When graduate medical program interviewers asked Sarah Dobrzynski, M.D. ’14, what set her apart from other candidates for residency, she knew just how to respond—her teaching skills.
“R
esidency programs value this skill, since part of your job as a resident is to teach fellow residents and medical students,” says Dobrzynski. “Thanks to my experience at Albany Medical College, I have total confidence that I will be a great teacher.” Dobrzynski, who was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s emergency medicine training program, earned her confidence through Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn—a unique fourweek course at Albany Medical College. While a number of medical schools offer formal students-as-teachers (SAT) training programs, Albany Medical College is the only medical school in the country that makes it a requirement for its fourth-year students. Jonathan Rosen, M.D., associate dean for medical education, conceived the course in 1999 after observing fourth-year students teaching clinical skills to first- and second-year students and recognizing a wide variability of teaching ability. “Inevitably, all medical students will have the responsibility to teach at some point in their careers,” explains Rosen, who piloted the program with one student in 2000. In 2001, Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn was integrated into the fourth-year curriculum. “ ‘Teaching’ can mean so many things,” he continues. “It could mean developing a faculty, prioritizing information, or communicating with a patient or patient’s family. It’s an essential skill that we felt was important for our students to learn.” Henry Pohl, M.D., vice dean for academic administration at the Medical College agrees. “Future physicians need to help educate the public for wellness and health care maintenance, and soon after earning their degree, new doctors must teach medical students. Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn achieves both outcomes for our medical education program while also acting as a learning laboratory to refine clinical skills and communication to make Albany Medical College graduates truly patient centered.” To hone their teaching skills, students are required to participate in workshops, teach clinical skills to first- and second-year students, and teach in local schools. At the end of the month-long course, they must conduct a capstone project in which they teach the topic of their choice to a small group of two to three second- or third-year students. “When you’re forced to teach something, you automatically improve your knowledge of it,” says Linnie Newman, associate professor for medical education, who oversees the students’ schedules, helps develop the intern
scenarios, and observes and provides feedback. “If you can teach a topic, you probably understand it well.” Intern scenarios conducted with the assistance of the College’s “standardized patients” (but who are not standardized in these cases so that students may experience the unknowns that may arise in true patient encounters) in the College’s Patient Safety and Clinical Competency Center (PSCCC) address difficult situations such as informing a parent that Child Protective Services has been called due to their child’s injuries, informing a spouse of an unexpected death after an auto accident, or asking for a family’s forgiveness after a HIPAA violation. “I remember having to role play that I was asking a man whose wife had died for permission to order an autopsy,” recalls Holly Wagoner, M.D. ’14. “These are difficult situations that you may not be exposed to in medical school, but that you may have to deal with someday, and now I have the confidence that I can do this. It’s an extension of the clinical skills we’ve learned.” In other core workshops, students learn to give effective feedback to their peers in small group sessions and at-the-bedside teaching encounters. They also gain valuable experience practicing sign-out rounds with attendings and residents, and later participate in feedback sessions with faculty about their delivery. Alison Rodriguez, M.D. ’13, now training as a resident at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, says those experiences prepared her to interact with other physicians. “It’s difficult to learn to accept feedback from attendings, especially constructive criticism, but Learning to Teach helped prepare me to take all feedback tactfully and in stride, and to give it to others effectively, as well,” says Rodriguez, who has been recognized for her outstanding teaching skills with several “apple pins” awarded by students. The course also provides a valuable service to the community by sending students to local middle and high schools to help educate young people about various topics important to their age group—like the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Through “Vital Signs,” fourth-year students are required to develop goals, objectives and a lesson plan before teaching Albany High School students. A similar program takes place with other local schools, helping medical students to further hone their teaching skills. Chris Smith, M.D. ’14, summarizes the course well: “You get the chance to teach and give feedback to different people in different settings. You get to discover what works best and what people respond to. It reaffirms for you that you’ve come a long way, and you’re well prepared for what’s next.”
It’s an essential skill that we felt was important for our students to learn.
Summer 2014
9