A Final Reflection

When I signed up for this selective, I envisioned a rotation that mainly consisted of ambulatory clinics and rounds. In terms of the medical education piece, I had initially thought that we would receive seminars on how to teach. I was not aware of the huge amount of formal literature that existed on the topic. In retrospect, I am glad we were given the freedom to pursue our own educational interests. In referencing my previous posts, it allowed me to study something that I found important and thus provided me an intrinsic motivator to learn. At the same time, it was also nice that we were provided the time to do our literature searches without pressure. I am very happy that I was able to tie my research in directly with my final presentation.

As I mentioned in my first blog, I have always liked teaching. In fact, it was one of my first career interests before I discovered my passion for science and I kept it up ever since through tutoring and mentoring programs. However, spending clinics with Dr. HPK has shown me that teaching well isn’t just about content. Like the physician-patient relationship, it encompasses the entirety of the encounter. It’s about connecting with your student on a personal level and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, their learning style and tailoring the teaching to the individual. It’s about the delivery and providing a comfortable environment to challenge them to think outside the box. It’s also about providing understanding and context as a basis for integrating their knowledge. One topic of particular emphasis was empathy. Throughout medical school we’ve always been taught to demonstrate empathy through the simple approach of adding “empathetic” sentences such as “oh that must be difficult” and “I can’t imagine how you must feel” etc. However, Dr. HPK demonstrates another, arguably even better method to convey empathy through plain, yet meaningful conversation. No matter what the age, race or social status of the patient, he always finds a topic of interest with which to bond. Travelling and business are common themes; however, I’ve also seen him build rapport with more esoteric subjects. One time, he connected with an Ecuadorian man by talking about the Galapagos Islands. By showing that we care for patients’ personal lives, we gain that trust from them that is all the more valuable during times where medical decisions must be made. I witnessed several instances where patients who would otherwise refuse treatment or challenge management put full confidence in Dr. HPK. He attributed that privilege to the years he spent chatting with the patients.

The other part of my selective was focused on research and making my presentation. As I am going to be a radiologist, I am very interested in medical education around that topic. While my initial ideas revolved around radiology curriculum development, I quickly discovered that there is very scant research surrounding implementing formal radiology curricula and the research that do exist only serve to say that there is interest regarding more exposure/teaching etc. Thus, I turned to investigate how to improve the current system and through that came across the idea of Student Response Systems (SRS). Having used both “old-generation” and “new-generation” SRSs, I could say from experience that they definitely helped engage me in the lectures where they were used. Through my research, I discovered that while SRSs definitely do benefit the teaching process, their direct and independent influence on positively improving learning is still debatable. Nevertheless, their efficiency and practicality definitely warrant further research into potential incorporation into curricula and additional research into their positive effects on learning. Having tested out the SRS Socrative in my presentation, I can say that it is easy-to-use, effective in providing feedback and generating discussion and very useful in increasing participation and promoting anonymity. I found it especially valuable in testing application following my lecture and with its imaging features, a definite asset to any radiology lecture. During this time, I was also introduced to another SRS, Poll Everywhere. I discovered one hidden gem in one of its features, especially pertaining to radiology, which is that it allows one to upload an image and select an area of interest (e.g. classic finding, pathology). Then participants are asked to click on the image on their smartphones where they think the finding lies and the responses are fed back to the system and verified to see if they match the intended area. I can foresee this being an interesting way to teach lower-level radiology students in “finding the abnormality”.

Overall, I am extremely satisfied with this selective. Not only did I have a great time, meet some great mentors and learn some great medicine (at a convenient time I might add), I also took away several skills and tools that I can definitely incorporate into my future career. While I may not have the most patient interactions in the future as a radiologist, the teaching I received on this rotation regarding mentorship and empathy will serve me well in interacting with other staff, residents, students and health care professionals. As someone who will definitely promote radiology education in the future, I also acquired some invaluable knowledge regarding how to most effectively present images to students and some ideas in how to improve our lecture series. Finally, through my research, I managed to identify some areas in curricula that lack the necessary research to justify change. This is something that I plan to work on throughout my career and hopefully result in some innovative and useful renovations to our current educational system.

-DW