CHF PRIME Is Back: Inside Our First Training in a Year and a Half
CHF PRIME is back. Residents in Fayetteville learned to diagnose and treat migraine in our first hybrid training. Here’s what we saw and what we learned.
Holly Harding
11/2/20262 min read
Two classrooms, one curriculum, and a test of how residents learn best.
On Friday, October 9, resident physicians at Southern Regional AHEC in Fayetteville spent four hours learning how to diagnose and treat migraine. Then they put it to work right away in real-time case scenarios, growing more confident as the day went on. It was the first CHF PRIME training in a year and a half, and the first since a $200,000 grant from Pfizer set CHF PRIME on a path to reach residency programs across North Carolina.
Why training residents matters
Most people with migraine get their care from a primary care doctor, yet headache medicine gets little time in medical training. Patients are often referred to one of the state's few headache specialists and wait months to be seen. CHF PRIME (Preparing Residents through Instruction in Migraine Education) gives future primary care physicians the skills to diagnose and treat headache disorders themselves, so patients get help sooner and closer to home.
Two classrooms at once
Fayetteville was also our first time teaching CHF PRIME in person and virtually at the same time. We did it on purpose: to compare how well each format works. Observers saw similar engagement and improvement in both settings.
That comparison is now part of a formal evaluation. Program Chair Kevin Kahn designed the evaluation so we can capture and demonstrate our results, working with CHF Advisor Marcy Boynton on the measures and on our IRB application. If the evaluations show residents learn just as well either way, we hope to let each residency choose the format that suits it best.
What we learned
Running both formats at once was a significant logistical lift for our faculty, partners, and staff, and it came with some technical glitches. That same evening, we debriefed with everyone who was there, so we only have to learn each lesson once. Those lessons are already built into our next training.
The people who made it happen
Our faculty, Dr. Alan Finkel, Dr. Sara Sacco, Dr. Delora Ann Denney, and Dr. Delora E. Denney, who refined and updated the curriculum for the day. Two of them travelled in from out of state.
Dion Chavis, our first Program Coordinator, who managed logistics and served as Host, a new role that tied the sessions together.
Dr. Kevin Kahn, Program Chair, who kept the day flowing as well as leading the evaluation.
Dr. Marcy Boynton, CHF Advisor and evaluation partner.
Melanie Oates and the Melden Tech team, who travelled from Maryland with a great deal of equipment to record the training. Melden Tech is a CHF partner that makes our hybrid trainings possible, running the technology that connects the in-person and virtual classrooms and recording each session. The footage will be edited into video we can reuse to teach more residents and to share CHF PRIME's story.
What's next
November 2026: Campbell, in-person only
February 2027: UNC, again hybrid version and recorded by Melden Tech
May 2027: Charlotte
Once the UNC training is recorded and edited, we'll share a version you can watch. Interested in bringing CHF PRIME to your residency program? Contact Dion Chavis at dionchavis@carolinaheadache.org
