Blog #6 – March 15, 2017

Teaching is not an easy task. Teaching in medicine can be even more challenging as the topics are often complex and difficult to communicate when time is a limitation. Though we are not formally trained to teach as physicians, we spend a decent portion of our time teaching especially in academic hospitals. Some of us eventually identify as being a clinician teacher as we utilize and adopt different strategies during our training based on mentors who we think are good teachers. As a resident, I think we will be put in a unique position as we would still be learning content ourselves, but we would also have trainees who are more junior in their training that we can relate to. In that sense, we could model how we deliver information and be mindful or cognizant of where their level of understanding might be as well.

In this CEEP selective, we were given the task of delivering a 30-minute presentation to our peers who our also fourth year medical students. While deciding on a topic to cover, I wanted to choose one that would be relevant for my colleagues as I knew they were heading into specialties like neurology, radiology, and internal medicine. And yet, I also wanted to choose a topic that I was passionate about as I strongly believe that teaching is an effective way to learn. Throughout this process of creating a presentation, I found myself looking up concepts I was unfamiliar, thinking of different ways to communicate the same idea, and practising how I would deliver the content over a set time period. In doing so, I found myself filling my own knowledge gaps, verbalizing content in different ways, and ultimately synthesizing information differently than I would when I am studying for an exam. Furthermore, while I was delivering the presentation, I was also asked questions I had not considered and it got me to start thinking of how I could fill that knowledge gap (e.g. via conducting a literature search) or even how I could answer those questions in a research setting. I think there are many benefits for the learner when they teach others. This concept of ‘learning by teaching’ is certainly not a new one in medical education and I am glad to have had the opportunity to personally experience and reflect on this model. My hope is that with more practice in teaching I will become more comfortable with creating these presentations efficiently and will have a better understanding of how to deliver such content to different audience members. I have seen expert clinician teachers teach a complex concept and could engage different levels of learners by tailoring the types of questions they were asking.

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