Month: March 2018

Extension

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By Tim Lahey

Every March I run the last required course at our medical school. It’s a three-week-long, 47-hour sprint – a sort of boot camp for professional formation. We polish clinical skills, revisit foundational sciences, let students pick from a menu of interesting tutorials, and discuss professional formation.

Students grapple with hypothetical gastrointestinal crises on scatalogically-named student teams. They resuscitate rubbery patients with various flavors of hypotension. I don a sparkly red bowtie to MC a game show called Antibiotic Jeopardy.

Throughout, we discuss the evolution of their professional identities. I ask how their idealism has changed during medical school, and every year over 60% say it has waned. We share the stories that shape us, and how they can stay true to the values that brought them to medical school in the first place. Then they hand in a tall stack of confidential essays that I reply to on nights and weekends right up until the day they speak the Hippocratic Oath. Read More »

What Diversity and Inclusion Means to Me: A Science of Learning Perspective

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By Adrian K. Reynolds

Over the past few months, I’ve been on a quest to answer this one question: How does my mission to create opportunities for students to develop self-regulated, active learning1,2 skills support diversity and inclusion?

In this quest to raise my level of critical consciousness3, or, in my African American Vernacular English, to “stay woke”, I’ve asked, how do the learning opportunities I’ve provided for students foster a culture of inclusion for all, regardless of gender, ethnicity, race, age, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, origin, language, ability, or political beliefs?  Well, I thought to myself, as a Black male teacher of Spanish in the K-12 school system, then later as a college instructor of English as a Second Language (ESL), and now as an academic enhancement specialist in the medical school setting, the learning opportunities I’ve created for students from all walks of life have, I believe, reflected meaningful contributions to building a culture of diversity and inclusion.  Not being completely satisfied with this response, I continued along the path of critical self-reflection. Read More »

From Marjory Stoneman Douglas to Medical School: A Call to Action

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by Zarna Patel

I cannot find the right words to describe how it felt when I read news: “School shooting at High School in Southeastern Florida.”  Despite the 239 school shootings since Sandy Hook, nothing can prepare you for the numbness of having it happen in your hometown.  The way your heart leaps into your throat, the way all sound is muted, the way debilitating fear takes hold from your head to your toes.

“Are you OK?  Tell me you’re OK?!  Please answer me!”  Never in a million years did I think I would have to send a text like that to my 16-year-old cousin, whose biggest worry last weekend was her upcoming SAT test.

Knowing how many innocent children would never return to their parent’s arms that night was paralyzing.  I couldn’t close my eyes for more than a few minutes before flashes of my old high school haunted my dreams.  The large courtyard we ate lunch in, smeared in blood.  The freshman building we loved to hate, filled with kids running away, hand raised. The large auditorium where I spent four years performing, now filled with the cries of distraught children.

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