2. LSL Background
Learn Serve Lead: The 2017 AAMC Annual meeting brought together 4,550 academic medicine professionals to discuss and find solutions to the issues facing medical schools and teaching hospitals. Plenary sessions addressed building character; the need to lower the cost of health care; defending science in a “post-truth” era; implications of artificial intelligence, genetic manipulation, and precision medicine; and the importance of empathy in health care.
Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, moderated a panel of physicians who became patients.
David Brooks, author of The Road to Character and New York Times columnist, presented the opening plenary.
AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD, and AAMC Board Chair, Marsha D. Rappley, MD, presented the Leadership Plenary
Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, Pulitzer Prize-winning Science Writer presented “The History of Medicine in Three Vignettes.”

3. CFAS Influence at LSL
CFAS reps and leaders made significant contributions to 2017 LSL programming developing and presenting sessions on:
Modeling well-being
GME learning environment
Bias in academic medicine
Fourth year of med school
Definition of faculty
Communicating science and medicine
Role of research in academic medicine
Mental health of students and residents
Many CFAS reps were speakers or moderators for these sessions, which were attended by hundreds of meeting participants.
More than 120 CFAS reps attended the meeting.

4. CFAS-Related Session at LSL 2017
Stephen Angus, MD, of UConn, moderated a session on the GME learning environment.
CFAS rep Evonne Kaplan-Liss, MD, led a session on communicating medicine and science that involved role playing and improv acting.
The CFAS-led Definition of Faculty Working group held an interactive session focused on who, exactly, make up medical school faculty.
Mona Abaza, MD, of Colorado, led a session on modeling positive well-being behavior.

5. Leadership Presentation to the three AAMC Councils
AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD, delivered a leadership presentation to all council attendees, including representatives from CFAS, the Council of Deans, and the Council of Teaching Hospitals. Topics included:
Six great challenges in academic medicine: uncertainty in health care; “post-truth” era; burnout; inequity, division, and injustice; new realities of medical education; a leadership deficit.
CFAS leading effort on well-being and burnout.
AAMC offering more leadership development opportunities.
MedEdPORTAL is now an open access, peer reviewed journal for educational innovations and curricular formats.

6. Leadership Presentation to the three AAMC Councils
AAMC BOD leadership transitions as of the 2017 LSL Meeting:
Chair: M. Roy Wilson, MD
Chair-elect: Lilly Marks
Immediate Past Chair: Marsha D. Rappley, MD
Robert Laskowski, MD, Karen Antman, MD, Janice Farlow, PhD, Catherine Lucey, MD, Vincent Pellegrini, MD, rotating off.
Kirk Calhoun, MD, J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, Joseph Kerschner, MD, Daniel Podolsky, MD, Gabriela Popescu, PhD, rotating on.
CFAS Chair Scott Gitlin, MD, began his second term as AAMC BOD member
Distinguished Service Member Awards:
Rosemarie Fisher, MD, M. Dewayne Andrews, MD, Steven Gabbe, MD
(Boldface denotes CFAS affiliation)

7. Leadership Presentation to the three AAMC Councils
Karen Fisher, JD, AAMC Chief Public Policy Officer, provided a legislative update, addressing the following issues:
Multiple attempts to repeal and replace ACA failed; advocacy efforts from member institutions were crucial.
Growth in NIH budget and F&A cuts rejected. The AAMC worked with Congress to prohibit administration from reducing F&A rate – again, partnership with AAMC members was crucial to this success.
The AAMC is working on getting permanent legal fix for DACA.
The AAMC signed an amicus brief on the travel ban and has gotten the administration to be somewhat open to making exceptions in travel ban for medical students.

8. Leadership Presentation to the three AAMC Councils
100+ op-eds published by AAMC-affiliated individuals.
AAMC action has 274,000 members with 59,000 “taken actions.”
AAMC has issued over 40 press statements and put out full-page ads on ACA repeal-and-replace debate.
But ultimately, our members’ continued contact with Congressional reps is most crucial. Members should remain involved in advocacy efforts.
“In unpredictable times, it’s better to be prepared than to predict.”

9. Opening Plenary: The Road to Character with David Brooks
“Annunciation moments” moments bring clarity to our sense of purpose by striking us with beauty and calling to us with sense of depth.
Becoming a master in most crafts requires practical and innate knowledge – having a feel, a touch for the craft that comes from the heart. It’s more caught than taught. Mentors teach us subtle distinctions about how to be in a craft.
Younger generations want/need to be taught hardship, how to work through it, and how to succeed through it.

10. Opening Plenary: The Road to Character with David Brooks
Great professors introduce us to highest experiences and deepest ways of thinking and being.
A good institution changes who you are, doesn’t just hand you a degree.
Great institutions create an ethos around a profession.
The success of our lives depends on how well we execute on our commitments. Our sense of commitment improves our inner character.

11. Leadership Plenary with Marsha Rappley, MD, and Darrell G. Kirch, MD
What experiences are essential that can only be achieved in medical school? How are we building from medical school through residency into the practice of medicine? What competencies are needed?
The cost of what we do is undermining our ability to have a healthy nation, diverse workforce.

12. Leadership Plenary with Marsha Rappley, MD, and Darrell G. Kirch, MD
Three worrying trends: growing lack of confidence in higher education and its cost to individuals, increasing cost of health care to individual patient, and falling margins in academic health centers.
We need to change the value proposition to move onto better systems by lowering costs and the amount of time it takes to train physicians and scientists.
“I convey to you a sense of urgency that comes from 40 years in health care.” If we don’t reduce the cost and time of training, people who don’t share our values will fill the vacuum we leave.

13. Leadership Plenary with Marsha Rappley, MD, and Darrell G. Kirch, MD
“Post-truth era” – when objective facts are less influential than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
There is a growing challenge to truth from fake news, social media opinions, etc. – this is fundamental challenge to science.
Scientific truth has led to numerous advances including decrease in death from diabetes, better treatment for schizophrenia.
But scientific progress for schizophrenia was enabled by a more ethical attitude toward treating schizophrenics. Science alone wasn’t enough.

14. Leadership Plenary with Marsha Rappley, MD, and Darrell G. Kirch, MD
We must always balance our ethics and evidence. We need to resist post-truth politically, but we also need to get our own house in order: We need to remove barriers that persist for too many groups to access health care.
Bias and prejudice are enemies of science. Our personal, conscious and unconscious bias affects how we treat patients.
Whatever your role, take a stand and push back against post-truth.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.” – Sen. Daniel Patrick “Pat” Moynihan

15. Plenary: The Future of Medicine in Three Vignettes with Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD
Three areas transforming medicine:
Genetic prediction/manipulation
Deep learning (artificial intelligence)
Precision medicine, specifically in cancer
Some of the biggest breakthroughs are happening in nexus between these areas.
If we want transformative impact on cancer, we have to have good clinical trials with appropriate thinking about how to set up a trial long before it starts, design trial with specific populations in mind.
Using computational algorithms could theoretically detect the disease before it materializes by analyzing “reservoir” of disease.

16. Plenary: The Future of Medicine in Three Vignettes with Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD
Conclusion:
Medicine isn’t just tech. We can use technology to bring health advances, but it can also go terribly wrong.
Potential downsides: Excessive surveillance, and over- diagnosis and over-treatment.
The transformative potential of these advances demand that we figure out how to teach them to our trainees.

17. Closing Plenary: Trading Places - A Panel Discussion Led by Anna Quindlen
Best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen led a panel discussion on empathy and humanism in health care with four physicians who had also become patients through severe injuries and health issues.
Lucky Jain, MD, MBA, suffered a heart attack and found greater meaning and empathy in life through his spiritual recovery.
Sherry Wren, MD, grappled with an identity crisis when she temporarily lost her ability to perform surgeries because of a surgical complication that affected her spine.
David Carbone, MD, PhD, recovered from lymphoma and gained a better understanding of how patients and their family members process grief.
Oluwaferanmi O. Okanlami, MD, MS, PGY3, lost function in his legs in an accident and learned what it was like to live without a sense of control.

18. Closing Plenary: Trading Places - A Panel Discussion Led by Anna Quindlen
Takeaways:
One way to improve patient experience is to always ask if anything can be done to help patients with their pain.
We have to be sensitive to people’s dignity and deal with them well interpersonally. Some use humor to do this. “Patients feel like I’m more human because of my disability.”
Being a patient can give different perspective on informed consent and procedures: a condition/complication is binary for patients – either they get it or they don’t. People don’t get a certain percentage of death, or any other side effect or complication.

19. CFAS Business Meeting
This year’s business meeting covered the leadership slate for the CFAS Ad Board, provided updates on CFAS committees and working groups, and solicited feedback on how CFAS can further engage and provide value to member societies.
Enhanced outreach to societies identified as a top CFAS priority.
Committee and working group chairs called on CFAS reps to participate in a committee/working group work aligned with their interests.
CFAS reps were encouraged to engage with Chicago-based stake holders like ACGME, ABMS, etc., in planning the CFAS Spring Meeting in Chicago.

20. CFAS 2017 Highlights
Promoted five AAMC nationally prominent advocacy sign-on letters to academic societies
Recruited reps to participate in a number of AAMC meetings, workshops, and events
Presented multiple sessions on GME, well-being, communication, the fourth year of medical school, and other sessions at the AAMC’s annual meeting
Published a CFAS meeting session as a paper in Academic Medicine
Sent reps to the “Action Collaborative” – a national effort to address clinician well-being sponsored by the AAMC, ACGME, and NAM
Curated resources on NIH F&A issues for dissemination on aamc.org and maintained the AAMC’s “Well-Being in Academic Medicine” website
Developed an advocacy webpage on aamc.org and continued to lead an ongoing AAMC effort to define faculty

21. CFAS Membership Update
84 CFAS representatives with PhD or MD-PhD degrees
New member societies since 2016:
The Academy for Professionalism in Health Care (APHC)
The Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP)

22. CFAS Committee & Working Groups 2017
CFAS committees and working groups, most of which are open to all CFAS reps and enjoy wide participation, have made progress this year:
Diversity Committee, our newest committee, launched and populated; developing long-range agenda, overarching priorities, and a toolkit of resources on faculty diversity. 
Faculty Resilience Working Group contributed sessions and speakers at LSL; “Well-Being in Academic Medicine” website continues to grow – - originated from this group.
Advocacy Committee now chaired by Joseph Hill, MD, PhD; curates advocacy resources for faculty on “CFAS Advocacy” webpage; discussed CFAS advocacy approach for the coming year with a focus on society involvement.

23. CFAS Committee & Working Groups 2017
Evaluation Committee developing new metrics to advance CFAS’ effectiveness – demographics survey to all CFAS reps soon.
Basic Science Working Group now chaired by Rich Eckert, PhD. Communicating the message and value of science.
Communications Committee curating resources to onboard new reps; providing periodic updates about events and accomplishments
AAMC’s Working Group on Definition of Faculty, led by Rosemarie Fisher, MD; developing opinion paper for publication; conducted a session at LSL.

24. CFAS Committee & Working Groups 2017
Mission Alignment Working Group, chaired by Stewart Babbott, MD;
engaged in institutional matters as they affect faculty.
Value of Faculty as Educators Working Group, chaired by Lisa Bellini, MD; produced a summary document and informed the definition of faculty group.
Nominating and Engagement Committee, reviewing applications for new
organizational membership and recommending the leadership slate.
Program Committee, chaired by CFAS Chair-Elect, Gabriela Popescu, PhD with input from CFAS Chair Scott Gitlin, MD. Currently working on developing the 2018 CFAS Spring Meeting conference in Chicago.

25. Outgoing Administrative Board Members
Rosemarie L. Fisher, MD, of Yale School of Medicine, representing the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine)
Etty “Tika” Benveniste, PhD, representing UAB School of Medicine
Samuel C. Matheny, MD, MPH, of University of Kentucky College of Medicine, representing the American Academy of Family Physicians

26. New Administrative Board Members
Nita Ahuja, MD, representing Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
J. David Warren, PhD, representing Weill Cornell Medicine
Arthur Derse, MD, JD, of Medical College of Wisconsin, representing the Association of Bioethics Program Directors

27. Full CFAS Leadership Slate, 2017-18
Vincent D. Pellegrini, MD, Immediate Past Chair
Scott Gitlin, MD, Chair
Gabriela Popescu, PhD, Chair-Elect
Mona Abaza, MD
Nita Ahuja, MD
Arthur Derse, MD, JD
Alan W. Dow, III, MD
Richard L. Eckert, PhD
Robin McGoey, MD
VJ Periyakoil, MD
J. David Warren, PhD
Maureen T. Connelly, MD, MPH (GFA Chair Elect)
Michael E. Engel, MD, PhD
Amy Hildreth, MD
Joseph Hill, MD, PhD
Carolyn Meltzer, MD

28. Networking Opportunities for CFAS Reps at LSL
The CFAS/GFA joint reception allowed CFAS reps to network with counterparts in the AAMC’s Group on Faculty Affairs (GFA). CFAS and GFA are in conversation about a possible joint conference.
The CFAS networking breakfast provided an opportunity for reps to get together to discuss issues, share their work, and learn from each other.
A group of CFAS reps engaged in family medicine traditionally gathers at CFAS and AAMC meetings each year for networking, including this year in Boston. They are developing a plan to expand the group and convene more regularly.

29. CFAS Knowledge Sharing Session
The CFAS Knowledge Sharing Session has become a staple of CFAS programming at both LSL and CFAS spring meetings. It is an open-mic forum to freely and honestly share thoughts, ideas, and experiences to help advance the effectiveness of CFAS.
Opening remarks:
The variety and diversity of professional backgrounds and expertise within CFAS membership is its greatest advantage but creates challenges around keeping different constituencies engaged and satisfied.
Society outreach:
We need to continue to communicate with societies the value in CFAS and the AAMC. Contact between AAMC leadership and society leadership is needed to retain societies.

30. CFAS Knowledge Sharing Session
Society outreach:
We should have committee/working group chairs reach out to societies to invite their members to be speakers at meetings on issues that matter to societies.
Society reps attending AAMC/CFAS meetings should always talk about the benefits of these meetings to their society leadership – this needs to be mandatory for society reps.
Societies want communication from CFAS. CFAS could also help societies communicate to medical students to help societies attract them to their specialties.
Registration costs are a concern.

31. CFAS Knowledge Sharing Session
Structure of CFAS:
Should we add “special interest groups” to CFAS committees and working groups to help different constituencies (family physicians, primary care physicians, etc.) have a platform and advance scholarship?
Examining the structure of CFAS in terms of its committees and working groups will be a priority in the coming year.
Term limits will be revisited. Some thought term limits for junior reps are too short - only long enough to allow them to get a feel for how everything works before their term ends.

32. CFAS Knowledge Sharing Session
Future of CFAS:
CFAS should serve as a forum where younger and older members of academic medicine can learn from each other.
AAMC has a lot of reach and CFAS (faculty) represents the largest group of constituents in the AAMC. CFAS has tremendous, unharnessed power to change direction of academic medicine.
CFAS could engage with representatives from the LCME and ACGME to learn about innovative models in training.

33. 2018 CFAS Spring Meeting in Chicago
The 2018 Council of Faculty and Academic Societies (CFAS) Spring Meeting will be held April 19-21, 2018, at the Westin Chicago River North in Chicago.
Anticipated 2018 meeting themes and programming topics:
Institutional Wellness
Faculty Leadership
Communication and Advocacy
Faculty Development
Medical Education & Training
Diversity and Inclusion
Governance
Funds Flow and Academic Health Center Operations
Research/Scholarly Activities

34. For More Details… Learn more about CFAS Membership Issues Leadership
Learn more about our upcoming spring meeting:
Please contact Eric Weissman with any questions at or