place
Montgomery, AL 36111-1555.
Make your hotel reservations DIRECTLY with the Trilogy Hotel in Montgomery, phone number (334) 440-3550. Identify yourself as an attendee of the AL Chapter ACP Literature and Medicine Retreat to get the group rate. Give the hotel time to 鈥渂uild the block鈥 (hotel speak), perhaps several weeks. Also possible to make reservations online (and rate may be just as good as group rate).
I look forward to seeing everyone in January. I hope you enjoy the reading. Questions: email me at billwboyd@aol.com or phone me at 850-980-7300. I recommend getting started on Don Quixote as it is a LONG book. Other readings: a few days each.
Bill Boyd, MD, FACP
Winter Meeting
Alabama ACP and the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine Winter Meeting
Precision Medicine in Internal Medicine - February 15, 2025
University Student Terrace Room
350 Student Center Circle
Mobile, AL 36688
Speakers:
Errol Crook, MD, FACP, Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, Chief Medical Officer Morehouse Healthcare, Morehouse School of Medicine
Antwan Hogue, MD, Director, Johnson Haynes Jr. Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine
Brian Persing, MD, Precision Oncologist
Robert Israel, MD, FACP, USA Health
Special demonstration for the afternoon: Teaching Kitchen Demonstration 鈥 Closed Session for Enrollees
Registration: No cost for registration (registration link to come soon in the official meeting flyer)
A light breakfast and box lunch will be provided.
To support the Student Run Free Clinic at the College of Medicine, please consider making a donation using the QR code.
2025 Alabama-Mississippi Annual Scientific Session
May 30 鈥 June 1, 2025
Join your chapter colleagues for the chapter's annual scientific meeting, held May 30-June 1 at Centennial Plaza in Gulfport, Mississippi.
鈥淣estled directly across from the white, sandy beaches of Gulfport, MS, sits Centennial Plaza, a 48-acre resort complex that has been completely reimagined as the area's premier family and business traveler destination.
With a history harkening back over 100 years, we have in this former military installation, renovated 10 historic buildings that highlight the beauty, splendor, and opulence of the area. It is destined to be the crown jewel of the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast.鈥
Winter Season and COVID-19
As the winter viral respiratory season approaches, here are some useful references including point of care resources for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir () Point of Care Resource and molnupiravir () and the latest from the CDC.