It has taken some time for me to write my first blog post. Instead, I have spent the past two weeks carefully moving through the reflections of students before me, imagining their experiences and trying to decide what my main goals for this rotation would be. Previous students have discussed the near-mystical experience  My main takeaway has been that there is a world of possibility. As a selective experience, this rotation is intended to better prepare me for residency. I have reframed it in my own objectives, instead hoping that it will inspire in me a passion or interest for some part of medical education research that I can bring into residency with me, and therefore be a step towards one of the pillars (hopefully!) of my future career.

At the near-halfway mark of this rotation already (how quickly time passes in the post-CaRMS world!), I already have a much better understanding of the landscape of medical education research. Why has struck me is the different philosophical schools of thought on medical education. Scholars of the past cannot agree on the best model to characterize med ed in the first place, much less the most robust methodology to study it. Equally, there is still an open question in the existing literature (that I have read so far) about who should be doing medical education research in the first place.

Perhaps my favourite article so far has been Norman's 'Fifty years of medical education research: waves of migration' where Geoff Norman discusses the three generations of med ed researchers, comparing them to immigrants in a new country. The first generation 'emigrated' from other fields of training, whether statistics, psychology or qualitative research, to break new ground in medical education topics. They used 'common sense' to make their way through the field. The second generation were actively recruited from the fields that the existing med ed terrain lacked, such as cognitive psychology and psychometrics. They straddled both the 'old' and 'new' worlds.

And the third generation, the one that I hope to belong to, are usually in the healthcare field and have 'actively chosen this career path; mentored and taught by medical education researchers'. The article is a fascinating read at this stage in my life because as I prepare to delve more deeply into this research field during my selective, I find great value in orienting myself to its historical roots, and my own potential role in its future.

From what I have seen so far, this selective is full of unique cross-disciplinary learning activities. Whether I am participating in morning report, in a post-discharge ambulatory medicine clinic, or trying to solve one of HPK's photographic riddle cases, I am already learning so much about the flexibility of teaching and learning internal medicine. Tomorrow, I aim to choose an area to focus my own research project for this rotation. I am excited to get started!

- Shara