Mission
The mission of this pathway is to more effectively incorporate patients’ social contexts into their medical care in and outside of the ED. This pathway seeks to shift its participants from purely identifying and understanding SDoH as they pertain to the ED, to generating effective solutions to address these SDoH at the bedside, in the Atlanta community, and perhaps even across the nation. Meaningful change occurs through collaboration. Therefore, this pathway is rooted in partnerships with existing Emory and Atlanta-based organizations, and interdisciplinary collaborations with Emory faculty, residents, students, and staff who share a similar passion for creating positive change.
Goals
- Correctly define and identify social determinants of health in an emergency medicine setting and apply these principles to bedside care.
- Establish a deeper, more meaningful, and longer-lasting presence in Atlanta beyond bedside medical care, through longitudinal involvement in local outreach initiatives.
- Solidify and share acquired knowledge through multimodal peer teaching during residency didactics. Gain experience in medical education and curriculum development.
- Identify and seek to address barriers to medical care experienced by patients who use the emergency department as their main source of medical care.
- Identify and seek to address recurrent social justice issues encountered in the emergency department.
- Gain experience in advocacy and quality improvement at the hospital system and/or local/national levels.
- Publish work within the field of Social EM through engagement in scholarly activity.
Objectives
- Knowledge Acquisition
- Community Involvement
- Peer Teaching
- Advocacy, Quality Improvement, & Social Change
- Scholarly Activity
This pathway is divided into four core pillars of Social EM:
- Community Outreach
- Education
- Access to Care
- Social Justice
This is an 18-month, longitudinal program with a flexible design that allows participating residents to complete requirements based on their rotation schedules and existing residency requirements. Participating residents meet regularly with the faculty director to discuss progress throughout the 18-month period. The pathway is open to PGY-1 residents, who will complete all requirements by the end of their PGY-2 year, at the latest.
Residents who complete the pathway will receive a Distinction in Social Emergency Medicine and will be given special recognition upon residency graduation. Pathway requirements also count towards many existing residency requirements.
Pathway Requirements
Social EM Book Club Meetings
Participants lead sessions during "Lunchtime & Learn" meetings that occur during weekly residency didactics. Chosen reading material covers topics across all 4 pillars and spans multiple genres, including fiction, nonfiction, essays, blog posts, etc. Participants guide the discussion and provide teaching points that can be applied to clinical practice in the ED.
Longitudinal Project
Participants are required to complete a longitudinal project of publishable quality under either the Access to Care or Social Justice pillars of the pathway. This includes research and quality-improvement initiatives. They may design their own scholarly projects or partner with existing projects at Emory. Participants will also present their work at local/national conferences.
Other Scholarly Activity
This includes abstracts, policy memos, blog posts, or Op-ED articles in a news outlet or emergency medicine journal (e.g., WESTJEM, EMRA PolicyRx, or ACEP Now).
Peer Teaching
Participants will participate in curriculum development and lead multimodal medical education initiatives, including journal club sessions, formal lectures during residency or medical school didactics, and simulation cases.
Community Involvement
Participants will partner with one local outreach initiative from the existing list of community partners to whom we often refer our ED patients. They will engage in regular service opportunities with this organization over the 18-month period.
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