Faculty, residents and students represented the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (UWDFMCH) and the UW School of Medicine and Public Health at the eighth annual Family Medicine Midwest (FMM) Conference, held November 8-10, 2019, at Northern Illinois University Conference Center in Naperville, IL. The theme of the conference was “Empowering Patients and Communities.”
The event focused on ways family physicians can help improve patients’ health not only through direct care, but also through community partnerships and education on issues of health equity.
Workshops and Plenary Sessions
Jennifer Edgoose, MD
The Saturday plenary session featured Jennifer Edgoose, MD, MPH. In her talk “Innovating Towards Inclusiveness, Diversity and Health Equity,” Dr. Edgoose shared how her personal journey led her to develop and share best practices for providers to be more inclusive and sensitive in caring for all patients.
The educational sessions and presentations of scholarship featured six DFMCH faculty:
- Nicole Bonk, MD, spoke about advancing patient safety in clinical teaching and practice;
- Thomas Hahn, MD, spoke about teaching inclusively and creating safe and welcoming learning environments in medicine;
- Magnolia Larson, DO, presented her work “Factors Influencing Implementation of Lipid Screening in Pediatric Patients.”
- Karina Atwell, MD, MPH, shared the Health Equity Curricular Toolkit as a novel resource for health educators;
- Lisa Steinkamp, PhD, MBA, MS, discussed the role of physical therapy in a primary care setting;
- Susan Wenker, PhD, MS, spoke about the effects of an online continuation program for a community-based fall prevention program.
The poster sessions featured a resident from the Lacrosse residency program and a UWSMPH student:
- Kara Kamps-Schmitt, MD, presented her poster, Evaluation of the Maternal and Neonatal Risks and Benefits Associated with Immersion in Water During the Second Stage of Labor and Delivery (“Water Birth”);
- Logan Yeager presented his poster, Understanding Barriers to Healthcare in a Vulnerable Population in Dane County, WI.
Family Medicine Midwest is a 12-state collaboration dedicated to building a strong family medicine workforce to provide high-quality, comprehensive care to the Midwest region. More than 50 residency programs and departments of family medicine attended the 2019 conference.
Published: January 2020