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Events / AIAMC 2027 Annual Meeting

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April 08 - April 10, 2027

Thursday, April 08th

8:00am

PDF of 2027 Annual Meeting Agenda

8:00-11:00

Optional Pre-Conference Workshop: The Human Side of Leadership: Building Influence and Impact in Medical Education

Facilitators: Libby Beiter, MD, Associate Program Director, Family Medicine, TriHealth

Shelly Monks, FACHE, Vice President & Chief Academic Officer, Texas Health Resources

Reham Shaaban, DO, Chief Academic Officer, The Valley Hospital

In this half-day pre-course, participants will build practical and generalizable leadership skills – regardless of where you are in your leadership journey (new-, mid-, and later-career). The course will focus on skill-building using realistic medical education scenarios. Skills that will be explored include strategic visioning, communication, emotional intelligence, stakeholder engagement and influence, coaching and talent management, change management, collaboration, and courage. Please note that seating is limited and that a separate registration fee is required.

11:00-11:45 am

Welcome Lunch for First-Time Attendees

12:15-1:45 pm

Keynote Address: Humanism and Academic Medicine

Kathleen Reeves, MD, FAAP, President and CEO, The Arnold P. Gold Foundation

1:45-2:30

Vendor Partner Intros/Overview and Break; Exhibits Open

2:35-3:50

CONCURRENT BREAKOUT WORKSHOPS

Build It and They Will Come: Human-Centered Creation for New (and established!) Programs

Amy Bunger, PhD, Vice President, Designated Institutional Official, Chief Academic Officer, St. Clair Health

Amy Packard, PhD, GME Institutional Coordinator and Research Director, St. Clair Health

Leslie Chabala, Transitional Year Program Coordinator and System Educator, St. Clair Health

Founding and maintaining an innovative de novo structure presents the possibility to capture the needs of the community, the local context, and the strengths and market differentiators that exist in a structure. Accreditation requirements do not have to be treated as isolated boxes to check. This interactive session introduces “threading and embedding,” a practical approach for connecting Sponsoring Institution, Common Program, and specialty-specific requirements to create cohesive educational infrastructure that honors the best practices amongst us while propelling us toward possibility. Through real-world exemplars, facilitated polling, and an innovation gallery walk, participants will explore how policies, orientation, faculty development, evaluations, scholarly activity, and other processes can be intentionally designed to address multiple requirements while creating economies of scale for learners, programs, and institutions. Participants will leave with practical tactics for identifying opportunities to move beyond minimum compliance and use accreditation as a catalyst for educational and organizational excellence.

Beyond the Professionalism Checklist: Adaptive Leadership Tools for Values-Based GME Teams

Diana Singer, PhD, MBA, RN, CCRN, CNE, C-TAGME, Executive Director, Academic Affairs, JPS Health Network

Tricia Elliott, MD, MBA, MS-HCLM, FAAFP, Sr. Vice President, Academic & Research Affairs, JPS Health Network

Caroline Diez, EdD, MBA, C-TAGME, Director, Graduate Medical Education, JPS Health Network

Professionalism concerns in graduate medical education are often treated as individual behavior problems, yet many reflect deeper adaptive challenges involving identity, values, trust, hierarchy, communication, and culture. In this interactive workshop, participants will move beyond professionalism as a checklist and explore professionalism as values in action. Using realistic GME cases, brief reflection, small-group discussion, and a practical Values-to-Adaptive-Action Tool, participants will learn to distinguish technical problems from adaptive challenges, examine gaps between stated values and lived culture, and apply adaptive leadership practices to recurring concerns involving accountability, feedback, communication, and team function. Designed for the broad GME community, the session emphasizes shared ownership across residents and fellows, faculty, coordinators, staff, program leaders, and institutional leaders. Participants will leave with a practical framework they can use in program leadership meetings, CCC and PEC discussions, faculty development, resident coaching, remediation planning, and clinical learning environment improvement efforts.

The Future Starts with Self-Awareness: Remediating Learners Who Struggle with Insight and Professionalism

Deborah Simpson, PhD, Director Education – Academic Affairs, Aurora Health Care

Nicole Salvo, MD, FACOG, Obstetrics-Gynecology Program Director, Aurora Health Care

Suzette Caudle, MD, Designated Institutional Official, Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center

Tricia La Fratta, MBA, Manager GME Programs, Aurora Health Care

Leah Delfinado, MD, Designated Institutional Official, Advocate Health

The pathway to becoming a physician is demanding, reflecting the profession’s commitment to competence, professionalism, and safe patient care. Although most trainees successfully meet expected milestones, 2% to 30% require remediation sometime during training. Successful remediation often hinges on a trainee’s willingness and ability to recognize performance deficiencies, engage in self-reflection, and demonstrate insight into needed behavioral or professional changes. Can learners who lack insight successfully engage in remediation? Are there strategies to promote learner insight? As a process that requires significant institutional resources and can be emotionally challenging for all involved, this evidence-based session will explore the answers to these questions using a combination of recent research and the expertise/experiences of participants.

4:00 - 5:00

The House We Build: Creating Communities of Belonging in Graduate Medical Education

Catherine Apaloo, MD FACP, Senior Vice President and Chief IMG Experience Officer, Intealth

Victor O. Kolade, MD, FACP, Core Faculty & Former Internal Medicine Program Director, Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital

Strong residency and fellowship programs are built not only through curriculum and clinical experience, but also through intentional connection. This interactive workshop will help participants design practical, sustainable communities within their own programs to strengthen belonging, engagement, well-being, and professional development. Participants will explore models for academic, social, and wellness-focused communities; discuss leadership and administrative structures; and leave with a draft implementation plan tailored to their program context.

4:00-5:00

AIAMC World Café

Facilitators: Gillian Abshire, Director, GME, Virgina Mason Franciscan Health

Chanteau Ayers, JD, Executive Director, Med Education Administration, UnityPoint Des Moines

Adrian Singson, MD, Associate Program Director, Internal Medicine, MAHEC

The AIAMC World Café is a structured way to have a large group engage in small group conversations. This year’s World Café will focus on the new Common Program Requirements (CPRs), and specifically how GME leaders can navigate and succeed during times of rapid change. There will be three rounds with different participants at each table addressing a specific topic and a closing round of shared learnings and reflections. This is a great opportunity to meet many AIAMC members in a short amount of time………and to learn from one another! Please note that seating is limited, and pre-registration is required.

5:00-5:30

Posters Up and Wine Down

Take a first look at the National Initiative X final posters and other poster content while enjoying a complimentary beverage.

5:30–6:30

Reception

Wind down from day one with hors d-oeuvres, beverages, and incredible views of the Santa Catalina Mountains! To help us plan and control costs, pre-registration is required. There is no charge for meeting registrants to attend the reception. Your guest may join you with a paid guest registration fee.

Friday, April 09th

7:00-8:00

Buffet Breakfast; Exhibits Open

8:00-9:00

Plenary 1: Artificial Intelligence and Graduate Medical Education Panel

Zeina Nabhan, MD, Associate Dean, Graduate Medical Education, Indiana University SOM

Neil Mehta, MBBS, MS, Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University

Melvin Speisman, MD, FACP, Founder and President, American College of Artificial Intelligence and Medicine

9:00-9:30

Break; Exhibits Open

9:30-10:30

Plenary 2: Leading Systemic Well-Being

Laurinda Calongne, EdD, President & Founder, Stand Strong Strategies

Leading systemic well-being requires leaders to address the conditions that deplete people and strengthen the capacity of those who care for others. Drawing on her book, Still Standing: Leading Well-Being in Crisis-Tested Health Systems, Dr. Laurinda Calongne shares lessons from decades of healthcare leadership through crisis and recovery. This plenary explores how trauma-informed leadership, attention to moral distress, and everyday organizational decisions can build cultures where clinicians, learners, and teams feel supported and able to thrive. Participants will leave with practical strategies to embed well-being into how their institutions lead, work, and measure success.

10:40-11:55

CONCURRENT BREAKOUT WORKSHOPS

From Building to Growing: Lessons Learned in Creating and Scaling a GME Enterprise

Reham Shaaban, DO, Chief Academic Officer; Director of Graduate Medical Education; Internal Medicine Program Director, Valley Health System / Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Eric Anderson, EdD, Director of Graduate Medical Education, Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center

Becky Fleig, MEd, Administrative Director of Medical Education, TriHealth

Kristina McComas, C-TAGME, Interim Director of Medical Education, Billings Clinic

Building a GME enterprise requires more than launching individual programs, and the strategies that support initial development often need to evolve as the enterprise grows. In this interactive workshop, leaders from four institutions at different stages of GME development will share practical lessons from creating new programs, building infrastructure, navigating expansion, and strengthening established GME enterprises. Through candid “what we wish we had known” discussions, a shared framework for GME growth, and an applied Growth Canvas exercise, participants will identify their own institution’s greatest opportunities and constraints and leave with concrete strategies and a 90-day action step for building a sustainable GME enterprise.

The Team You Have Is the Team You Built: Rebuilding It on Purpose

James P. Orlando, EdD, PCC, ACTC, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education; Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Medical Education and Clinical Sciences, Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine

Fran Johnston, PhD., MCC, CEO, Co-Founder, and Owner, Teleos Leadership Institute

Megan Llonso, MA, ACC, Organizational Consultant and Coach, Teleos Leadership Institute

A 2025 New England Journal of Medicine review described a discontinuity crisis in medical education, one that erodes learners' sense of respect, engagement, and teamwork. Medical education leaders see it daily: program directors and core faculty misaligned on trainee expectations, coordinator turnover that forces programs to rebuild institutional knowledge, resident cohorts functioning as disconnected groups rather than learning teams, and constant leadership transitions. These are systemic team challenges, and another committee meeting will not solve them. This interactive team training session is grounded in Susan Wheelan's Integrated Model of Group Development, a research-based framework describing how groups mature from dependency and inclusion, through counter dependency and fight, to trust and structure and, finally, work and productivity. Because psychological safety lives in team norms and leadership behaviors, not in individual resilience alone, participants learn what each stage looks like in GME teams, how power differences silence voices, and what leaders and members can each do to move a group toward a genuine team. Through a stage-sorting exercise, a table-based simulation with structured feedback, and peer consultation, participants will be able to (1) describe the stages of Wheelan's model and the leader and member behaviors that support each, (2) assess the developmental stage of a team they lead or belong to, and (3) design a stage-matched 30-day team training plan that advances Common Program Requirements for teamwork, psychological safety, and well-being and holds up through leadership transitions.

Beyond the Checklist: Building an Institutional Improvement Ecosystem

Ryan Pong, MD, FASA, Vice President, Chief Academic Officer; Designated Institutional Official, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, a member of CommonSpirit

Amy Bunger, PhD, Vice President, Chief Academic Officer; Designated Institutional Official, St. Clair Health

Dink Jardine, MD, Chief Academic Officer; Designated Institutional Official, Vandalia Health Charleston Area Medical Center Institute for Academic Medicine

Continuous improvement requires more than identifying concerns and creating Action Plans. GME leaders must connect program-level improvement with institutional oversight, maintain visibility as interventions are implemented, preserve outcomes and lessons learned, and recognize when program findings have broader institutional significance. This highly interactive workshop introduces an Institutional Improvement Ecosystem in which information and influence move among programs, PECs, GME offices, GMECs, DIOs, institutional leadership, and governing bodies. Through a progressive small-group case exercise, participants will Connect, Monitor, Remember, and Synthesize an improvement issue, explore how institutional learning should influence future decisions, and identify what should rise into governance and AIR. Participants will leave with a practical framework they can apply within their own sponsoring institution.

12:00-1:00

Lunch and Annual Town Hall Meeting; Exhibits Open

1:30-3:00

Optional Educators Forum Workshop

Facilitators: Caroline Diez, EdD, Director, Graduate Medical Education, JPS Health Network

Tricia Elliott, MD, Sr. VP, Academic & Research Affairs, CAO, and DIO, JPS Health Network

Diana Singer, PhD, Executive Director, Academic Affairs, JPS Health Network

3:00-4:00

Optional Book Club

Still Standing: Leading Well-Being in Crisis-Tested Healthcare Systems

Facilitators: Caroline Diez, EdD, Director, Graduate Medical Education, JPS Health Network

Diana Singer, PhD, Executive Director, Academic Affairs, JPS Health Network

4:00-5:30

Optional Service Project: Ben’s Bells

Give back to the community and promote kindness by painting bells in our Ben’s Bells service project. No artistic talent is required, and all materials are non-toxic and non-staining. You do not need to stay the entire 90 minutes, as the activity is organized for come-and-go-flow.

In 2002, Jeannette Maré’s life changed forever when her son, Ben, died suddenly just before his third birthday. In the months following his death, Jeannette and her friends and family began making ceramic wind chimes – the first Ben’s Bells – in her backyard studio. Being surrounded by supportive people and working with clay toward a common goal was therapeutic for her family and their healing. Since 2003, Ben’s Bells has been operating as a nonprofit, growing kindness education programs, and continuing to distribute thousands of Bells every year. Today, Bells are found all over the world, and their free kindness education programming has reached over 1.6 million students.

Please note that seating is limited, and pre-registration is required.

6:00

Annual Awards Dinner

Enjoy a most memorable evening with AIAMC colleagues and friends. National Initiative X teams will be recognized, as will the Weinberg, Innovation, and National Initiative Impact award winners. And we’ll wish AIAMC Executive Director Kimberly Pierce Burke well in her retirement. Please note that seating is limited and that a separate registration fee is required. The registration fees covers your dinner and one complementary drink ticket.

Saturday, April 10th

7:00-8:00

Buffet Breakfast; Exhibits Open

8:00-9:00

Plenary 3: Courageous Leadership: Reinforcing the Humanity of Healthcare

Gregory Makoul, PhD, Faculty of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, and Founder, Wisdomics

Graduate Medical Education takes place in complex systems with structures and processes that can exacerbate the sense that organizations have lost sight of the humans involved. Reinforcing the humanity of healthcare requires courageous leadership, clear vision, and consistent attention. A focus on human-centered healthcare – defined by Dr. Makoul as valuing the humanity and perspective of everyone involved to collaboratively improve the experience, delivery, and outcomes of care – offers a pathway to culture change that elevates outcomes that matter. If every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets, meaningful culture change will come only when leaders decide that the time to change the system is now.

9:00-10:15

CONCURRENT BREAKOUT WORKSHOPS

From Reflection to Flourishing: Peer Leadership for Professional Identity Formation in Residency Training

Sarah Ozurumba, Program Manager, Kern National Network for Flourishing in Health (KNN)

Clarice Douille, MD, Resident Physician, Family Medicine, HonorHealth

How can residency programs create meaningful space for reflection, connection, and growth amid the demands of clinical training? In this interactive workshop, presenters will share a resident-led initiative that integrated peer reflection groups and the KNN Framework for Flourishing into residency education. Participants will explore how structured reflection can foster psychological safety, strengthen professional identity formation, and cultivate character, caring, practical wisdom, and flourishing. Through hands-on activities and implementation tools, attendees will leave with practical strategies for adapting peer reflection practices to their own training environments.

From Rounding to Results: Human-Centered Leadership to Prevent Workplace Violence

Hilary Radtke, MHSQ, MBA, Senior Director of Quality and Regulatory, HealthPartners

Julie Weegman, RN, MA, NE-BC, Director of Nursing, Regions Hospital

Workplace violence prevention depends on leaders who listen, act, and communicate back. In this hands-on workshop, our team will share how Regions Hospital combined leadership safety rounding, cross-functional action, and measurement to strengthen its prevention work. Participants will examine early outcome data, practice a five-question rounding method with a realistic scenario, and leave with practical tools and a 30-day action they can use in their own learning or care environment.

When a Professional Is in Difficulty: Reframing Challenge as an Opportunity for Well-Being, Growth, and System Health

Diana Singer, PhD, MBA, RN, CCRN, CNE, C-TAGME, Executive Director, Academic Affairs, JPS Health Network

Betsy White Williams, PhD, MPH, Clinical Program Director, Professional Renewal Center

Professional difficulties in Graduate Medical Education are among the conversations we most need to have and often the ones we most want to avoid. When a resident or fellow experiences concerns related to professionalism, communication, reliability, performance, or well-being, programs may hesitate to act out of fear of labeling the individual, damaging relationships, or making the situation worse. Yet avoidance can allow distress and consequences to spread across the learner, faculty, staff, patients, and learning environment. In this interactive session, an institutional GME leader and a psychologist specializing in professionals in difficulty bring complementary perspectives to these challenging moments. Using realistic cases and a Person–Role–System framework, participants will learn to separate behavior from identity, approach concerns with compassion and accountability, recognize opportunities to support individual well-being and professional growth, examine the impact on faculty and teams, and identify system factors that may contribute to or perpetuate difficulty. Participants will leave with a practical framework for turning conversations we tend to avoid into opportunities for professional renewal, healthier teams, and stronger learning environments.

10:15-10:55

Break; Exhibits Open and Staffed Poster Displays

All posters will be displayed throughout the entire Annual Meeting; this session is dedicated to staffed display. These include posters that support our Annual Meeting focus areas as well as all National Initiative X final posters. Prepare to be impressed by this collective body of work!

10:55-11:55

Plenary 4: Narrative Medicine Fireside Chat

David Thoele, MD, Co-Director, Narrative Medicine Group, Advocate Health

11:55-12:00

Closing Remarks and Boxed Lunch