Biography
A Boston area native, Dr. Waldman received Bachelor's degrees in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University and Music Composition from The Peabody Conservatory, both in 1998. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (2003) and completed his residency here at the University of New Mexico (2006), where he was a chief resident. Dr. Waldman joined UNM as faculty in 2009 and was the Family Medicine Inpatient Director from 2009-2014. From 2013 to 2020 Dr. Waldman was the UNM Family Medicine Residency Program Director.
Personal Statement
Dr. Waldman has a passion for Graduate Medical Education and teaching Diagnostic Reasoning. Dr. Waldman works to help support the growth and development of Primary Care programs throughout the state of New Mexico. Currently he is working to help create a new Family Medicine residency with support from a Rural Residency Planning and Development HRSA grant, partnering with Northern Navajo Medical Center.
Areas of Specialty
Specialization #1: Graduate Medical Education
Specialization #2: Faculty Development
Specialization #3: Healthcare Workforce Development
Achievements & Awards
I have worked to build, improve and lead educational curricula and programs, devoted many hours to individual and group teaching, participated in numerous regional and national educational conferences and most of all have had the benefit of working with talented residents, peers and mentors. Over the years I?ve read hundreds, perhaps thousands of pages of various kinds of feedback about the programs and curricula I have led and met with residents in individual and group meetings to learn how we could continue to improve. These experiences combined with feedback have helped me grow as an educator.
My educational vision continues to develop as the scope of my work changes, from first leading our inpatient service and resident school series, to later becoming our department?s residency director. Recently I obtained funding for a HRSA grant to build a residency in partnership with the largest reservation-based hospital in Navajo Nation (Shiprock), where I?m helping build the program with Shiprock leaders. I?ve also recently started work in an educational leadership and support position, through the New Mexico Primary Care Consortium, a new position
that will support new and developing residency programs. As part of this educational support work, I?m currently mentoring 2 residency program directors and 3 faculty leaders who will be soon assuming residency leadership positions. Two of these mentees are outside the UNM system.
I am honored to have a standing invitation to give a lecture at the New Mexico Academy of Family Physician?s winter CME conference, where I cover the most important recent clinical developments in the broad field of Family Medicine, and comment on their evidence basis. This talk often receives the highest evaluation scores of the conference. I continue to lead a large amount of formal and informal resident educational sessions on our inpatient service; in the days of my inpatient leadership role I was personally responsible for about 1/3 of all the annual talks annually given on the service. Thankfully now we have many dedicated learners, including many with extremely effective teaching styles that I learn from.
In 2019 I was the recipient of the New Mexico Academy of Family Physicians? ?President?s Award,? given in recognition of my role in statewide Graduate Medical Education. Though certainly not the goal of my work, I believe the award speaks to the kind of work I?ve been doing and hope to continue to do. Other metrics of my
work include improvements in ACGME Resident Survey scores, improvement in resident recruitment metrics while maintaining 65% state retention rate post-graduation, and high board pass rates despite de-emphasizing test taking as part of our resident application evaluations. I am a strong believer in the importance of a diverse physician workforce when caring for a diverse population, and test-taking skills are of limited value in predicting much beyond success in future tests.
Gender
Male
Languages
- Spanish
Research and Scholarship
HRSA Residency Training in Primary Care. PI: Dan Waldman, MD. Sponsoring Agency HRSA D58HP37584 for Residency Training in Primary Care. Dates: July 2020-June 2025
Barrett E, Lawrence E, Waldman D, Brislen H. Improving How State Medical Boards Ask Physicians About Mental Health Diagnoses: A Case Study From New Mexico. Ann Intern Med. 2020;172(9):617-618. doi:10.7326/M19-3681