The Institute for Good Medicine at the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) and the PAMED Patient Advocacy Council are working with county medical societies to launch the Future Doc Program to encourage students of all ages to pursue a medical career.
Research from the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s State of Medicine Report suggests that the best way to recruit physicians to Pennsylvania is to home-grow them. Practicing physicians can help encourage qualified students to pursue a medical career.
Because the program will be driven by county medical societies, physicians at a local level will be able to design and develop mentoring opportunities that make sense for their communities.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society recommends that county medical societies follow a five-stage implementation plan. You can view the detailed plan. Here is a quick listing of the five stages:
- Research Stage – Get started by organizing a small committee of interested physicians. The committee should research local opportunities for mentoring and target audiences. You’ll also need to understand what the members of the committee are willing to commit to.
- Programming Stage – Anyone you contact will want to know what you can offer them, so program planning is essential. You’ll also have to understand funds and supplies you’ll need. Perhaps local service clubs have funding sources. As for the program itself, the Institute for Good Medicine has had success with Skills Nights for high school, college, and medical students. Other programming ideas include medical science fairs, health care essay contests, and career fairs.
- Initial Contact Stage—Once your physician committee understands what type of mentoring activity they’ll undertake, as well as your target audience, make some initial contacts. Your committee may have personal contacts, and a simple phone call is all that is needed. In other cases you might need to do a little work to find the right person.
- Event Stage—Now the fun begins. You’ll want to:
- Provide volunteers with details such as date, time, location, directions, and parking.
- Don’t forget to promote the event. Used standard tools like posters and press releases but also use new resources like Facebook and Twitter.
- Create a checklist of the supplies that you will need like Markers, audio-visual equipment, medical supplies, and name badges.
- Consider whether a dress rehearsal is needed.
- Do you need food for the event? You should at least have refreshments on hand for your volunteers.
- Continuation Stage—Once you’ve done the first event, it’s very likely that the organization will want to do another. Often continuation from year to year isn’t an issue. You’ll just want to create a reminder to touch base with the group again at a later time.
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