A conversation with Wing of Zock

Announcer: Asking questions. Seeking perspectives. Searching for answers. Algorithms for Innovation, live from Philadelphia at the AAMC 2013.

Salopek: My name is Jennifer Salopek. I'm the managing editor of the Wing of Zock blog.

Host: Jennifer, tell us a little bit about Wing of Zock. Why does Wing of Zock exist?

Salopek: Wing of Zock arose out of the AAMC's readiness for reform initiative, which was begun two years ago in response to health care reform. We underwent a big survey project to find out whether our teaching hospital members were ready for the changes that health care reform was going to bring. We then started the blog as a way for those institutions to share stories about what worked and what didn't work.

Host: As you've developed this blog and the process, are there are any particular issues or problems that have risen to the top that seem to be everyone is engaged around or concerned about?

Salopek: I think everybody is concerned about payment reform and its ramifications for quality and safety. If you're just judging by the number of submissions we get and the popularity of certain posts, they're really around quality and safety.

Host: Tell me where the name Wing of Zock came from.

Salopek: Well, for anybody who's been to medical school it's a familiar reference. There's a novel that was published in 1978 called "The House of God" that is a fictional account of a student's travels through an urban teaching hospital in Boston. The Wing of Zock was the new state of the art wing that was always under construction while the student was there. The reason the name was chosen for our blog was because the Wing of Zock in the book represented hope.

We see our role as one of provocation and inspiration. We try to queue up interesting topics. We don't shy away from controversy. We try to make connections outside of the usual academic medicine circles to bring different voices in to be heard. We see ourselves as kind of an engine for conversation.

Host: Do you feel that Wing of Zock is creating a space for engagement around these issues in a way for people to solve or to identify and share potential solutions to the problems?

Salopek: We try really to be a forum for people to discuss not only ideas that worked but ideas that didn't work. We encourage our bloggers to give us enough detail about an initiative including what it costs or failures along the way, then a reader in another institution can decide whether they want to implement a similar initiative.

Host: Can you give me an example of any particular blog post?

Salopek: A blog post that has been enormously popular for us and was in fact published in our second month in business was from Vanderbilt University. It was around developing curriculum for med students that was LGBT-friendly. The poster, whose name is Kristen Eckstrand, really gave a lot of detail about how they put that curriculum together so that it was inclusive of all student groups.

Host: It's wingofzock.org and @wingofzock on Twitter.

Salopek: Correct.

Host: If somebody wants to become a contributor or engage beyond readership, what are their opportunities?

Salopek: We welcome submissions from all walks of academic medicine. Faculty, students, residents, all they have to do is email me with their story idea. We do provide a lot of editorial guidance. My email address is Jsalopek@aamc.org.

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