National Physicians Week: Physicians’ advocacy group offers online conference

During National Physicians Week, March 25-31 this year, a physicians’ advocacy group is offering a free, physician-led, virtual conference intended to give guidance on the health care system and ways to improve patient care.

Physicians Working Together (PWT), an advocacy group, and Zenxmed, a medical software startup, will host the seminars, which are meant to give physicians a platform to discuss important issues in medicine.

“With technology, we can all come together to try to improve the practice of medicine,” Christina Lang, DO, a board member of PWT, says. Dr. Lang will be moderating a session about the importance of getting involved in physician advocacy efforts.

Last year, PWT lead the efforts to extend National Doctors Day to National Physicians Week.

The goal of the conference is to empower physicians to take charge of their careers, their wellness and the complications of the health care system. DOs and medical students will be able to learn about a broad range of topics including: leadership, advocacy, resilience and entrepreneurship.

“Physicians feeling exhausted have a community that supports them and should realize other physicians feel the same thing,” Dr. Lang says. “We’re all fighting the same battles together.”

Osteopathically focused sessions 

The virtual conference will also included a series of prerecorded workshops focused on using osteopathic principles and practices in patient care, hosted by Amelia Bueche, DO, a neuromusculoskeletal and osteopathic manipulative medicine physician, and Alexis Hugelmeyer, DO, a family medicine/OMM physician.

“It’s about reminding ourselves to use these philosophies to support patient care and educating our MD colleagues about osteopathic medicine, even if we’re not using manipulation,” Dr. Bueche says.

Drs. Bueche and Hugelmeyer will cover a range of topics including: an overview of techniques and philosophy of osteopathic care, incorporating OMT in the hospital setting and how to bill, code, document and obtain patient consent for treatment.

Dr. Hugelmeyer says she is looking forward to reigniting the passion of non-family medicine DOs who may not be aware of the practicality of applying OMT in their particular specialty.

“With a little bit of practice, they’ll be able to re-engage and quickly relearn these straightforward techniques to be applicable to their practices,” Dr. Hugelmeyer says.

More information about these workshops will be added to the conference website during National Physicians Week.

Learn more about the conference and see an agenda of speakers here.

Can’t make it to a session? You can still register to attend and receive a recording of the event the following day.

For additional reading:

National Physicians Week: Extending Doctors Day

Physicians Working Together: New group seeks to ease information-sharing among physicians