The COVID-19 pandemic devastated communities across the globe, leaving socioeconomic and health disparities in its wake. Despite these hardships, we, as health professions educators, remained true to our mission of caring for sick, promoting science, and advocating for voiceless. Even though I cared for patients in a non-surge area, it was still a crazy time. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, things changed. Incident command centers quickly arose to deal with COVID-19. In what seemed like overnight, we shifted to virtual learning environments to maintain the educational mission to our learners. In one of the few times in modern history, attendings and learners were on the same level in terms of COVID-19. During this uncertain time, as a hospitalist, I also transition from bedside rounding with the entire team, to bedside rounding with only the intern or resident primarily responsible for the patient.

When we think of influence, we tend to think about how we can affect someone’s character, development or behavior. Yet, we underestimate how we influence others indirectly or without knowing it. As leaders or educators in health professions education, how do we employ influence we have positively in trainee/educator relationships?

Quoting the philosophy attributed to Socrates, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” When medical school curricular leaders push for change, we must ponder the question: How do we best revise medical school curricula to spark our students to think? Most curriculum revisions can be broadly categorized into one of two categories: instructional methods (pedagogical) reform or content reform.

Eighty million Americans listen to audio podcasts weekly—almost the same amount of people who watch the Super Bowl every year. If you have a phone, tablet, or computer, you can access over sixty-three million free podcast episodes anytime, anywhere. 

There has been a dramatic increase in telemedicine and online remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift normalized clinical care and education in spaces outside the confines of the hospital, office, or classroom. Parents who pump breastmilk at work have long known that clinical and educational tasks can and often must be done in unconventional spaces while expressing breastmilk at the same time.