Didactic Sessions Archives

Engaging Didactics: Bringing Medical Education to Life

Guest: Omer Awan, MD, MPH, CII, Associate Professor of Radiology and Associate Vice Chair of Education at the University of Maryland School of Medicine; Teaching and Learning Lead for Aquifer Radiology.

Host: Lynne Robins, PhD, Professor Emerita, Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA.

Description: In this episode, Dr. Omer Awan provides encouragement, motivation, and guidance for mastering the skills of preparing and delivering compelling educational presentations to improve student learning retention and transfer. He also offers tips for using Aquifer resources to increase peer-to-peer interaction and learning during instructional sessions.

Full show notes can be found here.

Generating Meaningful Discussions about SDOH with Aquifer Cases

Creating opportunities for meaningful discussion around Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) can be challenging for health professions educators. In this episode, Regina Welkie and Emily McSparin describe how they were able to successfully integrate SDOH into a clinical curriculum by incorporating Aquifer cases into a journal club format. The Aquifer cases give students a shared experience and provide a springboard for a broader small group discussion about SDOH concepts they have experienced during clinical rotations. This approach resulted in deep, authentic conversations between students and faculty around the real impacts of SDOH on patient care.

Full show notes can be found here.

Harnessing Group Learning to Develop Clinical Reasoning Skills

Guest: Dolapo Babalola MD, Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Director, Family Medicine and Rural Health Clerkship, and Director, Family Medicine Undergraduate Medical Education at Morehouse School of Medicine.

In this episode, Dr. Dolapo Babalola shares her tips about how to run interactive group sessions that promote engagement with Aquifer cases and enhance students’ clinical reasoning skills. Before creating her model of facilitated case-based sessions, which incorporates role play and group learning, Dr. Babalola got complaints from students that Aquifer cases were just busy work. Now students in her family medicine clerkship report finding value in learning how to solve clinical problems collaboratively with peers. Clerkship directors have also commented on the high level of skill that students who have completed the family medicine clerkship bring to subsequent clinical experiences.

Full show notes can be found here.

Facilitated Discussions and Role Playing Using Standardized Cases

Guest: Kirstin Nackers, MD, Assistant Professor and Director of Pediatric Undergraduate Medical Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison

In this episode, Dr. Kirstin Nackers shares two examples of case-based instruction she uses to increase student engagement and promote learning in an integrated core clerkship combining Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology and Geriatrics. She describes the first example as a “COVID-induced improvement”, recalling that when COVID restrictions prevented students from learning about diagnosis and treatment of patients with fever in actual clinical contexts, she turned to Aquifer’s fever case to teach this core content. The lesson she learned was that using a single case enabled her to improve teaching sessions by developing a standardized discussion guide that faculty facilitators could use to focus interactive discussion and better ensure achievement of session learning objectives. The second way she uses cases is to develop role plays for a session designed to teach students about abuse, neglect, and mandated reporting. The goal of the session is not only to increase students’ knowledge about mandated reporting requirements – but to increase students’ comfort talking about those tough topics with patients. She has found that an engaging way to master communication skills is through practice with role play followed by structured debriefing.

Full show notes can be found here.