The latest work from the Aquifer Sciences Leadership Team will be presented at a range of national educators organization meetings this spring. Aquifer Sciences is a partnership between Aquifer and the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) to develop and share teaching and learning tools that integrate the basic and clinical sciences. Aquifer Sciences is currently in Phase Two of development, with teams from 12 pilot schools authoring virtual patient cases and integrated illness scripts for clinical conditions routinely encountered in core clinical rotations.
Aquifer Sciences’ goal of promoting the integration of clinical and basic sciences will take the spotlight at the Southern Group on Educational Affairs meeting where Dr. Leslie Fall will deliver a plenary talk on March 28. Presentations and workshops on integrated illness scripts have been accepted at the annual meetings of the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP), American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), and Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM).
Plenary Talk
Re-Engineering Integration of Clinical and Basic Science Learning as a Road to Entrustment
Southern Group on Educational Affairs Meeting: March 28
Leslie Fall, MD
This talk will explore new evidence-based teaching methods and learning tools to re-engineer cognitive integration of basic science into clinical practice to entrust better decision-making. These methods have the power to re-engineer the teaching relationship between basic science and clinical faculty towards the mutually held goal of improving the safety and efficacy of patient care provided by trainees.
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National Meeting Presentation Schedule
Medical schools struggle to meaningfully integrate basic science core concepts into the clinical curriculum, particularly in a manner that leverages understanding of causal mechanisms underlying common conditions to inform clinical reasoning. In this session, participants will collaboratively develop “integrated” illness scripts and consider applications of this cognitive integration method into their curricula. Illness scripts have been shown to be an effective method by which novices learn clinical reasoning skills. Cognitive research demonstrates that expert scientists and clinicians have difficulty “unpacking” their knowledge and making it available to teaching novice learners. Conversely, students often struggle to transfer basic science knowledge to clinical problem-solving. Development of ‘integrated’ illness scripts, whereby the key clinical findings of a given condition are clearly combined with the underlying basic science mechanism for each finding, is an effective means for integrating basic science concepts into students’ cognitive representations of core clinical conditions. Following a brief discussion regarding barriers to transfer and an evidence-based mini-didactic, participants will work in small teams to develop integrated illness scripts that demonstrate the basic science foundation for the clinical presentation of common pediatric conditions.
Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics Annual Meeting:
Un-Blinded Me With Science: Integrating Basic Science Into Clinical Reasoning Using “Integrated” Illness Scripts
Wednesday, March 20: 10am – 12pm
Presenters: Michael Dell, MD; Robin English, MD; David Harris, PhD; Kathryn Miller, MD; Leslie Fall, MD
American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine Annual Conference:
Using Illness Scripts to Meaningfully Integrate Basic Sciences into Clinical Reasoning
Thursday, April 11: 11 – 11:30am; Lincoln 3
Presenters: Leslie H. Fall, MD; Leah Sheridan, PhD
Academic Internal Medicine Week:
Using “Integrated” Illness Scripts to Meaningfully Integrate Basic Sciences into Clinical Reasoning
Tuesday, April 16: 9:45 AM–11:15 AM
Presenters: L. James Nixon, MD, MHPE, Leslie H. Fall, MD, Valerie J. Lang, MD, Felise B. Milan, MD
