Home - AUPHA Graduate Program and Practitioner Workshop

Conference Information

The 2018 AUPHA Graduate Program and Practitioner Workshop, scheduled to be held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 East Wacker Drive, will start with a joint breakfast keynote at 7:00 am and conclude at 12:00 Noon. This year's Graduate Program and Practitioner Workshop theme is Who is the “We” in We the People? This theme highlights the need to engage in those “difficult conversations” in the classroom and in the workplace that are often put off or avoided permanently. Until and unless there is some agreement on this core value among those whose voices are heard, health care policy will remain contentious and chaotic, and progress toward a singular aim will be difficult.This year's program will include speakers and presenters that will benefit both faculty and practitioners by providing a positive narrative surrounding this complex, interconnected problem.

Joint Breakfast Keynote Speaker

David B. Nash, MD, MBA
Dean, Jefferson College of Population Health

Leadership for Improving Health

Dr. Nash is a national thought leader in population health. He will challenge current leaders to change the model of care to promote health rather than focus on delivering services and outline his exciting and compelling vision for the future. Repeatedly named to Modern Healthcare’s list of Most Powerful Persons in Healthcare, his national activities cover a wide scope. He serves on the NCF Task Force on Improving Population in Health and the John M. Eisenberg Award Committee for The Joint Commission. He is also a founding member of the AAMC-IQ Steering Committee, the group charged with infusing the tenets of quality and safety into medical education. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and edited 23 books, including most recently Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness (2^nd edition).

**Be sure to visit his YouTube Channel to learn more about him and watch previous speaking engagements**

Session on Conducting Difficult Conversation

Difficult conversations – both those planned and unplanned – are a fact of life. As educators, we have a special role as facilitators when those conversations involve students or colleagues regarding student issues. Most of us, however, have little or no training in how to handle these conversations as they arise. We dodge them or handle them poorly, missing an opportunity for important learning among our burgeoning managers and leaders who will undoubtedly need these skills. This year’s program will provide an interactive session in which participants will learn tools that they can apply to familiar difficult conversations. Following the joint breakfast keynote, Ann Rosser, experienced coach, mediator, and management trainer, will discuss how to prepare for planned difficult conversations and offer a checklist that can be used both for these conversations and as a foundation to think about responses to difficult conversations that arise spontaneously. She will lead a discussion of two classroom scenarios involving polarizing comments by a student and reactions by the students who are most affected by them. The session will conclude with small group discussions of a third scenario involving a student complaint about a faculty member to an advisor.

Ms. Rosser, principal of Finding Resolution, has over 20 years of experience as a senior executive with a medical non-profit association and has provided coaching services to administrators, faculty, and students at several universities.