Good evening, everybody. I expect more people will join on and off as we go through this meeting, as we talk about kind of the state of our African American community for the AAPMNR. So for those who don't know me, my name is Volvonte Jones. I am the chair for this African American community. And so you will hear from me in several forms as a community lead, whether that is through our email systems that we have. So our primary email that we use for this group is our melanin in rehab email address, our Gmail address. If you do not have that, please let me know. I'll put a message in the chat because I want to make sure that we get all individuals involved. You also sometimes see cross-posting on our, in the FIZ forum for our community group, as well as posting in the, if you are on Facebook and have joined our Black Societies group on Facebook, you'll see, have an opportunity to see postings in those groups as well. So those are multiple ways to be able to get in touch with me and then other members of our executive board as we go through the year with goals to plan out some of the activities that we do, as well as support our members through educational processes and information. So just to remind ourselves of what the goal of our African American community is, is to bring together our Black and Black Diaspora physiatrists together so that we can address topics that are important for not only us as physicians or for our medical students soon to be physicians, but also to address the important topics that may be impacting members of the African American community as we, as physiatrists have to address their needs coming forward. And so our goal here is to get in touch with the variety of our different members of our communities who take part in clinical care and the educational component across all fields of PM&R. And so we appreciate the time in which you spend here with us tonight, as we talk about what some of the goals of our community for this upcoming year are, and also get some input from our community members on what types of ideas and topics that we can do to better serve our members as we go over the year. So with that being said, again I want to, this meeting that we have here is in lieu of our typical, which would have been our monthly meeting for May, because we wanted to make sure that we had opportunity to come through the AAPM&R and maybe potentially connect with some individuals who had not been on our previous Miller list or may have not been as connected to us as we had, may have wanted in the past, to allow all these, all these individuals to be able to participate into our community. And so typically what we do as a community is we have a monthly meeting, usually on the second Thursday of the month, in which we spend our times talking about various topics within the community, general business, and then oftentimes have lectures on different topics that may be of interest to our group. And so if you are not receiving those messages, feel free to drop your email in the chat so that I can make sure that you are attached, and we'll get the upcoming messages that way as well, because we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to stay connected. So with that being said, I'm looking at our list. Before we get started, I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce some of the individuals who make up our board, our executive board. Our executive board includes, for the community, includes our liaisons to our other support groups, including the NMA, the AAP, SNMA as well. And so with that being said, I would like our members that are on our executive board to, one by one, just introduce yourself to the group, and then we can go from there. So Dr. Clark, if you want to. I can. Thanks for that introduction, Vavonte. I'm Jensen A. Clark. I actually serve as the NMA PM&R section chair this year, and so I've been helping, been involved with the AAP group at AAPM&R for several years, and this year have the opportunity to chair our NMA chapter. So I serve, like Dr. Jones said, as that liaison between NMA as well as AAPM&R. And then Sidney, I think, are you on? Hello, I'm Sidney. I'm a upcoming fourth year at Meharry. I kind of help out with the secretary's stuff, and also I'm in SNMA. And trying to get back so I can see the full screen of who's all here. Is there anybody else here that I, from the e-board right now? Hey everyone, I'm Lauren. I was the SNMA head liaison for the past two years, and will be transitioning that role in the summer. I've been helping with connecting SNMA to our AAPM&R group and facilitating most of the events for the SNMA PM&R interest group the past two years. Like I said, we are going to have some exec transitions soon, and we'll make sure that they're transitioned and ready to jump in and help out in any way possible. And then Kamaria, are you on here? Yes, hello everybody. My name is Kamaria Coleman. I'm an almost second year resident at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences. I am helping out transitioning the secretary role, and also starting up the research liaison, trying to get a cohesive research for medical students and residents. Awesome, and is there anybody else on here that just joined that I didn't get an opportunity to see from our list of people from the executive board? I guess I am on that list. I'm Carla Watson. I serve on the board of governors as well as the chair of the inclusion and engagement committee, so just try to provide feedback and things that are upcoming with AAPM&R that we could benefit from hearing about sooner than later. All right, well thank you guys for those opportunities. If anyone is interested, there are always opportunities to be involved, not only just on the executive board that we are in search of a vice president. If anybody is interested in being involved more, please let me know. But there are also opportunities throughout the year that allows us to be able to interact and do different activities. So with that being said, I would like to first jump into getting, talking to our liaisons and getting some updates on what are some of the upcoming events in your community that the liaison is holding that would be important for us as an SMA or as the AAPM&R physiatry group to know upcoming. I can kick that off, Dr. Jones. Like she mentioned, I'm the NMA liaison and we're going to be hosting NMA convention this year. It's going to be in New York City. We're very excited. It's August 3rd through the 7th. We're going to also be having our first formal annual Carl Granger trainee symposium. So if you, any trainees, residents, medical students that are interested in presenting, we're still accepting abstracts, feel free to email me those. That weekend we're also going to have a sponsored hands-on ultrasound course, which was very successful the last year. And we'll be able to bring that sponsorship back to our section this year. And then finally, if you are, or aware of any local programs in the New York City area, we want to make sure that we're connecting with the local residents and residency programs. And so if you have a personal connection or know of anyone, not necessarily just in academics, but as well as a private practice in the New York area, feel free to reach out to myself. I'm going to put all that information here in the chat and I'll put my email as well. Like I said, we're very excited. I can't believe it's May. We're already planning almost there in August. So we've been doing a lot of hard work this year and I look forward to seeing everyone in New York in August. Thank you, Jensenai, for that update. Oh, I see your plug in there. All right. Well, Dr. Watson, would you be kind enough to tell us a little bit about Ivy? Sure. We just finished our podcast where we interviewed some of the awardees of the Influencer and Innovators. So if anybody hasn't had a chance to listen to them, feel free to check those out because it's a great opportunity to participate for next year and just kind of get an idea of some of the things that were awarded. But we had 21 awardees and certainly anybody along their career spectrum has the opportunity to present, to be nominated and to win the award. So please look into this as an opportunity for next year. We also just completed our PGY2 retreat. So particularly, Dr. Coleman, I know next year you will be finishing your PGY2 year in the spring. We'll be doing that again. And it actually was a two-day retreat here at the Academy in Rosemont, Illinois. So it gives you a weekend away after your second year of residency, which obviously everybody needs to really decompress. But to kind of talk about what you went through to kind of prepare you for PGY3 year, you get some lectures, you get some networking. So I think it's a really good opportunity and we hope to grow it. Right now, we don't have like a limited number, so we really are looking to grow it and support you all after you finish that year. So we solicited participants right after the holidays. So if you just start checking the website and we'll be sure to communicate through this community as well as to when to solicit if you are interested in joining that as well. And then always a shameless plug for the Assembly. We had great networking, new networking opportunities this past year in New Orleans for early career doctors, for new members, for medical students. So we will be repeating a lot of those networking opportunities in San Diego in November. So please, please, if you have the availability and time, it'd be great to have you all join us in San Diego. And we always show up strong, so no need to back down in San Diego. Well, thank you for that update. One of the things that you did mention was the, it was the Innovators Award, and that was new for this year, correct? Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what, you know, the criteria that you guys were looking for? So honestly, it was an award that we created to give members an opportunity throughout their career to showcase something that's not always research-based, it's not always academic, but maybe something you're doing innovative in your community, something new in your program, something you're trying to build, something that you use as your skills as a physiatrist or a physiatrist in training, something that kind of makes you stand out from just, you know, your everyday work that we do. So like I said, really was, is an award to help broaden what we highlight and acknowledge within the academy. And, you know, you don't have to have been practicing for 10 years to be acknowledged, because obviously people do a lot of amazing things in their training. And so really just kind of wanted to give people an opportunity to be acknowledged for the other things that are doing besides just being a doctor. Well, great. And then this is also, I guess it's important for our community, because as a community, when we look at these different awards that are available, and I know this year, we talked about just awards overall, the big awards for the annual assembly, as we always do. But also this award as well would be something that members of our community, if you think of other individuals that may meet these criteria or may are doing interesting things that we don't always hear about, we'd love to have them nominated when the next award cycle comes forward. And that's usually after the assembly. Correct. Yeah, we start taking. That we'd be looking for those awards. So it looks like we might have a couple other members of our board that may have joined us. So I wanted to give them an opportunity to introduce themselves and just have a mention of kind of what their role or previous role were. So Dr. Oney, do you want to introduce yourself to the group? Hi, everybody. It's Dr. Oney. I'm not, I don't know if I want to put on my video because I did not, I was not prepared to be on video. But I am the former chair of the African American community. I'm currently in the role of the HPNL, which is the Health Policy and Legislation Committee with AAPMNR, but still active obviously with this community. And so I went to, so we went to DC to advocate on behalf of some bills that are going through Congress that are to benefit both our patients and ourselves as physicians. And so that was really cool in April. So, you know, I'm learning a lot about kind of this new role, but, you know, I think it's wonderful to continue to stay involved in everything. And, you know, I'm just learning a lot more about the AAPMNR as a whole. So it's been a good experience. Awesome. Thank you. And again, members of our community, community as well, there's a lot of different committees for the AAPMNR that you can volunteer for. And so the HPNL is one, IE and others out there. So if you want to become more involved with AAPMNR, we'd love to have our members spread out because I think it gets a great diverse mindset in these different areas and how we can approach things. So with that said, Dr. Bernal, do you want to introduce yourself to the group? Hi, I'm coming on camera to say hello to everyone. Glad to see you-all participating. I don't know anything I really need to talk about today, except the fact that we need, as a group, to always take time to share our experiences, good and challenging, with each other. People think of networking, unfortunately, only as for academic reasons or advocacy reasons, but we need to advocate for each other. So I just want to give people an opportunity today in our networking to share concerns, share if you're going through anything and need a reflection on what you might be experiencing. And there might be some people that have gone through something that can be very helpful to you. So that's all that I wanted to say from a networking perspective. I've been busy. I'm doing a physiatry and lifestyle medicine grand rounds tomorrow morning for my organization. I use lifestyle medicine with physiatry to treat neck, mid-back, and low-back spine conditions. I'm trying to set up a shared medical appointment virtually to do the work in groups. So that is currently what I'm working on. And I'm actually training others to work with me so that when I'm ready to hand that baton, it won't fall on the ground. Somebody will pick it up and keep working. Because physiatrists look at the whole person and their function. I think that marries well with lifestyle medicine because that looks at the whole lifestyle and how that can be impacted. So I'm hoping to continue to work with residents, get them inspired. We don't have physiatry residents at WellSpan. We're a large system, over 28,000 employees, over 2,500 providers. I think we're up to nine hospitals. It's hard to keep up. It's a big organization. But we're trying to inspire people to change a perspective. And I see lifestyle medicine as our way of working with epigenetics, ACEs, social determinants of health, to turn around the health of our communities. There's a health equity through lifestyle medicine initiative through the American College of Lifestyle Medicine that I participate in. And basically, as I transition in the next few years into retirement from seeing individual patients, my goal is just to raise the health of the community. So I know we've talked about that at these meetings before. I recommended everybody look at the video, They're Trying to Kill Us, which is a documentary about how our communities are being sabotaged with our health and wellness and health care on down the line. And it's just my mission to do what I can with persons and groups to turn around the health of the community. So that's my personal mission. And I also feel like we need to support each other. So I would say if anybody's having concerns or challenges, please feel free to talk in this group. And you might get some wisdom or experience, or feel free to reach out later if you don't feel comfortable in a group. That's it for me. Absolutely. Thank you. And Kamari, I was hoping that Alpha was going to be able to join, but I don't see that he's joined. I know that you're on the membership committee for FIT. Do you have any, or can you speak about any of the upcoming things that FIT is working on that may be beneficial to our community? One of the main things is, is there anybody who's in residency right now? We're looking for ambassadors for the residency programs. Actually, every residency program at Physiatry does not have a AAPMR residency ambassador. So that's a very low stress, easy way to get involved. Essentially, your role is helping disseminate information from AAPMR to your residency program. Another opportunity is applying for the FIT board. Applications are currently open. I was on it this year for a membership committee. And honestly, the time commitment is not that bad. There are several in-person meetings that we have throughout the year, such as attending the academy meeting. And also, each committee usually meets in person in Illinois at least once. But they understand you're a resident, and if you can't make it, it's completely fine. Thank you, Christina. I was looking for the information to put. So that's pretty much the main things that we have coming down. And you'll see kind of like more of our things that we're putting in effort through the year, such as like access to community resources. If you're not a part of the PHIS forum, it's a great way to get like email updates when people have questions about like certain communities you can reply to. So those are some things that we've been working on in terms of like the council for the year and how to better integrate people into the community. And then Lauren, I know that you're in a time of transition with SNMA, but I wanted to know if you could provide a little bit of the SMA, talk a little bit about the mentorship program. And if there are any students that may be still, any students that may still be looking for mentors or what we can do as a community to support those students. Of course. So we are still doing the mentorship program. As you mentioned, we are in a state of transition. So typically the months between when we have AMEC, which is typically end of March or early April through about June, we're kind of in a standstill with most of our programming, unfortunately. And they're trying to figure out ways to do that nationally to improve that. But we're still doing the mentorship program nationally to improve that. But as of right now, the mentorship coordinators will most likely change. And technically none of us have an executive board position until they re-select or yeah, re-select any of the executive board members. So we can't currently do any programming or continue to assign mentors through SNMA. There might be another way to do it through the AAPMNR group within the African-American community. I think that might be a better way to start establishing some of these mentorship initiatives and we can just help through our SNMA mentorship initiatives. So we don't have to take a three month break every time there's a change in the executive board or a transition in our leadership. So in terms of who needs new mentors, I'm sure we have several. Our interest group has actually increased since AMEC from probably about 250 to now 279. So people are definitely hearing about us and getting excited and joining the group meeting, which also makes me think that people would be interested in gaining mentors. And a lot of people responded to Kamari's request for interest in research opportunities as well. So I think we definitely have medical student interest and that we would be more than happy to try to facilitate some mentorship connections, but it might be better to do it through the AAPMNR. In terms of updates for our transitioning, the National Academic Affairs Committee sent out a form back in April, April 20th. And I sent that to our group and re-sent it again in May. The deadline for that is June 7th. So I would think that we'll hear back from them by the end of June in terms of who will become our new specialty interest group liaison. And from there, hopefully our executive board will expand again and be operational in July. So I think that's probably a good timeline in terms of when we might be able to get our mentorship initiative running again. Awesome. And I think I agree with you. I think the goal would be to transition that mentorship program into the larger group so that we could continue to assign mentors and pick up people throughout the year as needed. So we can talk more about that in upcoming on what that would look like. But for other people who are in this group and don't know about the program, so SNMA is working with medical students to assign them to mentors in PMNR within our African-American community who might be able to provide them for guidance throughout. These are students through all years. So provide them for guidance as they continue to have interest in PMNR, maybe some guidance towards away programs or summer rotations or research type topics as well to really help bulk up our students. These students, not only their resume, but their knowledge base of PMNR as they make this decision to whether they wanted to go into our field full time. So if you would be interested in being a mentor for a student, our goal is to have you meet with our students at least quarterly, if not more frequently to talk about their interests. So if you have any interests, feel free to let me know. Since right now SNMA is in transition. And so when they are able to start up again, we'll get that list and match you back up to a student. Like she said, there are some students who have not been matched up. So please let us know if you have any interest in being a mentor in that way. So, okay. And I think I saw that Alpha did get on, if he's still here. Hey, yeah, I'm so sorry for joining late. Oh no, no problem. Alpha, we were just trying to, Kamaria told us a little bit of things about what was going on from the FIT standpoint that might be beneficial for our community. But since you are the new FIT president, well, new FIT president for the upcoming year, I wanted to give you a chance to introduce yourself and say a little bit about what you're hoping to get out of your FIT term. All right, yeah, hi everybody. My name's Alpha Anders. I am a PGY-4 at LSU. And I am the Physiatrist in Training FIT Board President. This is my third year on the FIT Council. I started as a second year on the Medical Education Committee. Third year, I was elected the Vice President position. And then this fourth year, the President position. The FIT Council has been hands down, bar none, the most rewarding experience I've had outside of clinical care, of course, within medicine. And it's just been extraordinarily fulfilling. And the friendships and bonds that I've made with other residents and fellows from across the country and the interactions and friendships I've made with really, really, really impressive physicians across the country, like Dr. Watson herself, on the Board of Governors. It's just been such a cool networking experience, learning experience, see what goes into running an academy such as AAP Menar and how the wheels turn and participate, shaping the field, pushing it forward, making PMENAR better. So being on the fit board is very tangible. You get to have take-home experiences where you are actively making PMENAR a better place. And for folks on this call, helping to make it more an inclusive place. And so I think that if you are a resident interested in doing those sorts of things, FIT is a great place for you to get your toes wet. And there are multiple ways to participate with FIT. The most broad exposure is through the ambassador program that did just close. I'm not too sure how rigid that is, especially if anybody on this calls from a program that does not have any ambassador representation. We are trying to make sure that we have ambassadors representing every single program across the country and we're close, but not there. The ambassador program serves as a liaison. The ambassadors themselves serve as a liaison between their respective residency programs and AAP Menar's FIT Council and AAP Menar at large. And we're trying to facilitate two-way communication, not just AAP Menar pushing stuff to residency programs, but we also want to know what's taking place, boots on the ground, firsthand experience that residents and fellows are having. And that way we can make sure that we're addressing and meeting their needs as an academy. So the ambassador program is a really cool introductory experience. It's really tailored to second, third year type residents that are earlier on that want to learn more about AAP Menar and be that conduit. With that said, if you want to have a national role, there are second years, Kamaria, that are on the FIT Council board themselves. We've had interns on the FIT Council board as well, so there is no age restriction. And that is how you have that national impact, that larger impact. But there is a bit more to it. There's an application process and kind of taking a step back, the FIT Council board is comprised of liaisons on all the key strategic coordinating committees AAP Menar has. I don't want to try to name them all just because I don't want to forget any of them, but MEC, I could tell you for sure was one of them. And then there are subcommittees that not every subcommittee has a FIT liaison, but a few of them, some of them do. And so as a committee member, you get to spend time working with your committee to accomplish and achieve their goals. The FIT Council liaison is a key member to the committees, speaking firsthand experience and then also hearing from other residents on different committees. The committees are really leaning on us FIT members to provide that resident fellow perspective on the initiatives that they're pursuing. And so it's not like you're just there to have a seat at the table. They want you at the table to make some noise. So it's a really, really, really fun way to engage. I actively looked forward to my medical education committee meetings. It was just such a fun way to engage. And then as a FIT board, we all collectively meet averagely like probably once a month, every other month, mostly digital. We do have an in-person winter meeting, and then we also meet together in person at the annual assembly. And the FIT Council board themselves, ourselves, we have our own initiatives that we pursue. So, you know, from planning annual assembly sessions to our own member may sessions that we held, and then we are just engaged in different things that the academy is doing. One of the really fun things we got to do at this last winter meeting, the new job network, Aspire, the job fellowship board, we basically were a focus group. We, before the meeting, got on, played around on it. And then the engineers and creators of that job network were looking to us for feedback on how to improve it and make it meet the needs of the residents and fellows, early career members. So it's just really, really, really, really, really fun. I don't know how else to express that. And I highly encourage anyone interested in applying. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out. This made my residency experience that much better. Thank you for that. And I think she put some information in a chat about the Aspire career exploration platform. So if you haven't had a chance to go on that platform and look at the options, just click that link in the chat, and that will take you there so that you can explore a little bit more. There's also potentially a link for the applications. I could, I think I just found it. So if you want to learn more about the applications, they just opened like literally today. And they're open through, I think, July 10th. Christina put it in the chat. It's in there, the application link. That's what you get for being late. It's okay. You could double down. You could double down. So definitely check that out. Throw your hat in the ring. And yeah, it's worth it. Well, thank you for that. Gives a good update. So definitely FIT is a good way to come in as a resident and really make a difference and provide some changes. Because that's really important as we get more and more individuals in different programs, to be able to pull out the topics that may be important, especially important for our community, and be able to talk about that on a national scale. So that would be great. And then last, I wanted to check and see if we had a representative here from Representation and Rehab, which is another program for students, usually medical students, who are interested in PM&R. Is there anybody on from the Representation and Rehab group? Okay. So maybe not right now. But I'll see if they have an opportunity to join a little bit later. So with that being said, I wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to talk about some of the upcoming initiatives that we are working on in our community. So we know the importance of, especially when we establish the African-American community, the importance of knowing who our members are, but also learning from our history and for our path, from our past. And so one of the projects that we have set forth, which is going to be basically an oral and written history project that we've been working with some of our medical students and especially residents on, is taking the opportunity to look back into the history of African-American physiatrists within the AAPM&R and within physiatry as a whole. And what we are working with these students are to identify individuals, and it's a part of our history, and doing research to bring forth that we would be able to submit as a community to talk about these individuals and collect these stories, to talk about these individuals so that we can preserve the history of our group and the members of our group as we move forward. And so we're working towards getting this project. We have students and we have names of individuals that we would like to highlight. So if a student reaches out to you because you're one of the individuals that we want to highlight or are looking for further context on other individuals, please be open with talking to them about that information, any history, the stories that you want to tell. Our goal is to be able to put something together by November, which will be the AAPM&R meeting. We're trying to make a decision whether we, if we can put this together as a presentation form, and AAPM&R is allowing video presentations, I guess is the way now, that just opened so that if our community was interested in doing a video presentation and talking about our history, this could be an opportunity for us to put that together and have that presented at the AAPM&R, as part of the online portion of the AAPM&R annual assembly. So that's something that we're hoping to put together. And then also potentially having a digital form that we can keep online in our group so that we can reference back to these individuals. So if you also know of any names that you can think about that you would consider leaders or important individuals in the history of AAPM&R that we may not know about, feel free to reach out to us with names so that we can, we have plenty of students that are interested in looking into these individuals and putting together this kind of presentation, but an oral and written history for our community. And we know as African Americans, oral history especially is very important ingrained in our society. And so this is a cultural thing that we would like to continue forward. So upcoming, we for the rest of the year, so we'll continue to be doing our monthly meetings. Next month in June, since again, it's going to be around transition time for our PG4s to start getting ready to be interns. And then our interns are starting to go into their AAPM&R intern year, is the way I like to think of it. So next month, our goal is to have during our meeting, basically have a talk of a panel discussion about what it takes to be a good AAPM&R resident, but then also some talks about what it takes to be going into intern year, suggestions and goals from our community to help our students transition appropriately. So if next month we'll be sending out soon, because that'll be in a couple of weeks, the invite for that session, but hopefully it'll be a panel discussion between some of our more attending level physiatrists. And also we'll have some of our residents involved as well for that panel discussion. So we'll look forward to seeing that next month. Later in the year with the annual assembly coming up, we will continue to plan to do what we did last year, which is have a meeting, just a meetup session. So last year, the meetup was in the big, what do you call it, expo hall. It was kind of in the back of the expo hall, where we just kind of had meetup networking social time to meet everybody. And then we will have our business meeting like we did, where we will actually sit down and kind of go over some business and some goals of our community as well. So that will be planned for our in-person meeting at the annual assembly. We are also looking to be involved since the annual assembly is going to be in San Diego. We are working to be involved with other medical schools in the community. So if there are SNMA programs or if you know students that would fit to be members of our community that are local to the San Diego area or even SoCal altogether, then we will be very interested in connecting with them because we want to have an opportunity. Some people may not know, but last year, the AAPM&R had a program for students that were kind of interested in medicine, interested in PM&R to come on, I think it was the Wednesday beforehand, to get an introduction to PM&R and us as the AAPM&R. And that's something that we're hoping to do again this year. And so if you have any connections to any programs out there, please let us know. We do know that in the LA area, there's a new program that started this year. They're picking up PGY2 students that is basically associated with one of the LA VAs and the Charles Drew Medical College. And so, you know, those who don't know, Drew is considered one of the HBCUs of medical schools, the only one out west. And they were looking to pick up residents this year, and it looks like they have been doing that, and they will be starting their program this summer. And so we want to make sure that we're having connections with programs like that so that we can reach students or learners at all levels to be involved. And so if you know anybody out there, feel free to reach out to me and let me know. We're hoping to have an event in the community outside of just the general meetup times for the AAPM&R as well. We're working on solidifying what that meetup will look like or community event will look like for us. So as we solidify that, I will let you know in the future what that'll look like. Vivante I would like for us to hear from Phil Marion he joined our I see him in the group he is we'll call us ourselves seasoned PM&R professional he's had many different aspects of his physiatry career over the years and I just like him to introduce himself and to the group and hopefully we'll get him to talk about some of those interesting aspects of his practice over the years in the future Phil no thank you dr. Burnell Debra for calling me out I was trying to keep a low profile but I certainly appreciate you met everyone it's certainly nice to hear all the different voices and what's going on I'm certainly very impressed you know time goes by quickly so as you know dr. Burnell says I'm in a similar vein and that I'm I haven't retired yet but I'm sort of on the edge I've got a couple more years to go and I'm sure one of the things you all talk about is different practice opportunities whether it's clinical and right now do a lot of work at the VA and for those of you who would not have considered the VA I would all seriously consider it you don't make as much as you would in private practice per se you don't have those productivity pressures that you do in private practice but I think if you are in an employed physician I think that you can't go wrong by working at the VA I would recommend it there's lots of opportunities and the benefits of those who may have worked for the federal government and the clinical capacity will know that the benefits are outstanding I think for me what I'm doing right now in my career and we can talk about it another time but I'm sure you all will go over it as I do a lot of expert testimony and a lot of work in that vein which is the reimbursement is substantial and life care plans which really are tailor-made for physiatrists so I really would want any of you to consider that and you can really speak to me offline if you want more detail about that I'm always trying to recruit people to do more of that and to get into the game if you will and so really that's all I have to say but I do it is encouraging to see all the different folks online here and what you're doing with the different aspects of the various organizations and I think it's it's it's it's wonderful and I hope that we can get many more involved thank you thank you dr. me I'm glad you mentioned about the VA because you know they have a total force fitness program through the VA that is partly like lifestyle medicine partly integrative medicine and they have many opportunities I have patients that have done mindfulness based stress reduction programs acupuncture programs massage and this is through their VA benefits now each VA is not identical they all have their sort of regional flavors you know it depends on the mix but this is a opportunity to practice integrative style of medicine through the VA and I just wanted to emphasize that did you have anything else to say about that Phil no I totally agree Debra and I and that you'd be really you folks you'd be really surprised how open the VA is to different types of practices I mean they're just sort of integrated health and wellness program is very strong at least the one here in DC and I know there are others across the country and it's just I think a lot of people don't look into it because as the VA and I understand I'm you know it has issues like any other place but look at it again I knew again you'd be surprised what opportunities are available and I got to tell you the benefits are just you know absolutely outstanding I you know the health insurance and the PDA you know the vacations and the sick time and you get a pension for God's sakes I mean who gets a pension nowadays you know so really again just take a look at it I mean just for you folks just you know as another sometimes we kind of overlook that and I would say just check it out thanks Phil so with that being said I we built an opportunity here today to do networking is what we said so we wanted to leave this last 15-20 minutes that we had in our session to listen to our members see if there's any questions or concerns or any thought ideas that you would like for us as the african-american community to work towards this year that might be able to support you as members or include any interest there so I wanted to leave this time open to just be kind of a roundtable to allow anyone that had any thoughts or ideas to put those forth or just feel free to introduce yourself to the group there are definitely some people in here that I have not had an opportunity to meet before and so learning about there's about 20 of us on here so learning about who is here and maybe even what level you are what could be beneficial for us to to get to know each other anybody has any thoughts or wants to start I can start good evening everybody fortunately my camera is not working but my name is Rochelle Clark I'm a rising second year kind of crazy to say in medical school and I'm interested in PM&R for many reasons one of them being coping with my brother and his injury and that really opened my eyes to the field but also just I majored in neuroscience so the psychology of coming or bouncing back or figure out your new normal and helping patients along that journey is also pretty inspiring I am just excited to be here and soak up all the knowledge it's lovely to meet you all and hope to see you on later down in my journey where are you Rochelle oh thank you for asking I am in Quinnipiac University Frank H. Nutter School of Medicine but I am a New York native I'm from the Bronx where is that medical school it's in Connecticut Oh great thank you thank you may I go next yes this is dr. Tony Willis my camera works but you don't want to see me right now anyway my name is dr. Tony Willis and I practice patient rehab for several decades after finishing my training at Emory and I was one of the physician there's a Reliant Rehab Hospital here in Bedford Texas and I was medical director of that hospital until it was bought out by HealthSouth and continued to be medical director there until I retired I had to go out on disability in 2021 been living with stage 4 breast cancer for the past nine years I'm happy to say that I'm cancer for the fourth time since I was first diagnosed with stage 4 but I have triple negative breast cancer and I have to continue on chemotherapy lifelong to keep it from coming back and to stay in remission but I'm happy to see all of you all here and if anybody wants to talk to me about running a hospital being a medical director those of you that are coming through training I'll be happy to be a resource for you thank you and congratulations on being negative again for now thank you and Tony is a wonderful resource and I hope you're available to do some mentoring for some of our residents and physicians cuz yes I already have one mentee but I'll be happy to take on others all right thanks thank you hello hello it's okay if I go next yes okay hi I'm latrinee I've been messaging everyone I am like a ms5 technically I studied at Latin American School of Medicine and run in Cuba and I'm trying to enter the match in 2026 once I graduate our program is a little different here seven years and the last year is a intern year in Cuba and then I come back home I'm originally from Mellon Georgia and I currently reside in a DMV area and I'm interested in PNMR I've been on like several meetings in joint you guys membership group and I've been looking for like some opportunities in mentorship nice to see you hello everyone good evening my name is okay if I go yes all right my name is doing Eddie a yak and Toby I am a fourth-year medical student at Ross University I am a currently IMG and I'm interested very much interested in PNMR I'm interested in mentorship any research application research publications and dr. Jones I believe you mentioned the program I'm interested in working in that research problem project and helping with the history of them African Americans in physical medicine rehabilitation I'm interested in that as well and dr. Marion I believe he I'm in I'm currently located in Washington DC or the DMV area and I would like to any opportunity that's available to learn as coming from an IMG from Ross University we don't I don't have access to VSO low it's like it's harder for me to get on away electives but um what I'm able to do I'm trying to figure out the best opportunity to put myself out there now what is that I don't know VSO low I don't know what that is yeah so VSO low is the visiting student learning I'm not sure what the O stands for but it is a program that most medical students in the u.s. used to get a book away electives I see so it's mostly the academic centers are the big ones that use VSO low so it's for students who like them he said the Caribbean students that can't go through that system it can be difficult for them to get rotations so that is one of the things that I'm hoping to be able to talk to the group to see if there are anybody in private practice or even if the VA allows that we can start getting a list of programs or people that are willing to work with these students from our community to help them get PM&R experiences I mean I don't know about the VA I don't I didn't even know the acronym or what that was so but if it's available I'd be more than happy to sign on to it I you know I don't have problems at all thank you and then I guess that sounds like a perfect mentorship pair there so I think you all should hook each other up in the chat so that you could continue to explore some things and unfortunately sometimes we have to do things outside of those structures I know that I have had students come to shadow with us at times they didn't get quote-unquote credit for it but they took some of their vacation time to come and shadow with physiatrists and then you know we were able to help them with their residency applications you know and things like that so you know sometimes you just have to go around systems and make opportunities for yourself so that is also a possibility at some institutions I can introduce myself next hi everyone my name is Kiko Saccone full name Kiko Momo I am a third or rising fourth year at Central Michigan University it's in Saginaw a really tiny little town I can pull out the thumb it's like right up here in the middle of nowhere I have always been interested in physiatry I'm really interested in medical education sports medicine and lifestyle medicine and I'm happy to be here and meet all you guys I can go next. Hi, everyone. My name is Janay Parrish. I'm a rising PGY-4 at Kessler, and I just wanted to pop in and see what's been going on and hear about the different ways I can be more involved. Hi, everyone. My name is Pamela Summers. I am attending. I did a fellowship also in pain medicine. But I'm actually also boarded in occupational medicine, and so I practice all three, really. I do more of occupational medicine, though, than the physical medicine and pain medicine. But I'm also in the DMV area, so I jumped on here because I heard there are a couple of people in this area. I personally don't have the ability to do mentorship, but I know someone who may be able to. I hate to speak on their behalf. However, if you want to send me or put in the chat your information, I can check with them to see if they're able to provide mentorship, because I know they've done it in the past for other students, or even rotations to work with them or shadow them. So if you want to put the information in the chat, then I'll reach out to you and also reach out to the other person and see if there's anything that I can do to help you. Awesome. That's another potential opportunity there, especially for your DMV area people. And then I think Lauren posted in here for the medical students, if you want to join the group, me as well. And then if you're interested in the mentorship program and have not signed up through SNMA, please let us know. Can you hear me? Hello? Yes? Yes. Okay, I wasn't sure because I'm having issues with my mic. Well, I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Nikei. I guess I'm in my first year of my attendingship. So I'm at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago, Illinois. I'm a physician scientist. I guess my areas of clinical interest are in electrodiagnostic medicine, neuromuscular medicine. My research areas previously had been on the advanced control of prosthetic devices, but I recently transitioned to more neuromuscular and neurophysiologic changes in individuals with spinal cord injury and how to mitigate those changes. So, yeah, I'm like two months in and I'm just here to learn more about the group. there anyone else before that wants to kind of introduce yourself or talk before? Well, one of the things, the last thing that I wanted to make sure is that, is there anything that you can think about that we can, as a community, can do better to support you as its members? In our plannings, in our lecture topics, or even any of the events that you think that we should be involved in, please let us know. Or mention it here so that we can work towards things. Nope, everything's great. Everybody's happy. Well, if that is the case, I'm happy to give you back a few more minutes of your time unless, and I appreciate all everyone who was able to come out tonight. Welcome to the new people that I hadn't had opportunity to meet. It looks like in the chat, there's a lot of emails going through. So we'll give you a moment to write down whatever emails you need. Your DMV area people, make sure you get into contact with Dr. Marion from that area. And again, if you are looking for for students who may be looking for summer programs, or other research opportunities, feel free to reach out to us. The main email that we use is themelaninrehab at gmail.com is the email that I use to send out most of our topics. And then sometimes we use the FIZZ form as well to a way to communicate to the group.

African American community meeting

Dr. Volvonte Jones

physiatry

mentorship

research projects

networking opportunities

VA benefits

expert testimony

IMG challenges

PM&R initiatives