"Join or renew your membership online" 
 Note: if you are faxing your renewal, the correct fax number is 703-562-8801. An incorrect fax number was printed on some membership invoices.
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Join the Conversation
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ACU Celebrates 15 Years 
ACU was founded in 1996 by National Health Service Corps alumni who wanted to continue to support each other and share knowledge, resources and expertise about practicing in underserved communities. ACU celebrates the work of all who are working to improve health equity and access to care.
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JHCPU
Online access to the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved is an ACU member benefit. Click the image to learn more about JHCPU.
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November is National Diabetes Month
Take advantage of ACU's patient education materials in English and Spanish. Eighteen different titles, free to download and distribute.
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Great American Smokeout
Thursday November 17
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Our Sponsors
Partnership Level
Platinum Level
Gold Level
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TobaccoFree website available for testing
 ACU has recently completed work on a new website that provides clinicians all the tools and resources you need to implement a successful tobacco cessation program in your practice. Many people do not realize that the underserved have higher rates of tobacco use and less access to cessation treatment. Our website includes staff protocols, treatment guidelines and links to resources that will help you provide better care for tobacco users.
Prior to launching the site, we are looking for individuals to review it in detail and provide us feedback via a brief survey. Many of you took our tobacco survey last spring and indicated your willingness to provide additional feedback. Now is your chance. Even if you did not take the earlier survey, we are interested in hearing from you to ensure that we have a cross section of disciplines and practice settings represented. If you are interested, please send an email to acu@clinicians.org with TobaccoFree in the subject line. We will send you a link to the website and to the brief survey. ACU will provide a small gift card to thank you for your time.
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ACU member spotlight
![Street Medicine: Mark Horvath Interviews Doctor James Withers with Friends [video two]](https://thumbnail.constantcontact.com/remoting/v1/vthumb/YOUTUBE/f7d9658780404d2eb91c73de38dfabe2) | |
Street Medicine: Mark Horvath Interviews Doctor James Withers with Friends
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Jim Withers, a clinician who provides street medicine to homeless people in Pittsburgh, was featured in this video report on the Huffington Post by Mark Horvath. We shared this story on the ACU Facebook page, but wanted to make sure that more of you saw this fine tribute to a dedicated clinician and one of ACU's many outstanding members. Congratulations, Jim!We hope other ACU members will share your stories with us. Write to acu@clinicians.org.
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Membership campaign
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Join or renew by Dec. 31 to enter a drawing for an iPad2.
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ACU's annual membership campaign is getting a boost this year with the announcement of a drawing for an iPad2. Every member whose dues are paid by Dec. 31, 2011 will have a chance to win. Clinics and organizations whose memberships include multiple individuals can enter each person by including their names on the renewal form. Use this link to join or renew online.
Membership dues are unchanged, but here is what is new for 2012:
- Members can volunteer to serve on an ACU committee on the renewal form.
- Members can also indicate their areas of expertise on the form and this information will be included in the online membership directory.
- Members receive a 20 percent discount every time they post a job to the ACU Career Center (a $70 value or more, depending on the listing).
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Partnership for Medicaid sends message to Congress
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Click here to play the radio ad to protect Medicaid.
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The Partnership for Medicaid, with support from ACU, has taken to the radio waves in Washington, DC, to urge Congress to protect Medicaid from harmful cuts in the current budget negotiations. ACU has also launched a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter to encourage members of the Super Committee to take a balanced approach to the budget and to protect the most vulnerable populations. In these final days before the November 23 deadline for the Super Committee to act, it is imperative that Congress hear from as many constituents as possible. You can visit the ACU advocacy pagefor information on contacting your members of Congress and sample scripts that you can personalize to tell your elected officials what you think.
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| Members and supporters gave to the max
November 9 marked ACU's first-ever online fundraiser, as we participated along with more than 1,200 nonprofits based in the Washington, DC-area in a campaign called Give to the Max Day. In just 24-hours, donors gave more than $2 million to the participating charities. ACU ranked in the top 10 percent in number of donors and amount raised.
Give to the Max day provided all of the participating organizations a chance to flex our "social media muscles," using email, Facebook and Twitter to get out the word. Lois Wessel, FNP, created a video message describing how uniquely valuable she finds ACU's diabetes education materials in her multicultural practice. ACU thanked donors on Facebook and Twitter as they contributed. In addition to thanking our individual donors, ACU is very grateful to AstraZeneca for pledging a $500 matching grant.
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Conferences and E-Learning
Nov. 18, 2 PM EST, Tips for Using Your Health IT System for Population Health Management, a HRSA Health IT and Quality webinar featuring examples of how health IT systems can be used for managing population health within their communities to improve health outcomes.
Register online.
Nov. 22, 1 - 2:30 PM EST, Using Continuous Quality Improvement to Target Obesity in Latina Populations, a free webinar sponsored by Collaborate for Healthy Weight. The focus will be on two obesity-related programs from the Association of Maternal and Child Health Program (AMCHP) Innovation Station database, which is part of AMCHP's Best Practices program. Use the online registration form to register and receive call-in details.
Dec. 1, 2 PM EST, Patient Centered Medical Home Case Study Featuring Mary Howard Health Center, a nurse-managed health center. Presented by the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. Register online.
Dec. 13,2 PM, EST, Tips For Overcoming the Gray Areas of Meaningful Use Stage 1 for Safety Net Providers, a HRSA Health IT and Quality webinar. Register online.
On Demand. Diabetes and Tobacco: a Dangerous Combination, a recorded webinar presented by Jeannette Noltenius, PhD of the National Latino Tobacco Control Network (NLTCN) & Chandana Nandi, MS, RD, LDN of the Midwest Latino Health Research, Training & Policy Center, University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Featured jobs in the ACU career center
Staff Physician (Internal Medicine or Family Practice) at St. Joseph's Mercy Care Services in Atlanta. Experience in treating homeless, medically underserved and immigrant populations helpful. Family Medicine FQHC Clinical Faculty, PT opportunity to join the Family Medicine Residency faculty in an urban/suburban setting located fifteen minutes from downtown Philadelphia. Medical Director/Primary Care Physician for community health clinic associated with Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA. FT family practitioner or internist for a primary care clinic at Wellspan Health, a community-based, not-for-profit health system in south central Pennsylvania |
New ACU fellow
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ACU is pleased to welcome Tobie-Lynn Smith, MD, MPH, a Georgetown University-Unity Health Care Community Health Center Director Development Fellow. As a component of her fellowship year, she will be working with ACU. Tobie is a graduate of SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her residency in Family Medicine at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa in San Antonio, TX. While a 3rd year resident she served as Resident Director on the American Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors.
Since residency, she has worked as a physician in Urgent Care, Free Health Clinics in San Antonio and Baltimore, and most recently with Community Health Centers in Baltimore. As a fellow, she will continue Community Health Center clinical work with Unity Health Care in Washington, DC.
As a former NCAA athlete, coach and personal trainer, she is interested in incorporating lifestyle, fitness and nutrition into chronic disease management and prevention. Her recent MPH studies focused on how social determinants of health affect individual and community health, particularly in underserved populations. Through her fellowship work with ACU, Tobie is interested in determining how clinicians can effectively address these social determinants in the medical management of underserved populations. She has been a member of ACU since 2010.
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ACU Career Center recognized
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Martha Romans accepted the award on behalf of ACU.
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The National Healthcare Career Network (NHCN) recognized the ACU Career Center for exceptional performance at its Fall Partner Conference in Chicago last month. More than 270 healthcare associations are part of the NHCN. ACU received the achievement award for a career center in existence for less than two years. Others recognized were the Colorado Hospital Association and the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation & Oncology.
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Davies Award for health IT
Several ACU members, including Hudson River Health Care in 2011, have received the prestigious Davies Award for their use of health IT to improve health care and outcomes. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recently announced new award categories and criteria for the 2012 awards. More information, including application details, is available online. Applications accepted throughout the year on a rolling basis.
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New NHSC alumni network
The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) announced the launch of its Alumni Network for providers who have served in the NHSC. The primary purpose of the NHSC Alumni Network is to offer former members a means to stay connected with the Corps. Alumni interested in playing a more active role, should send an email to nhscalumni@hrsa.gov, or visit the alumni website. |
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Coming soon: the ACU 2012 prevention calendar
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Click to view larger image and read the diabetes prevention messages.
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ACU's 2012 prevention wall calendar will be mailed to all members this month. The calendar theme is "Things you can do to fight diabetes." It's clear and simple messages for a healthy lifestyle are repeated in English and Spanish. The calendar is in full color and suitable for hanging in clinicians' offices or exam rooms. The calendar will also be sent to current members of the National Health Service Corps, as a gift from ACU. A limited number of copies will be available for sale. If you are interested, please email acu@clinicians.org.
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| Using the ACU Career Center - tip #2
When you visit the ACU Career Center for the first time as a job seeker, you will be asked to set up an account. Should you? Setting up an account makes it easier to:
- Apply online to jobs
- Have jobs matching your search criteria emailed to you via a "job agent" and
- Put your resume in a searchable database
You don't have to set up an account if you are "just browsing," but if you are a serious job seeker, you will want the convenience of being able to quickly apply when you see a job that interests you. The only information you need to supply to set up an account is your first and last name, email address and a password. You can upload your resume but make it non-searchable if you do not want it to be shared.
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