The theme for the 2022 conference is “Work, Life, Learning: Navigating Through Uncertain Times." Plenary and workshop sessions will explore the context of well-being in our personal and professional lives, help to discover the keys to maintaining well-being, and provide actionable pearls to stop “surviving” and start “thriving” in our new normal. The conference will showcase evidence-based strategies for:

• building personal and professional resilience for clinicians, CPD providers, learners, and patients;
• increasing capacity for CME/CPD practitioners and educators to make a difference;
• decreasing burdens on our clinician-learners;
• using innovative approaches through the use of technology in continuing professional development programming; and
• increasing a culture of belonging and inclusion in our organizations and in our activities.

In addition, the SACME Planning Committee has confirmed an extraordinary and exciting line-up of experts as keynote and plenary speakers to expound upon conference themes and give us a deeper understanding of their importance as CME/CPD providers. They are:

Keynote and Plenary Session Speakers

Michele Harper, MD, emergency room physician and New York Times best-selling author
Black Butterfly Theorem: From Childhood Trauma to a Transcendent Healthful Self

Photo by: Nicole Mondestin

Michele Harper, MD has worked as an emergency room physician for more than a decade at various institutions, including as chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and in the emergency department at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. The Beauty in Breaking is her first book. 

Stuart Slavin, MD, MEd, Senior Scholar for Well-Being at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
Reclaiming Agency in an Out-of-Control World

Stuart Slavin, MD, MEd is Senior Scholar for Well-Being at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). A graduate of Saint Louis University School of Medicine, Dr. Slavin completed his residency training in pediatrics at UCLA and then served as a faculty member there for seventeen years before returning to Saint Louis University (SLU) as Associate Dean for Curriculum. While at SLU, Dr. Slavin led efforts to improve the mental health of medical students that produced dramatic decreases in rates of depression and anxiety in pre-clerkship students. He joined the ACGME in 2018 and is helping to lead efforts to improve the mental health of residents and faculty across the U.S.

 

Brenda Bursch, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Pediatrics, UCLA
Finding the Path Back to Meaning and Joy

Brenda Bursch, PhD is a professor in the UCLA departments of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Pediatrics, where she has been on faculty since 1994. Dr. Bursch is a hospital-based social and medical psychologist in Mattel Children’s Hospital. As a result of her decades of work in this setting, since 2015, she has been focused on health provider mental wellness, with the goal of applying science proven ways to minimize the impact of the stress and trauma of hospital work. She has developed resilience training modules, peer support training, and a mental wellness app for UCLA Health professionals. Over the past three years, her expertise has been sought to work in other high stress industries, including with firefighters and elite sports professionals. During the pandemic, she has served on the leadership team for the UCLA Health COVID-19 Wellness & Emotional Support Workgroup, training and coordinating the unit-based mental health support staff as well as providing direct support services for frontline health providers.

 

James Makokis, MD, a Plains Cree two-spirit family physician and winner of the Amazing Race Canada
A Conversation with Dr. James Makokis

James Makokis, MD, MHSc, CCFP is a Nehiyô (Plains Cree) two-spirit Family Physician from onihcikiskwapiwinihk (Saddle Lake Cree Nation) in Treaty Number Six Territory. He is the inaugural Medical Director of Shkaabe Makwa. He is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta. Dr. Makokis has interests in rebuilding the Indigenous health system and also has a transgender health focused practice. He is involved in several research projects including a Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded project on developing transgender and two-spirit youth "Rites of Passage," on which he is a Co-Principal Investigator. In 2019, Dr. Makokis competed as one half of "Team Ahkameyimok" (never give up in the Plains Cree language) on Season 7 of The Amazing Race Canada and won. He is an avid ultra-endurance marathon trail runner, and lives with his husband Anthony and their dog Lucy.

Workshop sessions will reinforce SACME’s mission to promote the highest value in patient care and health of the public through the scholarship of continuing medical and interprofessional education and feature oral abstract presentations addressing research, best practices, and innovations across the continuum of CME/CPD from the wealth of quality abstracts that have been submitted for consideration.

Longitudinal programming will provide opportunities for experiential learning, professional networking, and social engagement in the weeks leading up to the three days of concentrated events in February and in the months following the Annual Meeting. 

Don’t miss the 2022 SACME Annual Meeting! For a full itinerary and to register go to www.sacme.org.