As I skimmed through the Harvard Macy Program for Post-Graduate Trainees: Future Academic Clinician-Educators course materials, I became even more excited for the three-day deep dive into medical education – a rare opportunity to take a break from patient care and focus completely on developing as a clinician-educator. As I read the session titles, I eagerly downloaded the pre-reading for “Effective Feedback and a Feedback Alliance” and “Drawing Parallels: Education and Leadership.” Reflecting on my most recent rotation as Ward Senior and preparing for a year as Chief Resident, I was ready to learn new skills and refine my practices in these areas. However, not every session inspired such enthusiasm. In fact, as I looked at the afternoon of the second day, a pit formed in my stomach. “Micro-teaching? Oh no. What have I signed up for,” I feared.

This #MedEdPearls highlights the importance of and need to understand the Professional Identify Formation (PIF) of physicians considered to be under-represented in medicine (URM) as supported by in the article Whispers and Shadows: A critical review of the professional identity literature with respect to minority physicians by Tasha Wyatt and colleagues. Dr. Wyatt first presented on this topic at the 2019 Generalists in Medical Education conference via an Ignite session which exposed the gap in the current PIF literature and the need to illuminate race and ethnicity as it relates to PIF.

The Harvard Macy Institute Podcast aims to connect our Harvard Macy Institute community and to develop our interest in health professions education topics and literature. Our podcast is hosted by our Program for Educators in the Health Professions course faculty Victoria Brazil, and will feature interviews with health professions education authors and their research papers.

Podcast #8 was recorded live at the October 2020 Program for Educators in the Health Professions. It features Peter Waters (Chief of Orthopedic Surgery) and Peter Weinstock (Director, SIMPeds) discussing their approach to leading change in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic at Boston Children’s Hospital.

As we usher in our season of Thanksgiving and prepare for the upcoming holidays in New England we give special thanks to our global community of healthcare providers and educators who have overcome extraordinary challenges while implementing innovations to care for societies worldwide and to educate the next generation of professionals in healthcare during the pandemic.
We owe you all a very special debt of gratitude.

Please enjoy the much deserved time with your families.

From the HMI team

Mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring are terms sometimes used interchangeably and often performed fluidly without role identification. This blogpost focuses specifically on the role of coaching in medical education.

The business leadership world has inspired medical educators to introduce coaching into the academic arena. Coaching best practices have been developed and disseminated for undergraduate and graduate medical trainees. Coaching has also been described as an important need for faculty in continuing professional development.