Addressing National Health Care Needs: Cultivating Physicians That Practice in Medically Underserved Communities (IDEAS) - 08/21/2025

Michael J. Dill is Director of Workforce Studies at the AAMC. Mr. Dill has more than a quarter century of experience in health services research, survey design, and research communication. He manages a research and data analytics group with an extensive portfolio of original research, data collection, and dissemination activities to support and inform AAMC, its members, and the broader workforce research and policy community in their planning for the nation’s physician workforce needs. Mr. Dill has led AAMC’s physician workforce projections modeling work since its inception seventeen years ago, and he is a nationally recognized subject matter expert on health workforce data and research methods. He is an author or co-author of numerous publications, and he is regularly invited to present research findings at national and international conferences, as well as for constituent groups and health care organizations and associations. Mr. Dill received his Master of Arts in Public Affairs and Policy from Rockefeller College.

Amy Pineda, MPH is a research analyst of the Medical Education Research team at the AAMC. She leads research at the AAMC focused on advancing medical education and scholarship, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Collaborating with experts across the field, her work explores medical student readiness and educational outcomes across the continuum of medical education.

Xiaochu Hu, PhD, is the Manager of Research in Workforce Studies at the AAMC where she leads and manages a wide range of physician workforce research and data collection. Dr. Hu is the immediate past Chair of the Health Workforce Interest Group Advisory Committee of AcademyHealth. Her research interests include health workforce, migration, and public health.

Dr. Adwoa Osei is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Dean of Medical Education Quality at the University of California Riverside School of Medicine and program director of UCR PRIME LEAD-ABC program. A board-certified pediatrician, she leads the development of health equity focused, trauma-informed curricula and clinical practices that centers underserved communities to improve child and family health. She has contributed to CDC’s expert panels on disability and serves as a subject matter expert for the AAP, AMA, and the National Academies of Science and Medicine on pediatric mental and behavioral health.

Laney McDougal, MS-HSM joined the ACGME in April 2020 as the Director of Medically Underserved Areas/Populations and Graduate Medical Education, in the Department of Accreditation, Recognition, and Field Activities. She leads the ACGME’s efforts to advance graduate medical education (GME) that addresses health and healthcare in medically underserved areas and populations and oversees the programmatic unit of the ACGME that coordinates these efforts. Ms. McDougal received her MS degree in Health Systems Management from Rush University, and her BA in Intercultural Studies from University of Northwestern-St. Paul. In her prior role as Director of Accreditation and Improvement in the Office of Integrated Medical Education at Rush University Medical Center, she implemented oversight structures to monitor compliance with ACGME requirements and served as an Institutional Coordinator and accreditation resource. Ms. McDougal has nine years of experience in GME administration and has worked in both dermatology and internal medicine residency programs and led several GME process improvement initiatives.

Emily M. Hawes, PharmD, is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UNC School of Medicine and engaged in medical and pharmacy education for over 13 years. She serves as Director of the HRSA-funded Rural Residency Planning and Development and Teaching Health Center – Technical Assistance Centers.  She practices as a Clinical Pharmacist Practitioner providing collaborative drug therapy management in a primary care in rural North Carolina. Dr. Hawes’ research focuses on state and federal health workforce policy and graduate medical education development and sustainability in rural and underserved areas.

Thomas Gearan, MD, FACP currently serves as Associate DIO at MaineHealth and Chair of the ACGME Medically Underserved Areas and Populations Advisory Group. In his previous role as program director of the internal medicine residency program at Maine Medical Center, he developed the Rural Internal Medicine Maine (RIMM) pathway, a first-of-its-kind rural GME pathway for internal medicine. He currently serves as Site Director for the Maine Rural GME (MERGE) Collaborative and Project Director for MaineHealth’s HRSA Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) grant. He received his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed his internship, residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Boston Medical Center. He is Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.