Witnessing History: Reflections on Teaching in Turbulent Times

Prior political turmoil in the United States constituted a precarious foundation for living and teaching through a pandemic. In this essay, I contend that pandemic separation and ideological distortion have exacerbated polarization and distrust. I also consider the pedagogical implications of rising extremist discourses and conspiratorial thinking for both students and faculty. Educators must pay attention to the rising threat of extremism and consider that our students may be susceptible to radical antidemocratic ideologies as well. To conclude, I provide examples from some of my classes in the communication discipline to illustrate my approach to teaching the complicated intersections of rhetoric and reality in today’s polarized political climate.

Exploring how national educational organizations can promote educational research amongst members: a survey-based study

Background: Engagement of academic faculty in research remains low. While barriers to research have been explored, there are no data on how national organizations can help overcome these barriers. Our study explored faculty satisfaction and motivational drivers for engagement with research opportunities offered by the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP), an organization of pediatric medical educators, and characterize strategies perceived by faculty to promote the use of these opportunities.Methods: In 2021, 5 survey questions were administered to faculty members of COMSEP to explore satisfaction with COMSEP’s research offerings, the perceived value of educational research, and the facilitators, barriers and potential opportunities for COMSEP to promote research. Clark’s Commitment and Necessary Effort model on motivation served as the theoretical framework for our study, which explores motivation, self-efficacy and contextual factors influencing individual’s pursuit of goals. Chi-square analysis and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were used to compare categorical and scaled variables among groups who did and did not avail of COMSEP’s research offerings.Results: 90 (25%) of 360 recipients responded. Sixty-one percent expressed satisfaction with COMSEP’s research offerings. Sixty-eight percent indicated research was an expectation of their academic appointment, that education was their primary research focus (74%) and that they did not have other research opportunities that met their needs (58%). Of respondents, 75.7% of females had submitted a proposal versus 60% of females who had not. The comparison by gender was not statistically significant. Exploration by academic rank revealed that 35% of instructor/assistant professors had submitted a proposal compared to 65% of associate professors/professors (p=.05). Barriers leading to non-submission to any of the offerings included having too much other work, lack of enjoyment in writing and inability to find mentors. Respondents endorsed the importance of several strategies to promote engagement in research-skill building opportunities, personalized consultations and increased funding. Conclusions: Faculty educators value the importance of educational research and recognize that research opportunities offered by COMSEP address an unmet need, but express ambivalence in the enjoyment of writing (reflecting their mood), and endorse structural barriers, that are amenable to change, affecting their personal agency.

The Development of Supervisory Functions as Experienced by Attending Physicians and Medical Trainees: A Qualitative Directed Content Analysis

Objectives: this study aimed to identify the core components of supervisory functions experienced by attending physicians and medical trainees. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted based on the directed content analysis. Intentional sampling with maximum variation was used to select the required participants among medical trainees and attending physicians in teaching hospitals at Shahid Beheshti and Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. A semi-structured interview was used as the most important method of data collection in this study. Data saturation was reached after interviewing 20 participants. Results: In this study, 11 categories were identified through performing the interviews. Management supervision includes Academic Discipline and Monitor and follows the implementation of the curriculum. The themes of educational supervision were as follows: Empowering of non-faculty educators, Control over trainees' academic achievement, Supervision of trainees' performance, and Activities’ educators of evaluation Supportive supervision included improving trainees’ resilience, Provide functional support and Diversity and condition of providing support services. As well, the fourth theme from the participants’ initial codes was observed to be professionalism, including Professional accountability and Respect for patient rights. Conclusions: This study highlighted the important aspects for which clinical supervision functions need to be improved, to maximize their benefit to medical students. Supervisors are responsible to ensure these three functions occur across the course. Care must be taken to ensure that one function does not become the focus.

Value, Strengths, and Challenges of e-Learning Modules Paired with the Flipped Classroom for Graduate Medical Education: A Survey from the National Neonatology Curriculum

Objective This study aimed to determine the value, strengths, and challenges of implementing an e-learning based flipped classroom (FC) educational modality as part of the standardized physiology National Neonatology Curriculum (NNC), created for neonatal-perinatal medicine (NPM) fellow learners and faculty educators. Study Design This is a cross-sectional study of NPM fellows and faculty educators who utilized at least one of the e-learning based NNC FC respiratory physiology programs between May and September 2018. Participants were surveyed anonymously regarding their experiences participating in the NNC, including measures of preparation time. A combination of descriptive statistics and proportion comparisons were used for data analysis. Results Among 172 respondents, the majority of fellow and faculty respondents reported positive attitudes toward the educational content and case discussions, and the majority supported national standardization of NPM physiology education (92%). Fellows reported greater preclass preparation for their FC compared with previous didactic lectures (30–60 vs. 0–15 minutes, p < 0.01). Faculty facilitators reported less preparation time before facilitating a FC compared with the time required for creating a new didactic lecture (median: 60 vs. 240 minutes, p < 0.01). Both fellows and faculty respondents preferred the FC approach to traditional didactics, with fellows showing a greater degree of preference than faculty (68 vs. 52%, respectively, p = 0.04). Conclusion Fellows and faculty educators supported the FC learning, reporting peer-to-peer learning, and the establishment of a learning community which promotes adult learning and critical thinking skills. A national physiology curriculum creates equitable and engaging educational experiences for all NPM fellows while reducing individual program burden of content creation. Our findings further supported the development of an NNC using a flipped classroom modality.

A Faculty Development Graduate Medical Education Retreat to Teach and Address Social Determinants of Health

Background: Social determinants of health (SDH) account for a large percentage of health outcomes. Therefore, ensuring providers can address SDH is paramount yet curricula in this area is limited. Aim: The authors aimed to raise awareness, identify learning opportunities, foster positive attitudes, and equip educators to implement SDH curriculum. Setting and participants: This retreat occurred at a large academic institution and had over 130 participants who represented 56 distinct training programs and over 20 disciplines. Program description: The retreat was titled “Social Determinants of Health: Walking in Your Patients’ Shoes.” The retreat was holistic and used a multidimensional approach that included traditional learning, team-based learning, reflective practice, and prompted action. Program evaluation: The evaluation of this retreat included electronic surveys and both qualitative and quantitative data. The retreat’s quality and effectiveness at improving participants’ knowledge and skill in addressing SDH was highly rated and resulted in numerous programs, including surgical and subspecialty programs reporting adopting SDH curricular and clinical workflow changes. Discussion: The retreat was successful and reached a wide and diverse set of faculty educators and can serve as an education model to the graduate medical education community on how to start to develop “physician-citizens.”