Blog #1 – March 7, 2017

My interest in teaching began while I was a teaching assistant for medical students as a graduate student. In this role, I recognized the challenges associated with being a teacher. It can be difficult to gauge student understanding, communicate complex concepts, and engage disinterested learners. As a medical student, I have learned that being an excellent clinician teacher is not an easy feat, and yet, I have also seen many role models excel in this role. How do the professionals teach with such ease?

As a participant in the Students as Teachers program, one clinician educator once said, “Think about an excellent teaching session you’ve experienced. That teacher who spent one hour teaching you, probably spent four to six hours preparing that session to teach you.” I realized then that the key to being a good teacher involves preparation, preparation, experience, and more preparation. This comment made me more appreciative of excellent clinician teachers, and inspired me to further develop my teaching skills throughout medical school. In doing so, my interest in medical education also grew in the form of research and eventually led me to apply for the CEEP selective.

As a medical student, I am grateful for this learning opportunity especially as I advance in my training when teaching becomes more relevant as a resident. I also think that this experience is appropriately placed as learners like myself would have completed nearly four years of medical school, would be able to reflect on the education they have received, and can consolidate these concepts during this selective. They can then apply these strategies toward their future training. For example, I have learned that when teaching a concept, using schemas (examples that students are already familiar with) is an effective teaching strategy while communicating complex concepts. During this selective, I saw how this was used by Dr. HPK, in one form or another, when he asked my colleague and I indirect questions to allow us to arrive at our own answers. Thinking back to the diverse concepts I learned during this half-day, I can appreciate how effective this quirky and unique teaching method was for myself as a student. Observing Dr. DP teaching during noon rounds was a similar experience, where I could see him apply teaching strategies that I once learned as a Students as Teachers participant.  While posing a question to an audience, I could see how waiting for a response (‘7-second rule’) gave learners an opportunity to formulate/synthesize concepts. He also included relevant breaks and used minimal text during his presentation which were effective strategies in keeping a group of students engaged.

Approaching this selective with a different lens has allowed me to reflect on my clinical encounters in a different way. I am excited by the opportunities we will have as students on this rotation to reflect in different capacities (e.g. reflecting on the teaching experience during clinic, having an opportunity to teach, designing a research project, setting learning objectives, designing evaluation metrics, etc.). My hope is that by the end of these two weeks, I will be better equipped with teaching strategies that I can use as a soon-to-be resident.

- CY