communication skills Archives - Aquifer

Coaching Conversations: Tips & Tools to Empower Your Learners

Guest: Sherilyn Smith, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine and Chief Academic Officer, Aquifer.

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. Sherilyn Smith provides tips on how to prepare for and conduct coaching conversations that develop students into lifelong learners who are able to create plans, take time to reflect, identify personal learning gaps and are motivated to fill those gaps. She explores ways to empower learners to create goals, develop strategies, incorporate feedback, and build on prior knowledge.

Dr. Smith also discusses how Aquifer’s new Calibrate formative assessment system benefits faculty and students by providing information that can inform and enhance their coaching conversations. Calibrate assessments are designed to leverage the concepts of test-enhanced learning and spaced repetition to drive self-directed learning in clinical students. Granular reports provide visibility for faculty and students into student knowledge gaps and certainty misalignment, enabling meaningful mid-clerkship feedback, informing coaching, and providing structured remediation.

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.

Episode 15: Addressing a Critical Gap: Standardizing Primary Palliative Care Education with New Cases

Guest: April Zehm, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Oncology) at the Medical College of Wisconsin specializing in hospice and palliative medicine and Aquifer Palliative Care Leadership Team Co-Academic Lead.

Foundational skills in communication, symptom management, transitions of care, and interprofessional collaborations are critical in improving the quality of life of patients with serious illnesses–but most health professions students don’t receive standardized education in these key principles of primary palliative care. In this episode, Dr. April Zehm describes the Aquifer Palliative Care Leadership team’s creation of a national standardized curriculum and soon-to-be available online palliative care course focused on preparing students to provide high quality patient-centered care. She will also discuss how faculty can integrate course resources into their pre-clinical and clinical teaching.

Full show notes can be found here.

Episode 14: The Transformative Power of Student Voices

Guest: Katherine Chretien, Professor of Medicine, Associate Dean for Medical Student Affairs, Director of Medical Student Wellness, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Aquifer Student Engagement Co-Lead

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. Chretien shares the joy and benefits she derives from collaborating with medical students. She describes the pivotal role that students played in her work, including shaping the content of her recently published book on how to navigate and thrive in medical school. We also explore her work as an Aquifer Student Engagement Co-lead, where she mentored students on a race and culture project with a lasting impact on medical education and infuses student feedback into developing projects to better meet students’ learning needs. This podcast offers listeners a model for authentically engaging with medical students to enliven and enrich medical education.

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.