Debriefing Aquifer Cases: Templates for Dynamic Discussions

Guest: Kelsey Dougherty, MMSc, PA-C is Assistant Professor, Pediatrics – Child Health Associate/Physician Assistant Program (CHA/PA) at the University of Colorado School of Medicine

Description:​ In this episode, Kelsey Dougherty outlines the benefits of using a debriefing template to achieve program learning objectives by ensuring that all small group faculty highlight key concepts in class discussions. She emphasizes that the template is highly adaptable for use in all health professions educational programs and that it allows for creativity within a standardized approach. You can download the template and follow along as Kelsey and Lynne walk through the template and discuss how to approach the use of each component part.  

Additional Resources:

Debriefing Template

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.

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.

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.

Assessing Clinical Decision Making with Aquifer’s Internal Medicine Exam

Guest: Valerie Lang, Associate Professor of Medicine, Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Academic Director of Assessment of Clinical Decision Making, Aquifer.

Dr. Valerie Lang was instrumental in the development and validation of the Aquifer Internal Medicine Clinical Decision Making Exam, which assesses learners’ clinical reasoning and decision making and is free to subscribers of Aquifer’s Internal Medicine course. In this podcast, Dr. Lang explains why the exam was developed and the benefits of integrating it into an overall assessment program to achieve a more comprehensive picture of students’ clinical competence.

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.