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FACULTY DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS

Practical Aspects of Writing Basic Science Board-Style Questions

How does a not-young faculty member teaching Biochemistry and Genetics make this look easy? The secrets are revealed and can be used by all!

A Journey through Multiple Active Learning Styles

With his extensive experience in Problem-Based Learning, as well as Flipped Classrooms, Directed Study and Self-Directed Learning, these can be compared to each other and your current processes, and determine if what you do actually fits the name you gave it.

Effective Lecture Techniques: You Can Do Better

There are a lot of ideas on how best to deliver a lecture. What most of them lack is experimental verification. There actually is data out there on this, so here are some things to try.

STUDENT SESSIONS

Reality Check for New Medical Students

Nobody wants to be the bad guy, telling excited students in that post-orientation glow that medical school is hard, and that the outside world determines if they get a license, not their grades. Also, those grades are harder to come by than in college. As they may hate the person who delivers this message, why not pass it off to someone they will never see again and remain the “nice guys”.

Student Success: The Other Part

Not the platitudes of some sessions, but the pitfalls that are all too common in first-year students’ plans, the problems with advice from second-year students, and why one size does not fit all. With some practical advice and showing why choices must be personal, the students may start to think about it before they fail an exam. Knowing things not to do can be as helpful as advice on what they could do.

Where Do You Fit in Medical Scholl?

Probably never to be delivered, but here it is. With so many of today’s students raised on a steady diet of affirmations and bolstering of their self-esteem, they can be pretty self-important. They need to be reminded that everyone else in their class also got into the same medical school as they did and may be better equipped to succeed than they are. They are not the most important person in a patient encounter. The patient is there to have their problem solved, not to admire you and pay you money. No matter how Woke you are, it will not rub off on everyone you know, and if they slip with your chosen pronoun, it is not a personal slight that must be avenged. After all, if you are being mentioned in the third person, most of the time you are not involved in the conversation! Take it easy, don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember, almost all of it is the small stuff. Work hard, don’t decide you are so wonderful that everything always has to go your way, and life will be simpler. In general, medical school is NOT simple, so don’t add to the complications with your attitude. The type of attitude common today is NOT helpful, outrage at everything will tire you out, and you do not have the time and energy for that. Concentrate on what really matters, and chill out!

 

BASIC SCIENCE CURRICULUM DESIGN

With the move toward less time in the pre-clinical aspects of medical training, are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater – or whatever the current idiom is? Are you handing off some of the curriculum to undergraduate training by adding to admission requirements? Is that a good idea? By teaching Medical Biochemistry and Medical Genetics, it has become obvious that the undergraduate teaching in these areas is very different, and do not provide adequate information for clinical situations. Judicious “pruning” may be done, but it has to be thoughtful and well-reasoned, not cutting hours for the sake of giving more time to “more important things”. The result may be felt harshly when taking the Boards, and by then you have failed the students, not improved their chances of becoming good physicians.

 

ACCREDITATION ADVICE

Having been through multiple session with both LCME and COCA, I have seen where schools have "blind spots", certain that what they are doing fits with the standards or trying to make the standards fit their ideas. Looking in from the outside, I can help you find those problems. Interpreting what standards "really mean" can be a flaw in reasoning as well, and sometimes people are reluctant to point it out, especially to their senior leaders. This is not a "practice visit" or anyhthing so comprehensive (or expensive), but a look at possible "points of failure", in engineering terms. Do you have apossivble weak spot? AN outsider can sometimes see what you cannot or assure you that you should be on the right track.

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