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Former American College of Physicians treasurer and infectious disease physician Janet A. Jokela discusses her article, “Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting.” She shares her personal reflections on the profound value of attending the American College of Physicians annual internal medicine meeting, drawing from decades of experience. Janet highlights the three core pillars of the event—education, inspiration, and community—emphasizing the exceptional quality of clinical updates, the energizing atmosphere of professional excellence, and the deep sense of camaraderie among colleagues. The conversation covers how the meeting has evolved to cater to physicians at all career stages and serves as a vital touchstone for advancing the ACP’s mission. Janet passionately conveys why this annual gathering is more than just a conference; it’s a place for renewal, connection, and a reaffirmation of the core values in medicine. The key takeaway is: The ACP annual meeting offers internal medicine physicians an unparalleled opportunity for top-tier education, profound inspiration, and invaluable community building, making it an essential experience for professional growth and personal enrichment.

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome back Janet A. Jokela, an infectious disease physician and former treasurer of the American College of Physicians. Today’s KevinMD article is “Internal Medicine 2025: Inspiration at the annual meeting.” Janet, welcome back to the show.

Janet A. Jokela: Hi, Kevin. Thanks so much. I’m delighted to be here.

Kevin Pho: Tell us what your latest article is about.

Janet A. Jokela: I wrote this after returning from the annual meeting. I just realized how important it has been to me throughout my career and how much I enjoyed it, so I decided to write about that. I realized that with the annual meeting, I could lump things into three different categories: education, inspiration, and also community, because the meeting really represents all of those things for me. I just loved it. You come back with newfound energy and feel inspired; it was just a really wonderful experience.

Kevin Pho: Tell me how the American College of Physicians’ annual meeting has evolved over the years. Obviously, you were the former treasurer, so I assume that you have been involved with the American College of Physicians for many years now. Tell us how that meeting has changed.

Janet A. Jokela: That’s a great question. My first meeting was sometime back in the nineties. OK, so I know that dates me, but so be it. At that time, going to the meeting, I was so inspired. Even then, there were so many over-the-top, fabulous educational offerings. I felt like I was at a sumptuous smorgasbord. There were so many things I wanted to attend, so many things that I knew would be helpful for me with my patients and help me take better care of them. I was just running from one thing to the next.

It’s similar now in that way. Of course, the educational offerings are over the top, the best you can find anywhere. The ACP recruits top faculty from across the country to come and talk about all these different topics. In addition, the ACP has really evolved to also take care of the rising generation of internal medicine doctors. Whether it’s medical students, residents, or early-career physicians, there are activities and sessions specifically devoted to them, and there’s a lot of focus on that. There are also new technologies, videos, and all kinds of things. It’s really a wonderful experience.

Kevin Pho: Physicians today are busier than ever. Some organizations have cut back on things like the CME budget, and sometimes physicians have to attend these meetings in person on their own time. The practice setting today is much different than it was 10 or 15 years ago, where physicians are so squeezed for time. Talk to us about the value proposition of the meeting, which you mentioned earlier. Why should they sometimes take time and maybe even money out of their own pockets to go to this meeting?

Janet A. Jokela: It’s a great question, and you’re making really good points, Kevin, about people’s time pressures and also the financial pressures to get away and do all of this. For me, every time that I go, when I come back, I feel energized and even more ready to dive into everything else that has been going on in my day job. I think that’s one reason: it’s energizing to attend the meeting.

The second is that the ACP certainly is aware that it’s hard for people to get away and attend the meeting in person. There is an online option. OK, so there are folks I know who attend the meeting in person and may be exercising in the gym early in the morning, but they are watching a live stream of a session from the elliptical in the gym. It’s a way that the ACP has tried to accommodate, acknowledging the realities that it is hard for people to get away and do these things in the way that we have been traditionally used to doing them for all these years.

I think the value proposition certainly is education, inspiration—the energizing inspiration—but then also the community. There is something just intangible and invaluable about connecting with people in person that you just can’t get in other ways.

Kevin Pho: You anticipated my next question regarding the value of an in-person meeting. Everything now is virtual, with increasingly virtual options and everything on demand. We could just pull up these lectures on demand. So, tell us about the inspiration you get from an in-person meeting, from seeing some of the physicians that you may not have seen for several years and having all the ACP officers together. Talk to us about the value of meeting these physicians and your colleagues in person.

Janet A. Jokela: It’s really a wonderful experience that I think we can all appreciate on some level. There is just something different about being in person and being able to connect with people: giving them a hug or whatever it may be, the body language, the sound, the interactions, everybody around you. There is something special about that that is hard to capture virtually.

That said, there are a lot of wonderful things that can happen virtually. As I mentioned before, the ACP has worked hard to incorporate all the virtual options as best they can. To be able to connect with people in person who may not be on a scheduled Zoom call or whatever it is, there is just something magical about it that is irreplaceable. It’s hard to articulate, but I hope that gets at what you are aiming toward.

Kevin Pho: Beyond the educational offerings, what else happens behind the scenes during these meetings?

Janet A. Jokela: A ton happens behind the scenes. The officers of the college are incredibly busy, going to multiple different sessions and also multiple different meetings. We have a global forum where we welcome international representatives of internal medicine societies from across the world, and we participate in that. All kinds of things happen. Some committee meetings and some groups actually meet there at the annual meeting.

There is a lot going on. There are a lot of wonderful things happening in the clinical skills center, for example. There’s just a tremendous amount of activity and energy, and there are more things to do than you can imagine. You think, “Oh my goodness, there are five places I want to be right now, but I can only be at one.” You have to juggle your time and plan things accordingly and hope for the best that it will all work out.

Kevin Pho: I have to be honest: it has been many, many years since I last attended an ACP meeting. For those physicians who maybe have not attended in a while, or maybe for new physicians or even residents who want to attend the ACP meeting, what are some tips that you could share with them to really get the most out of it? If you just look at a program, it is daunting. There is just so much going on, like you said. Share some tips on how they can get the most out of this meeting.

Janet A. Jokela: That’s an important question. My recollection is there is even a session on that. If this is your first meeting or if you have not been to the meeting for a while, you can attend this session early on, and they will go over exactly that: how to plan your schedule. For instance, if someone is a hospitalist, there is a hospitalist thread to describe it that way, with sessions directly targeting hospitalists or directly targeting people who work in the outpatient clinic setting. There are also threads for early-career physicians.

There are ways that you can plan your schedule and target your activities to specifically what you are doing in your day job and try to focus it in that way. That’s one way. Otherwise, there are a whole bunch of fun things as well.

Kevin Pho: What kind of fun things are available outside of the education and the behind-the-scenes work?

Janet A. Jokela: For instance, the chapters have activities there too. With your chapter in New Hampshire, I’m sure there was a chapter reception. This is where folks from New Hampshire will get together, and you see each other and commiserate in person. It would be an evening reception where you see each other and commiserate, and every chapter does that. We can visit other chapters’ receptions, which many of us as officers do. We will visit the international chapters’ receptions as well. We are going to the Japan chapter reception, the Brazil chapter reception, and a number of these. That is one small thing, but it is again really nice to connect with people in our location where we are for the day job.

Convocation is another really meaningful and wonderful event. That takes place on Thursday evening, the first night of the meeting. That is a wonderful, affirming, and inspiring event. There is just so much more. It is so broad. I urge everybody to try to make it.

Kevin Pho: Let’s go back to some of the educational offerings, which are the core of this meeting. Give us some insight into how the program is constructed. How are the topics put on the program, how do you recruit faculty to speak at this meeting, and who speaks at these meetings? What insight could you share with us on how the program is constructed?

Janet A. Jokela: Sure. You can imagine it requires an army of people to plan a meeting like this. In essence, the planning for this meeting started two years ago. There is a committee that looks at this, reviews the potential schedule and the potential topic areas, and then the committee starts to brainstorm about who would be good people to invite for these various talks. Given all the many talks, you can imagine how much time and effort this may take to put it all together. It does take a couple of years to do.

There are also opportunities for the councils—the Medical Student Council, the Resident and Fellows Council, as well as the Early Career Physicians Council—to focus on some specific programming for them. That’s how it works. It is very carefully vetted and reviewed, and it is a lot of work, but clearly, it pays off.

Kevin Pho: I know you are biased with your affiliation with the ACP, but as a physician, tell us about the relevance of professional society annual meetings in the coming years. Do you see continuing relevance in these meetings for physicians?

Janet A. Jokela: Good question, Kevin. You are absolutely right: I am biased. I am biased based on my experience with the ACP. In many ways, I feel like the ACP has helped keep me sane over the years. I know that the educational content I am receiving from the ACP is the standard of care and it is cutting-edge, and this is where we need to be in terms of delivering care to our patients.

In addition to feeling inspired, I also have felt confident coming away from the ACP meeting knowing that I received the most accurate, up-to-date information on how to best take care of my patients. In terms of professional society meetings, absolutely. I am biased. My experience has been so positive with the ACP and the ACP meeting. Looking back, I cannot imagine my career without the ACP. Looking ahead, it’s similar. How could we not embrace our professional societies and everything that they are doing for us in our practice?

Kevin Pho: Looking forward, do you see any trends in the continuing evolution of these annual meetings? Do you feel like they are going to change at all? What kind of trends and evolution do you see?

Janet A. Jokela: That’s a wonderful question, too. I know personally at the ACP, the people who are the brains behind the annual meeting are very creative and very out-of-the-box thinkers. I am sure there are going to be changes and other things added to the meeting, but again, just trying to make it as appealing and as useful to practicing physicians as possible, including the people in the pipeline: the early-career residents and fellows, and the students.

That said, looking back for a moment, to incorporate the streaming capability, I think has been a huge advance. That has been a very deliberate and respectful addition, knowing that people are pressed for time and they are busy. But if that enables people attending the meeting to get their workout in, for instance, let’s do it. And they have done that. There will be more tweaks and changes going forward. Exactly what they will be is hard to say.

I am not sure of the actual numbers, but I think there were over 7,000 people there at this meeting, which is a huge group. It’s a great big group. You realize when everybody is there for the same reason—wanting to get the best education to do the best for their patients—that is really inspiring.

Kevin Pho: One of the things at these annual meetings is networking, and not everyone has an intrinsic skill to network, especially if you are going there and you do not know anybody or are reaching out to people that you may not be familiar with. Share some networking tips for people who may not be as experienced with networking.

Janet A. Jokela: Networking is a funny concept. I think it is important. It is incredibly important, especially for people in various circles, whether it’s for their research or other reasons as well. That said, I think a basic component of networking is to take an interest in others and to be curious.

If you see someone standing by themselves or looking at something that you are interested in, walk over to that person and just start up a conversation. Be curious about why they are there, what they are looking at, or what they are finding interesting about X, Y, Z. That is a really wonderful way to start. We take an interest in others and we take an interest in them, and that can open up all kinds of doors. That would probably be my first and primary suggestion for networking.

Kevin Pho: We are talking to Janet A. Jokela. She is an infectious disease physician and former treasurer of the American College of Physicians. Today’s KevinMD article is “Internal Medicine 2025: Inspiration at the annual meeting.” Janet, let’s share some take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Janet A. Jokela: Sure. Thank you, Kevin. Again, I think if everybody could incorporate—and I know this is not possible, but we will put it out there anyway—if all internal medicine physicians could incorporate the annual meeting into their annual CME events, I think they would not regret it. It is such a valuable, inspiring, and energizing experience. I think people would get so much out of it that it would just be good all around. I just urge people to incorporate it into their annual CME activities.

Kevin Pho: Janet, thank you again for sharing your perspective and insight. Thanks for coming back on the show.

Janet A. Jokela: Thank you so much.