PA students Archives

Implementing Coaching in Clinical Settings

Guest: Sherilyn Smith, MD, Professor Emerita of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine and International Coaching Federation Certified Coach

Description: In this episode, Sherilyn Smith returns to our podcast to discuss how to implement coaching in clinical settings. We revisit our discussion about the value of coaching to develop master adaptive learners and then spend time focusing on the specifics of preparing for and conducting coaching conversations with learners, with advice on how to use Aquifer Calibrate, our new formative assessment system.

Additional Resources:

Previous episode with Dr. Smith on coaching

Aquifer Coaching Script

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.

Using Aquifer Cases in Women’s Health and Behavioral Medicine

Guest: Mary Stahovich, MHP, PA-C Assistant Professor and Didactic Coordinator of Physician Assistant Studies at California Baptist University

While Aquifer doesn’t have dedicated courses on Behavioral Medicine or Women’s Health, many of the cases already available in your subscription are excellent resources for these courses. In this episode, Mary Stahovich, PA-C describes how the richness of Aquifer cases helps her enhance her didactic courses on women’s health and behavioral medicine – areas in which it can be particularly challenging for students to obtain experience prior to entering clinical practice.

Full show notes can be found here.

Engaging Learners through Teleprecepting

Guest: Cynthia (Cindy) Lord, PA-C, Associate Professor and Founding Director, Case Western Reserve University Physician Assistant Program, Cleveland, OH.

When the COVID pandemic severely limited student access to clinical teaching sites and preceptors, Cindy Lord developed a teleprecepting program to simulate traditional precepting during a rotation. Aquifer cases formed the basis of learner-centered virtual small group sessions facilitated by a telepreceptor. The sessions provided a means of achieving educational equivalence across teaching sites and instructors, filling curricular gaps, enhancing student learning, and afforded opportunities for the development of mentor/mentee relationships. The teleprecepting program proved so valuable that it is now a regular part of PA education at Case Western Reserve University.

Full show notes and links to supplemental materials can be found here.