Med Peds Content

In addition to our didactic academic half days sponsored by each categorical side, we host specific med peds conferences during the noon hour on Wednesdays. These conferences have different themes- wellness, education, alumni, housestaff, and more. The content is designed and executed by the Med-Peds faculty and Med-Peds chief residents. Our residents enjoy Med-Peds specific content and appreciate having all four classes in one space to catch up. Check out the calendar of conferences we have planned for the 2024-2025 year!

2024

	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1st Wed		JC Intro	RiM#	UAB collab##	RiM#	Edu #1
2nd Wed
3rd Wed		Housestaff	Housestaff	Housestaff	Housestaff	Housestaff
4th Wed	APE*	Academic Med Peds	MP PROuD**	Urban Med Peds	Board Prep	Holiday
5th Wed	Housestaff

2025

	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
1st Wed	Board Prep 2	RiM	Wellness	RiM	RiM
2nd Wed
3rd Wed	Housestaff	Housestaff	Housestaff	Housestaff	Housestaff
4th Wed	MP PROuD	Switch Con	Rural Med Peds	Edu #3	Edu/Orient
5th Wed			Journal Club

Key

APE*: Annual Program Evaluation where we review yearly goals, improvements, and successes of the program based on program surveys and ACGME data
Alumni #1: Panel- Academic Med Peds Outside of UTHSC
RiM#: Racism in Medicine Curriculum (see Racism in Medicine tab)
MP PROuD**: MP Professional Development
UAB Collab##: A joint noon conference with UAB focusing on how to be an upstander in medicine
Alumni #2: Urban Med Peds
Education #1: Parenting 101 (Resident led session)
Edu #2: The MP Physician in Transitional Care
Alumni #3: Rural Med Peds
Edu #3: Managing disordered eating in the young adult and adult population

The UTHSC Med-Peds program recognizes that disparities in healthcare—shaped by historical inequities and systemic barriers—continue to impact patients, providers, and health systems alike. As physicians, we are often unaware of the broader social and structural factors that affect the care we provide. Without a deeper understanding of these disparities, we may fail to offer equitable care to our patients, support our colleagues, or fulfill our responsibility as community leaders to advocate for change. To lead effectively, we must identify these challenges, understand their origins, and create space to learn from one another’s experiences. 
Historically in our Med-Peds program, traditional medical content and board study material has been assigned in six equal blocks throughout the year. Recognizing that understanding and addressing healthcare disparities is essential as we master our clinical knowledge, we have integrated our Reducing Disparities in Medicine (RDiM) curriculum alongside our core content. The first Med-Peds meeting following each educational block is dedicated to small group discussion and reflection on the RDiM materials. This curriculum is optional, but encouraged .

The RDiM curriculum includes content from podcasts (Clinical Problem Solvers, A Better Workplace, Knowledge at Wharton, etc.) guest speakers, and collaborations with local experts from Rhodes College’s Institute for Health Equity and Community Justice. Residents are provided with thought-provoking materials and grouped into inter-class small groups for discussion, moderated by Med-Peds core faculty. Each of the past two years, our final RDiM conference has centered on narrative medicine as a means of reflecting on the personal and professional impact of healthcare disparities.

The goal of the RDiM curriculum is to bring awareness to the ways that disparities influence care delivery, medical education, and healthcare systems. While these conversations may sometimes be challenging, we are committed to intentionally creating space for dialogue that promotes growth, humility, and equity in medicine. We are excited to be entering our fifth year of this curriculum and look forward to its continued development and impact.

2025-2026 Schedule

Session 1: Introduction to concepts
Session 2: Topic on specific health inequities (policing, housing, mass incarceration, environment, transportation, etc.)
Session 3: Clinical manifestations of disparities (patient care, medical education, admissions)
Session 4: Guest speaker with Memphis focus
Session 5: Topic on understanding specific populations
Session 6: Narrative medicine

Journal Club has been a long running staple of the UTHSC Med-Peds Program. Journal Club accomplishes multiple goals for our program, including scholarship, staying up to date on medical literature, learning the steps of critical appraisal of an article, and camaraderie. It is a requirement for all PGY3s in our program to present one journal club, often with a peer/partner, and for all residents to attend two journal clubs per year. Journal Club is often held at a faculty home, but few may occur during Med-Peds conference 1-2 times per year.

Book Club through the Years

In 2021, to create opportunities for gathering, reflection, and community, Dr. Wells started a residency book club that meets at his home over dinner. Every year, Dr. Wells will curate a book list of ~10 books and send the list to each class to vote. Books are chosen by rank ballot voting and class-wide book clubs are spread throughout the year. Topics range from racism in medicine, societal racism, Memphis history, or emotional wellbeing in medicine. Please see the list of books our residents have chosen over the last 4 years with links to their Goodreads/amazon accounts. If you have suggestions for books, Dr. Wells is all ears! He also is happy to be your friend on Goodreads.

Each of our residents is paired with a faculty member who serves as his/her advisor throughout all four years. Our advisors meet with residents at least twice per year and serve as an extra layer of support for navigating the transition to residency, wellness, board studying, graduation requirements, and much more. Advisors are paired with residents based on career interests and fit. Advisors often also serve as career mentors, but there are countless other physicians who take interest in mentoring our residents.

One the greatest strengths of our Med-Peds program is the robust number of alumni we have both here in Memphis and across the country. If you can dream it, we likely have someone doing it! Last year in 2023, we formally created an alumni society to organize and network with our wonderful program alumni. So far, we have invited alumni to speak at noon conferences, formed a Facebook group for current and past residents to connect, and hosted one alumni mixer. This year we are excited to have our first annual Alumni Party “A Night to Remember” on September 27, 2024.