Ali Farkhondehpour, MD, FACP, FHM, was a third-year medical student who got involved in SHM early in his career, so it likely wouldn’t surprise anyone he’s risen to president of its San Diego chapter.
Dr. Farkhondehpour
“So really far back,” he said. “Back then, I really become interested in just hospital medicine, the acuity of inpatient medicine, the breadth of knowledge it takes to care for patients…(now) by getting involved, I think it allows me to give back to the San Diego community while being at a major academic center.”
Dr. Farkhondehpour, associate program director for the internal medicine residency program at the University of California, San Diego, says starting so young has taught him the value of having a chapter reach out to younger members.
“I do use our SHM platform to bring on trainees, to introduce them to hospital medicine, and to guide them,” he said. “A lot of them are interested in doing it. And it is a little bit nebulous in how you pursue hospital medicine. For a lot of subspecialty fellowships, it’s very systematic and guided. The interviews are pretty clear…but, when applying for hospital medicine, a lot of residents might not feel guided. What our chapter does, and in my role as a medical educator, we help the residents not only at our own institution but many of the residents in San Diego.”
The results speak for themselves as the group won a silver 2022 Chapter Excellence Award. It has been an active participant in broader district-wide events, as well, and there are plans this summer to hold a Rapid Clinical Update.
“It’s always nice to receive recognition, particularly for many of our chapter leaders, they’re dedicating their free time to do this,” Dr. Farkhondehpour said. “They truly are doing this out of a sense of volunteer work, and wanting to be part of the San Diego chapter, and SHM in general, because they see the value of it.”
One big event for the chapter is its annual career panel, where hospitalists from community and academic centers are brought in to help residents learn about the hospitals they don’t work in. The idea is to have roughly 10 hospitals from various medical centers to show attendees how broad the scope of the field is beyond the walls of a given hospital.
“Many of them don’t know anything beyond their own institution,” Dr. Farkhondehpour says. “‘Do I need letters of recommendation? When do I send my resume? What should my CV even look like?’”
Dr. Farkhondehpour says the value of that networking—whether early in your career or at other times—is paramount.
“The value is networking outside of your own institution,” he said. “I always found it, even before I became involved as a chapter leader, it was nice to just go to events and network with hospitalists outside of our own place, and to talk to them. Get to learn, ‘What does work look like for you? What’s your patient population?’
“Meeting other hospitalists outside your institution does help you understand what the challenges are because they might be facing very similar challenges. And maybe they solved that specific challenge we are facing. It’s an exchange of ideas at many of these events.”
Now that the young chapter—it was founded in 2019—is positioned for success, Dr. Farkhondehpour is already working to build a generation of future leaders.
One approach is to build a non-leadership board, that he hopes will engage more members from medical centers that may not already have a robust presence in the chapter.
“We are, for the first time, bringing in hospitalists from different hospitals to our SHM-member board to help engage,” he said. “If we don’t have a representative from one of these hospitals, the likelihood of some of those hospitalists coming to these events is reduced. So, if they have someone who represents them, I feel like they can advertise it better, and tell them why it is worthwhile coming to these chapter events and being more engaged.”
In addition, the chapter is expanding its leadership board and adding an advisory, all moves aimed at having more people get involved.
One hope for Dr. Farkhondehpour is that with SHM Converge in San Diego from April 12 to 15 this year, he can use the backyard aspect of the specialty’s largest annual meeting as a motivator—particularly as one of the hurdles to attending a national conference is the travel.
Not for San Diego chapter members this year.
“We are definitely looking to, as a fairly young chapter, continue to increase our chapter membership,” he said. “I’m hoping with Converge being here, we can kind of ride the coattails, that perk that when more people attend, they’ll be more willing to attend and engage with our chapter more, too.”
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.