Category Archives: STFM News

Jeri Hepworth, PhD STFM President

In October, your STFM Board of Directors asked staff to move forward with development of a new logo. I have to admit an affinity for our current logo. It’s friendly and comfortable, like STFM. It conveys our emphasis on family. However, it’s also dated and hard to read and doesn’t reflect the progressive, innovative organization STFM has become. In fact, during a recent communications audit, STFM members described the figures as play-dough people, aliens, and gingerbread men. And while we may like our 40-year-old play-dough people, they don’t communicate the level of professionalism earned by STFM and family medicine education.

Our messages to Congress point out the need for innovation in primary care training. Our new strategic plan challenges us to be the authority for innovation and research in family medicine education. Innovation is what’s driving family medicine education; our logo needs to send this same message.

I’m excited about the new doors that will be opened with the launch of a new logo. A “rebranding” campaign provides a rare opportunity to raise our profile and let our government, our colleagues, our students, and our patients know about the work we do to prepare the doctors who care for families. This is our chance to communicate that innovative family medicine education is the foundation of the health care system.

I invite you to be a part of the transformation. Shoot me an e-mail, or post a comment here to let me know what you think about the work we’re doing and the direction we’re taking. And please take a few minutes to vote on which logo you feel best represents the professionalism you and your colleagues bring to your job every day.

Stacy Brungardt, CAE STFM Executive Director

Have you ever become so immersed in a project that you looked past items critical to the initiative’s success? My recent example of this is feedback I received on the STFM strategic plan. There’s nothing specifically wrong with the plan, but when our Foundation Trustees, who had not been involved in creating the document, reviewed the plan, the document failed to communicate the breadth, external linkages, or the importance of the initiatives the goals and strategies listed in the document.

What helpful feedback, particularly since we are in the early stages of communicating the plan to our members! To begin to address this, STFM President Jeri Hepworth, PhD, identified the larger themes that are implicit within our strategic plan. Check it out.

That brings up a key challenge for our staff and leadership. Combined, STFM and the STFM Foundation have more than 40 (yes, I counted) active programs and initiatives. We have liaisons to or are partnering with more than 20 organizations. How do we effectively keep our leaders, members, and even staff current on all these initiatives? That’s a tall order, but it’s one we are trying to tackle. Sharing expanded information on Board meeting discussions is one step among several tactics to demonstrate the important work that is happening within STFM. We’re working to make STFM communications vehicles tell more of our stories. Stay tuned.

Thank you for making the choice to be a member of STFM. It is an honor to serve you and the values you represent.

Stacy Brungardt, CAE STFM Executive Director

We’ve kept your President Jeri Hepworth, PhD, immersed in looking at ways we can improve STFM and our programs. She’s responded to this challenge by creating some teams of highly qualified members to help with this important task. Here are two teams at work for you.

Program Assessment Special Committee: This group is charged with the task of reviewing and evaluating existing STFM programs and initiatives to see if they are meeting member needs in a significant way.

Members of our special committee are:

• Melly Goodell, MD, special committee chair, Franklin Square Hospital Center, STFM Board member at large
• Scott Fields, MD, Oregon Health & Sciences University, STFM past president
• Jeri Hepworth, PhD, University of Connecticut/St Francis FMR, STFM president
• Dave Holub, MD, University of Rochester
• Don Mack, MD, Ohio State University, fellow in the Emerging Leaders program
• Rick Streiffer, MD, Tulane University, STFM secretary-treasurer
• Mary Theobald, STFM vice president of communications and programs
• Stacy Brungardt, CAE, STFM executive director

Strategic Plan Measurement Task Force: This task force will work on defining the metrics for how we will measure our progress and success of the strategic plan. For each priority and its strategies, the task force will be creating global and tactical measures to help us evaluate whether our activities are making a difference or need some help.

Members of our task force are:

• Cathy Pipas, MD, task force chair, Dartmouth University
• Perry Dickinson, MD, immediate past president
• Paul Gordon, MD, communications committee chair

If we don’t define success and ask the tough questions about the impact of our programs, how else will we know if our work is making a difference?

Thank you for making the choice to be a member of STFM. It is an honor to serve you and the values you represent.