ACGME Launches First Peer-reviewed Journal Dedicated to GME

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, or ACGME, has launched the first peer-reviewed journal devoted solely to the education of medical residents and fellows and the settings in which that education occurs.

According to the ACGME, the new Journal of Graduate Medical Education is intended to serve as a vehicle "to inform and engage the GME community and increase knowledge about teaching and learning and the environment in which residents and fellows learn and participate in care."

"The aim is to promote scholarship and critical inquiry related to graduate medical education" among program directors, graduate medical education leaders, faculty, learners and researchers.

Guest co-editor David Leach, retired CEO of the ACGME, said in a Sept. 29 press release that the new quarterly journal, which is available in print as well as online, "documents that a new level of precision has been achieved in the development of physicians. It also samples and documents the vibrant community responsible for this progress."

AAFP Board Chair Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho -- who also is program director and CEO of the Family Medicine Residency of Idaho, Boise -- said the new journal will be useful to GME and comes at an optimal time.

"It will fill a niche and will be good for the common items that program directors across the country from all specialties face with their residents," he said. "It will get the discipline of postgraduate medical education working together more and out of all of our existing silos."

The inaugural issue of the journal was mailed to 11,000 recipients, including program directors and designated institutional officials of ACGME-accredited programs and sponsoring institutions throughout the United States. Articles in that September issue include "Assessing Duty Hour Compliance: Practical Lessons for Programs and Institutions," "Centralized Assessment in Graduate Medical Education: Cents and Sensibilities" and "Patient Care Management Teams: Improving Continuity, Office Efficiency, and Teamwork in a Residency Clinic."

The new journal is inviting potential authors to submit manuscripts (11-page PDF; About PDFs) reporting original research for publication in 2010. Manuscripts received by Nov. 10 will be considered for the March 2010 issue.