Completing my teaching practicum over more than 2-years has been a unique and challenging experience, not least of all because it can be difficult to maintain a coherent strategy and sense of direction for extended periods of time. Notwithstanding any initial uncertainty about where all this was heading, I’d like to think I’ve staked out a teaching vision that is at once personal and scholarly.
When I first began logging teaching experiences as a Fellow, they consisted primarily of 1-hour morning report-style exercises. The objective was simply to pass knowledge forward. While working through INTAPT, I started to notice my teaching becoming more scholarly, informed not only by learned pedagogical concepts, but by new educational strategies. Be it hosting an INTAPT workshop or leading a panel-discussion on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), I had the opportunity to experiment with different modalities. Aided by numerous sources of feedback, I began to appreciate what worked and what didn’t.
At the heart of this journey has been a commitment to emphasizing the role of basic science in clinical education. Throughout my practicum, I’ve been increasingly focused on integration theory, infusing pre-fabricated learning modules (see appendices) with a physiology-based approach to common clinical problems. As a new staff physician, I have been teaching these to my learners over the last 2 years.
As I look to the future, my hope is to operationalize some of these initiatives on a larger level. At Bridgepoint, I am the education lead for the rehabilitation medicine elective, where I am currently developing a mini-curriculum on our teaching units. It is my hope that I will be able to implement much of what I have learned from INTAPT and my practicum when devising the core components of this curriculum, including formalizing a needs assessment, implementing various educational strategies, and creating a feedback structure. Integration of clinical science with medical education will remain fundamental to this program, for I believe now more than ever that doctors are scientists at heart. We function best when we are able to deconstruct our problems into their constituent biological, chemical, and physiological substrates. Before we can treat, we must first understand.
DOC DAYS 