Educator of the Month
March 2024: Mary Newman
Tip of the month: Meet your students where they are! Learn who they are, where they are headed, and what is hard for them. Ask questions that no one else is asking them. Listen before you teach. You’ll be an excellent teacher before you know it.
February 2024: Jed Wolpaw
Tip of the Month: One of the most powerful things you can do for a learner is tell them about your mistakes. Tell them about a time you failed. Tell them about a time when something went wrong, and a patient got hurt. If we, as educators and leaders, don’t tell them these stories, then when it happens to them, and it will happen to them at some point, they will think something is wrong with them. They will think they are not good enough to be a doctor. But if they hear our stories, then maybe they will come to us instead of quitting, and say, “Remember what you told me? It happened to me too.” And we can help them to avoid being a second victim, and to grow and learn, rather than shrivel and fold, from their mistake.
January 2024: Jay Baraban
Tip of the Month: Stories inspire. Consider taking the time to tell a story that illustrates the creativity or serendipity that led to a key discovery central to your lecture. Rather than distracting from the core material, a well-placed anecdote gives students a hook that helps them latch onto a key lesson. Years later, students tell me that these stories stick with them and have often piqued their interest in learning more.
2023
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Tip of the Month: When caring for patients with a chronic condition, have students ask about how the condition presented (even if it is not the focus of the encounter) and the path to diagnosis. It is in this way that they learn the "stories" that precede the diagnoses.
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Tip of the Month: Take a minute out of every day you are working with learners to give feedback. Small or large scale of the feedback matters less. Make the act of giving the feedback a habit that you do every day.
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