Berger recognized for graduate medical education

For more than two decades, Roseanne C. Berger has worked to foster improvement in clinical education in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences through faculty development, granting funds for research and resident training, and teaching. 

Berger, senior associate dean for graduate medical education, has been recognized for her work by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which has named her one of three winners of the 2015 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Lead Award.

The honor recognizes individuals for outstanding leadership, management, innovation and improvement of residency and medical fellowship programs.

Berger will receive her award Feb. 27 during the 2015 ACGME Annual Educational Conference in San Diego.

“This award is an honor because the nomination came from colleagues and residents,” says Berger, also an associate professor of family medicine and a geriatric medicine specialist.

“Health care delivery is undergoing a transformation that is influencing the way residents are trained. Patient safety, preventive medicine and chronic disease management are just some of the challenges residents will be expected to address in their careers,” she says. “It is exciting to work with dedicated, bright faculty physicians and residents in Buffalo on these issues. Graduate medical education is never dull.”

Berger grew up in a household that also served as the practice for her father, a general practitioner in Yonkers, N.Y. Inspired by his example, she became a family physician and continues his legacy of community care — albeit on a different scale.

During her career as senior associate dean for graduate medical education, Berger has overseen 63 UB-sponsored medical-specialty training programs that annually enroll more than 750 residents. She has initiated, led or helped secure funding for numerous activities, including the UB-Royal College of Physicians Educator Program, which works with the Royal College of Physicians in London, U.K., to develop the teaching skills of clinical instructors, and Scholarly Exchange Day, an annual research poster session that allows trainee-researchers to receive feedback from UB faculty.

She also helped launch one of the nation’s first 10 Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society chapters, and directs the university’s Mini Medical School, a free lecture series that brings medical and health care education to Buffalo community members without a medical background.

“Dr. Berger is an indispensable member of our school leadership team,” says Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical school.

“Her initiatives have changed the way we approach medical education at this university and have national ramifications. Her leadership style values inclusion, collaboration and the importance of the individual to the success of the program.”

Berger did her initial training in family medicine at UB in the late 1970s where she met her husband, Daniel Morelli. After a brief stay in San Diego, the couple returned to the area and joined the UB faculty, working as faculty members in a community-based, model family medicine program.

Berger moved to the medical school on the South Campus in 1992 to help coordinate a course in community-oriented primary care involving internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine. It was the first time all three departments had worked together to train students in primary care, and the success of the course led then-medical school Dean John Naughton to ask Berger to head the new graduate medical education office that was being established.

“When I first started, the training was primarily hospital-based. Now, hospitals are very different places than they were 15 or 20 years ago. More training occurs in ambulatory settings,” she notes, “and professionalism, communication and health care system issues, such as patient safety, are explicitly taught. The challenge for us is to be sure that the quality and education is maintained across all those settings.”