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Daily Conferences

Conferences are held five days a week specifically for the residents and planned by Dr. Kathleen Sweeney with resident input.  They occur in the Blair Room in the Altoona Hospital Outpatient Center and include family practice rounds, journal club, radiology conference, OB conference by family practice faculty, and a variety of internal medicine, pediatrics, and gynecology topics. We also have talks on practice management every other month. Our speakers are drawn from the staff of the Altoona Hospital, guest CME speakers, family practice residency faculty, and guest physicians from outside the area. Here is an example of our noon conference schedule. 

Practice Based Small Group Learning

Altoona Family Physicians is starting a new lunch conference series called “Practice Based Small Group Learning”.  This is a Canadian program designed to help physicians enhance their knowledge and integrate new information into their practices.  Rather than a traditional didactic lecture format, the sessions focus on discussion of modules composed of authentic cases and evidence-based information.  The participants are encouraged to bring their own cases to discuss.  The goal of the program is “to facilitate the transition from learning as part of a formal training program, to a commitment to self-directed CME,” which will assist our graduates throughout their professional careers.  Altoona Family Physicians has been selected as one of very few US residency programs to offer this excellent program, so we are very proud to be able to extend this opportunity to our residents.  For more information, sample modules and patient handouts please visit The Foundation for Medical Practice Education.  

Hospital CME

Altoona Hospital offers periodic CME lectures by local and national experts.

Rationale for Conferences

 Lunch conferences are planned by the Associate Director of the Family Medicine Residency/Director of the Osteopathic Family Practice Residency.

 The rationale for lunch conferences is based around the core competencies.

 Osteopathic Principals and Practice:

Residents are expected to demonstrate and apply knowledge of accepted standards in Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment appropriate to family medicine.  The educational goal is to train a skilled and competent osteopathic practitioner who remains dedicated to life-long learning and to practice habits in osteopathic philosophy and manipulative medicine.

 Objective 1. Residents participate in conferences throughout the year that review on a two year cycle the major areas of the spine, extremities and treatments to enhance treatment of chronic medical conditions at lunch conferences. These are hands on workshops lead by Ryan Ridenour DO and Osteopathic family medicine faculty. Each resident is required to demonstrate competency in at least two techniques including but not exclusive to HVLA, muscle energy, counterstrain, and facilitated positional release to approach each problem presented. Competency is assess by faculty and recorded for each resident on Osteopathic Competency Evaluation forms. Allopathic residents also attend and learn to assess musculoskeletal conditions that may respond to Osteopathic manipulative therapy, learn when referral is appropriate and learn basic manipulative techniques to assist them in the care of their patients.

Patient care goal: 

 Objective 1. Conference topics are chosen to help residents learn the most current and evidence based treatment so this knowledge may be applied to provide appropriate and effective treatment of health problems and promote good health.  Speakers are encouraged to use a case based format whenever possible to show direct applicability to patient care.

 Medical knowledge competency goals:

 Lunch conferences help the resident acquire knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, epidemiological and social-behavioral sciences and how to apply this knowledge to patient care.

 Objective 1. Every month a broad range of topics in family medicine are covered.

The goal is to have conferences each month that cover the breadth of family medicine including topics in adult medicine, women’s health/ gynecology, and pediatrics.

Topics are chosen via curriculum topic lists drawn up by the director and the faculty in charge of each curricular area.  Specific topics are chosen by faculty to ensure that topics required by the RRC and AOA are covered.  Special attention is given to topics that faculty feel are not covered in another venue via rotations or longitudinal curriculums or necessary to supplement or expand on clinical training.

 Clinical topics of timely interest are added at the discretion of the conference planner and faculty.

 Residents give feedback on conferences via their signed conferences schedules and in periodic meetings with the director that schedules conferences.  

Practice Based Learning and Improvement:

Residents must demonstrate the ability to investigate and evaluate their care or patients, to appraise and assimilate scientific evidence and to continuously improve patient care based on constant self-evaluation and life-long learning.

 Objective 1. Lunch conferences help meet these goals by presenting a Critical Appraisal curriculum week every August and applying this information as residents and faculty present articles relevant to direct patient care at family medicine rounds throughout the year using these skills.  This assists the resident in learning to locate an article, appraise the information, assimilate the evidence and apply it to his or her patient’s health problems.

 Objective 2. Family Medicine Rounds help residents take on the role of teacher of fellow residents, faculty and medical students as they select and present cases for teaching, quality assurance and patient care review.  The resident is expected to present the case in a professional and concise manner and lead a brief educational discussion of the teaching points he or she wished to emphasize.

 Interpersonal and Communication Skills:

 Residents must demonstrate interpersonal and communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information and collaboration with health professional and colleagues.

  Objective 1. Every Thursday residents and faculty present inpatient and outpatient cases during Family Practice Rounds. Births, deaths and readmission are also discussed. Morbidity and mortality issues are presented and medical errors reviewed.  These rounds enhance interpersonal communication skills as interns and residents take turns in the role of teacher presenting cases, asking the group clinical questions, reviewing imaging studies and sharing teaching points and lessons with the group.  Residents also learn how to respectfully bring to the group lessons they have learned as a team and how they will influence future medical decision making, without blaming and fault finding, but in a spirit of quality improvement of patient care.

  Professionalism:

 Residents must demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities and an adherence to ethical principles.

 Objective 1. Residents demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities via their commitment to high quality Senior resident talks required during the PGY2/OGME2 and PGY3 and OGME/3 He or she commits to a date for the presentation and is held responsible for preparing a Grand Rounds level talk with rescheduling only allowed by Dr. Sweeney on an individual basis for urgent difficulties. This obligation helps residents learn to commit carefully and plan ahead for deadlines.

 The residents present one conference in each of their senior years and are required to give their researched talks with bibliography and handouts in a formal manner of Grand Rounds. One year the topic is relevant to Adult medicine and the other year the resident chooses a topic in Women’s Health, Obstetrics or Pediatrics.  These talks require talking to Dr. Sweeney regarding topic choice and then picking an appropriate faculty advisor for guidance. Cross reference: Medical Knowledge Curriculum

 Systems Based Practice:

Residents must demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care, as well as the ability to call on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care.

 Objective 1. Conferences utilize nurses, social workers, hospice workers, behavioral scientists, dieticians, physical therapists, respiratory therapists,  hospital administration representatives, home nursing agencies, case managers, risk managers, pharmacologists, blood bank personnel, and many other representatives of the health care system in order to facilitate the residents ability to be aware of the resources of our health care system and to work effectively within the system to provide patients with optimal health care.

Objective 2. Meeting with a broad spectrum of health professionals help with resident acquire the knowledge and relationships to work in interprofessional teams to enhance patient safety and the quality of patient care.

Objective 3. Conferences are planned in particular with case managers and the Quality/ Chief Medical Officer of Altoona Regional Health System to help the resident learn how to coordinate patient stays and dispositions on discharge and stay involved in quality of care directives that our hospital wishes to achieve.

Objective 4. Family medicine rounds review of all morbidity and mortality helps residents learn to identify system errors and help implement potential system solutions as issues are raised.                                                    

Ksweeney 8/08