The changing medical profession
Conference to address creating health care workforce for 21st century
1:43 p.m., Oct. 5, 2011--A series in The New York Times is examining recent shifts in medical care—ranging from a trend toward assessing the people skills of medical school applicants to the increasing difficulty of finding young doctors to take over for retiring family practitioners.
The most recent article in the series, “When the Nurse Wants to Be Called ‘Doctor,’” addresses the turf skirmishes that have begun to break out on the medical playing field as providers like nurses, physical therapists and pharmacists earn doctoral degrees and play increasingly important roles in patient care.
Campus Stories
From graduates, faculty
Doctoral hooding
A cadre of academic, policy and clinical experts will explore some of these same issues at an upcoming one-day conference hosted by the University of Delaware and Thomas Jefferson University.
“Creating the Health Care Workforce for the 21st Century” will be held on Friday, Oct. 21, at Jefferson’s Dorrance H. Hamilton Building from 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m. Part of UD’s Creating Knowledge-Based Partnerships series, the conference is sponsored by the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance (DHSA).
The meeting will focus on addressing the challenges of workforce development under health reform and developing creative approaches to extend the health care workforce when there is a shortage of primary care practitioners.
The program includes:
- A keynote address by the Edward G. Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania;
- A talk by Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, on the benefits of cultivating collaborative and coordinated care; and
- A presentation by JoAnne Conroy, chief health care officer of the American Association of Medical Colleges, on the need for transformational change in the education of heath care professionals.
In addition, the agenda includes two panel discussions. The morning session, moderated by Michael Vergare, senior vice president for academic affairs at Jefferson, will focus on building a team-based workforce. The afternoon panel—with DHSA executive director Kathleen Matt as moderator and Secretary Rita Landgraf, Delaware Health and Social Services, as a panelist—will address promoting and sustaining innovative approaches to workforce development.
Registration fees are $40 for DHSA members (UD, Jefferson, Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, and Christiana Care Health System); $60 for those not affiliated with DHSA; and $20 for students.
Registration is available online. For more information, contact Gina Porter, University of Delaware, at chs-info@udel.edu or Jeannine Kinney, TJU, at 215-955-0194.
About DHSA
The Delaware Health Sciences Alliance was established in 2009 with four founding partners—Christiana Care Health System, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, Thomas Jefferson University, and the University of Delaware.
The alliance enables partner organizations to collaborate and conduct cutting-edge biomedical research, to improve the health of Delawareans through access to services in the state and region, and to educate the next generation of health care professionals.
DHSA’s unique, broad-based partnership focuses on establishing innovative collaborations among experts in medical education and practice, health economics and policy, population sciences, public health, and biomedical sciences and engineering. For more visit information, see the website.
Article by Diane Kukich
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson