Medical Education Research and IRB Review

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By Emily Anderson

Medical school curricula now emphasize evidence-based medicine.  We also need to prioritize evidence-based educational strategies.  There are some great educational innovations happening at our medical school, but too few publications highlighting these.  Conducting research on medical education faces many barriers, not least of all, lack of funding.  Publication in any peer-reviewed academic journal usually requires some evaluation data; to get in a top-tier journal, you need solid research methodology, clearly defined outcome measures, and sufficient sample sizes.  Medical education journals are notorious for rejecting small pilot studies, which is discouraging.  Perhaps even more daunting are the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs).  Studies indicate that medical education researchers face challenges in IRB submission and review (1,2).  Unfortunately, we often end up implementing new programs – and maybe even doing a solid program evaluation – but never sharing what we’ve learned with colleagues outside our own institution…

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A Journey to the Border: A Reflection of the Other Side

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By Jeff Ni

“A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.” ― Ronald Reagan

Today, immigration is a multifaceted topic, and oftentimes, the political narrative surrounding immigration is rife with dread. Much of the conversation is driven by fear, not of the Mexican, but of the even more terrifying unknown. I would venture that few people who have an “informed” opinion on border policy have sacrificed the time to genuinely hear the situation of the migrant. Even fewer have probably visited the border itself.

As a medical student at a pioneer institution for the acceptance of DACA students, I recognized my own ignorance on immigration, and I decided to participate in a summer trip to Tucson to learn from an outstanding educational organization called Borderlinks. My trip was brief but sufficient for me to realize that the situation was dire, and that our country, sadly and profoundly, had lost control…
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Things Other Than Transplant Surgeons

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Hearing the Call:  A Feature on How Physicians and Medical Educators Came to Understand Their Vocation

By Sarah E. Stumbar

Sometime during middle school, I became engrossed in a series of young adult novels about children dying of tragic diseases: heart failure (saved by a heart transplant!) leukemia, cystic fibrosis. I wanted to be a doctor! I wanted to be written into these stories, encompassed by both their tears and their triumphs.

As I continued to read, I traveled with my mom to a conference in Accra, Ghana. We visited the old fortresses of the country’s slave coast and walked through the city; forever kept on the outside by our skin color, which unequivocally meant that we were from elsewhere. The markets selling imported goods from China, the people living exposed on stretches of pavement, and the half-constructed cement buildings spoke to me of immense poverty. I tried to reconcile how this world could coexist with my own comfortable life in New York. The people we met spoke of the AIDS crisis, orphans and a lack of health care resources. The needs were overwhelming to my fourteen year-old-self…
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Social Scientists in Medical Education: Important Contributors to the Educational Mission

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By Bobbie Ann Adair White and Leila Diaz

When we began our careers in medical education in the early 2000s, our roles (Student Affairs and Admissions) were adjacent to those of educators but not truly intertwined in content development and delivery. We found there were opportunities to create and lobby for co-curricular social sciences content, but often these were ancillary to the basic and clinical sciences. However, in the mid 2000s content such as leadership, and interprofessional education began to gain traction, and the popularity of small group delivery methods grew. These trends opened doors for social scientists to contribute more meaningfully within the curriculum…
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Time to Heal

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Hearing the Call:  A Feature on How Physicians and Medical Educators Came to Understand their Vocation

By Deb Roman

The children tried to cope, but at times, the best they could do was to go into a room and scream, sometimes for more than an hour, emerging exhausted and distant.  They struggled to find comfort in play, unburdened by the weight of their experiences. As a summer intern in this hospital for abused children, I hoped to get experience with a speech therapist on staff, but as I walked the halls after hours, and listened for the children, the depth of their suffering, and the response of the medical director moved me in a way that would change my direction…
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Sacred and Profane: Balancing the sanctity of the human body with the mechanics of cadaver dissection

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By Michael Dauzvardis

Often heard on the first day of anatomy lab:

“Oh— I’m so glad the cadaver doesn’t look real. It is gray and ashen.  The skin is wrinkled and the head is shaven. I can do this— I’ll make the first cut.”

In fall, in medical schools across the country, students begin their initial rite of passage on their journey to becoming a physician by undertaking the task of cadaver dissection.  It is the job of the anatomy faculty to assist the students in this profane act by teaching them how to use scalpels, long knives, saws, hammers, and chisels in the disassembly of the human body.  At the same time, it is also the job of the anatomy faculty, campus ministry, and other enlightened students to hit the “spiritual reset button” and remind all dissectors not to neglect the “human” in human dissection.  Most medical schools now have an opening (and closing) ceremony focusing on the sacredness of the human body and the unselfish gift and generosity of the donors…

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Landing the Role of a Lifetime

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Hearing the Call:  A Feature on How Physicians and Medical Educators Came to Understand their Vocation

By Kerensa Peterson

Sometimes, a place just feels right, like home.  When I entered the Clinical Education Center for the first time, I immediately felt calm—an unusual feeling before an audition.  When I arrived, I made my way to a chair in the back of the room where I had a great view of Harvey, the heart simulator.  I wondered how he might fit into this audition scenario.  Two gentlemen walked in and introduced themselves as trainers to a room full of expectant actors.  I was hooked – from the moment they started to explain the role of a Standardized Patient.  I have never before had such a relaxing and intriguing audition… Read More »

What is the Future of Ethics Education in Medical Schools?

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By Micah Hester

In 2004, Lisa Lehman and colleagues noted that “Despite widespread agreement that ethics should be taught [in medical schools], there is little formal consensus concerning what, when, and how medical ethic is best taught” (2004, 682).  Eleven years later, the Project to Rebalance and Integrate Medical Education (PRIME) group in its Romanell Report (2015) followed like Lehman when saying, “Despite broad consensus on the importance of teaching medical ethics and professionalism, there is no consensus about the specific goals of medical ethics education for future physicians, the essential knowledge and skills learners should acquire, the best methodologies and processes for instruction, and the optimal strategies for assessment.”  In other words, we know that the content, form, place, and number of hours in the curriculum devoted to the ethics (and related concerns such as professionalism and values clarification) varies greatly.  There are roughly 170 medical schools (both allopathic and osteopathic) in the United States and Canada, and there are roughly 170 different ways that ethics is taught to medical students across the continent…
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Not Your Father’s Medical Humanities

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By Delese Wear & Therese Jones

No one would argue that the definitions of “health” and “medicine” are different.  However,  when some of us began to urge a change regarding those words as modifiers—as in medical humanities being replaced by health humanities—there have been varied responses:  from expressions of puzzlement to charges of academic nitpicking.

Words matter—an assertion often glossed over in academic medicine.  For example, consider the thousands of words written about the important differences between “compliance” and “adherence” (though compliance is still commonly used) as well as an equally large number on the effects of derogatory labels of patients (many of those also still said and heard).  Moreover, the sloppy, varied, and ubiquitous use of educational trends labeled as “professionalism,” “reflection,” and “competencies” has made significant pedagogical deployment and evaluation of them almost meaningless in medical education…
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My Family Doctor

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Hearing the Call:  A Feature on How Physicians and Medical Educators Came to Understand their Vocation

By Janet Piskurich

I grew up in a small steel town not knowing about the immune deficiency that caused me to spend more time in my family doctor’s office than most girls my age.  I still remember the mirror on his forehead, the way his mustache moved when he examined my throat and that he always remembered to ask about the high school football game where I had spent too much time screaming cheers.  My mother was busy at our house and didn’t always accompany me.  The doctor’s office was only a few blocks away, and I could be trusted walk that far and not lose the five dollar bill she gave me to pay him…

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