316 - Filling the Pipeline - Successes in Introducing Students to OEM

While risks to workers continue to evolve with threats from climate change, pandemics, and changing employment contexts such as the expanding gig economy, the field of OEM is shrinking. We need to prepare more OEM specialists to meet the needs of workers, employers and society. Low awareness of OEM as a specialty is a perennial problem, but the past year has seen some remarkable successes in reaching premedical and medical students about OEM as an option. This late-breaking session will highlight several different but interrelated projects that have reached hundreds of students and have the potential to reach thousands as they expand. Projects include a virtual teleshadowing program that reaches thousands of premedical students and now features a page on OEM, integration of OEM content in premedical advising programs, a rocking new website explaining the why and how to get into the specialty and progress by the ACOEM Ambassador program. Participants will be invited to participate in a plan to engage in these projects and a social media campaign to help ensure that any future field shrinkage is not due to lack of awareness.