Curtis Selected as President-Elect of APM Organization

Founded in 1954, APM is an organization of more than 100 chairs of Departments of Medicine in the United States and Canada that has worked to advance issues of importance to medical education and patient care.

As a part of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM), the APM works to aid professional development and research in internal medicine.

Curtis assumes the role of president-elect in July and will become president of the APM in July 2023.

“It’s an honor to be selected among my peers, who are chairs of Departments of Medicine throughout the U.S.,” Curtis says.

The APM usually meets by conference call four times each year and twice in person.

“We will cover the broad range of topics that department chairs have to deal with on a regular basis: recruitment and retention of faculty, the education of medical students and residents, the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Departments of Medicine, challenges faced by women faculty, diversity, physician compensation plans, etc.,” Curtis says.

Being in the APM president-elect position also places Curtis on the AAIM board of directors for the next three years. The board usually meets in person four times a year and once by conference call.

The board of directors includes representatives from several constituent organizations, such as the APM (department chairs), and associations for clerkship directors (medical students), program directors (internal medicine residencies), subspecialty fellowship program directors, and administrators, Curtis notes.

“The board addresses issues that impact all these areas of internal medicine and its subspecialties,” she says. “An example would be mandates from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) on the number and types of faculty that are required for teaching internal medicine residents throughout their three-year training programs.”

“We provide input to the ACGME when it develops its policies, and then we have to discuss how to implement them, both in recruiting appropriate faculty and also in funding these positions.”

“I am extremely pleased to see Dr. Curtis named to this important position. Department of Medicine chairs are responsible for monitoring a wide range of key issues,” says Allison Brashear, MD, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “I am particularly interested in the work of this organization in the areas of diversity and inclusion and in advancing women’s leadership in medicine.”