Concentration in Medical Education
Concentration Director
Richard DollaseOffice of Curriculum Affairs
Box G-B 215, Providence, RI 02912
Email Address: Richard_Dollase@brown.edu
Phone: 401 863-3198
Other participating faculty:
Julie Taylor, MD, Department of Family Medicine
Luba Dumenco, MD, Department of Pathology and Office of Curriculum Affairs
Dale Ritter, PHD, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Overview
Students participating in the Scholarly Concentration in Medical Education will develop an interdisciplinary perspective on the teaching and learning processes related to patient-centered health care. Specifically, the concentration program will integrate the study of education, philosophy, and psychology to enable students to gain a holistic view of medical education in the context of academic medicine and clinical care. The seminars and workshops will focus on active teaching-learning processes including current assessment strategies in the field of psychometrics. Concentrators will gain competence in lecturing, leading small groups, tutoring, motivating and counseling students, and assessing individual student progress and a student’s small-group and class performance.
Moreover, in developing an educational philosophy that is based on moral and ethical standards related to clinical practice, students will draw upon the literature in the field of philosophy and clinical ethics. Students will also gain perspective on the underlying principles related to information technology and its impact on teaching and learning in the classroom and in medical practice.
Overlap exists between the Scholarly Concentration in Medical Education and the Teaching Academy student group. However, the two entities are not one in the same and each has its own process and timeline for inclusion. Membership in the Teaching Academy will be not be required of all students participating in the Medical Education Concentration, but the medical education concentrator will be asked to participate in appropriate clinical teaching workshops. However, if a student joins the Teaching Activity, the substantive activities of the Teaching Academy represent one aspect of the four-year Scholarly Concentration in Medical Education and provide Concentrators with an important opportunity to translate theory into practice as they coach Year I students.
CURRICULUM
Timeline of Activities
Summer after Year I: Students will be involved in curriculum-development activities related to developing or revising first- or second-year preclinical courses. Students may also be engaged in developing self-learning modules related to pathophysiology sections of the first-year or second-year curriculum.
Year II: Students will participate in teaching and learning workshops related to the second year Teaching Academy. These workshops include clinical skills coaching; tutoring skills, with special emphasis on providing useful feedback to students; working with small-group faculty preceptors. Additional didactic or discussion sessions on teaching and learning may be held for concentrators during the Wednesday self-directed learning time.
Medical Education Concentrators who join the Teaching Academy may also participate as teaching assistants in small-group workshops that are part of the first-year Doctoring course. These Doctoring workshops will take place on Wednesday afternoons during both the fall and spring semesters. Medical Education Concentrators may also participate in basic science labs and small-group sessions that will be offered during Wednesday mornings.
Years III & IV: After completing a core clerkship such as in the Medicine Clerkship, the Pediatrics Clerkship or the Family Medicine Clerkship, the Medical Education Concentrator will have the opportunity to develop and teach a Problem-Based Learning module or to conduct an ethics workshop in one or more of these core clerkships. The student-led workshop may be given more than once during the later part of the student’s third year or fourth year.
Students will also undertake an independent study at the end of the third year or during the fourth year to prepare a final project. Medical Education Concentrators who are interested in teaching in the preclinical classes may be able to work in a basic science course or the Doctoring course during the fall or spring semester.
Learning Objectives
The medical education concentrators will develop 1) an interdisciplinary perspective on the teaching and learning processes related to patient-centered health care; 2) the students will also be able to employ active-learning strategies that enable them to become highly effective teachers and mentors; 3) students will also be able to self-reflect and effectively self-evaluate their effectiveness as tutors, teachers, and mentors.
Specifically, the medical education concentrators will demonstrate competence in
- Lecturing to a large group
- Leading a small-group discussion
- Tutoring and counseling other students
- Applying the latest educational technology to improve instruction
- Developing curriculum—including self-directed learning modules
- Creating written examinations and OSCE cases
- Evaluating the clinical performance of other students
- Utilizing self-evaluation strategies to assess their teaching effectiveness
Evaluation
Teaching: During their teaching and tutoring, students will be observed and evaluated by faculty who are members of the Medical Education Concentration faculty and by other faculty members who may supervise students as tutors and/or teacher assistants in preclinical and clinical courses. There will also be peer observations and evaluations by other medical students who may be concentrators or in the Teaching Academy.
Curriculum Development: In planning, developing and implementing new curriculum modules, students will be assigned faculty mentors who will review and critique their curriculum at each stage of development; and then the faculty mentors will observe the students teaching some of the teaching material. The faculty will also review the evaluation of the materials by students who participated in the curriculum project. A final report will be developed by the Medical Education Concentrator that will be reviewed by the faculty mentor and then student will make an oral presentation to the Medical Education Concentration faculty.
Research: Under the supervision of a faculty mentor, the student will develop and implement a research design to evaluate the effectiveness of a component of our interdisciplinary preclinical curriculum. The research will be critiqued by the faculty member and two other members of a review team. The student will then make an oral presentation to the Medical Education Concentration faculty and to other students in the concentration.
Resources
Participating students will work closely with Medical Education Concentration faculty, composed of excellent teachers and mentors, and the core clerkship directors in family medicine, medicine and pediatrics, who are also very effective teachers and mentors. Standardized patients will also be used to help develop and refine the Medical Education Concentrators’ clinical teaching skills. The University libraries have a substantive collection of books and articles on education. The Concentration will also utilize the resources of the Harriett Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning.
Project Examples
1) Develop a curriculum module in a core clerkship or in a preclinical course that will involve creating an interdisciplinary curriculum unit, teaching the material, and evaluating the curriculum innovation. Once the curriculum module has been completed, the student will present the written document for review and then make an oral presentation to the Medical Education Concentration faculty and other students in the concentration on its educational goals, pedagogy and overall effectiveness.
2) Undertake an evaluation project related to the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary component of a preclinical course or clinical course, or conduct a study of the effectiveness of one or more elements of the new integrated preclinical curriculum. The written report will be reviewed by a faculty mentor and the student will make an oral presentation to the Medical Education Concentration faculty and other students in the concentration.
3) Create and design an interdisciplinary preclinical or clinical elective that focuses on a topic of interest and that employs active-learning strategies and valid assessment protocols. The student will offer the elective to 5 or more students. The student will develop the curriculum, teach a substantive part of the material, and receive feedback on its effectiveness from students who take the elective and from a faculty mentor who has reviewed the material and observed a number of the classes. The student then will write a final report and make an oral presentation to the Medical Education Concentration faculty and other students in the concentration.
4) Teach for a semester or half-a-semester in first- and second-year basic science courses and/or the two-year Doctoring course. Collaborating with course faculty, the student will develop and implement lesson plans in lecturing or helping lead small-groups; also assess or critique the academic and/or clinical performance of students; and work effectively as a team member with senior faculty in the course. The student will be systematically observed by faculty and will also be evaluated by students in the course. The Medical Education Concentrator will keep a journal of reflections on the teaching experience and develop a substantive reflective essay related to the individual’s strengths and weaknesses as a teacher and mentor; what important “lesson” the student has learned during the teaching rotation; and recommendations for improving the teaching component of the concentration.
2009 Accepted Students & Scholarly Concentration Projects:
| Student | Project Title | Mentor |
| Patel, Nilay | Physician as Educator: Integrating the Basic Sciences Curriculum into Clinical Clerkships | Richard Dollase, EdD |
| Vasudevan, Kumar | A Curriculum to Enhance the Preclinical Stages of the Specialty Choice Process | Brian Zink, MD |
| Dy, Geolani | From Oakland to Providence: Transplanting lessons on Asian refugee healthcare | Richard Dollase, EdD |
Maximum Number of Students
We can generally accommodate 3-5 students.
Faculty Mentors
Presently there are four faculty members who will mentor students.
Funding Opportunities
(alternatives to Summer Assistantships)
Curriculum-development funds from the Dean of Medical Education are available to two to three Medical Education Concentrators interested in developing or revising the preclinical curriculum.