When the COVID-19 pandemic began, fourth year medical students were in the process of preparing for their USMLE step 2CK exam. At this stage, usually they would also be in a clinical rotation with required patient experiences, and beginning applications for their residencies. Instead, they were all at home self-isolating while studying and dealing with much uncertainty.

At the University of Central Florida, College of Medicine (UCF COM), we offered an elective for three blocks over the Summer to assist them in prepping them for their exam. This served as an opportunity to encourage self-regulated learning and foster an online environment which nurtures dual communication, support, and encouragement. Below are some techniques which we found to be successful in navigating an online learning environment.

Over the past several months, we have seen how innovation in health science education (HSE) plays a critical role in health and science discovery as our community continues to address challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, many of our colleagues have demonstrated the courage to take risks, experiment, fail, and try again—often resulting in an improvement on their original ideas. HSE innovation moves us beyond the common, incremental changes and quality improvement initiatives commonly seen within our organizations. To continue advancing health and science through education innovation, it is important to define a framework that helps us better understand what HSE innovation means. 

In this episode Victoria Brazil speaks with Louise Allen about her recent Medical Teacher publication on Applying Social Learning Theory to explain the impacts of Continuing Professional Development. Her paper, with co-authors Marg Hay, Elizabeth Armstrong and Claire Palermo is an exemplar of qualitative research, and involved semi-structured interviews with previous Harvard Macy and Monash Institute for Health and Clinical Education program participants. The team found that scholars broadened their networks, affirmed themselves, applied learning in practice and enjoyed career progression. The impacts of these courses reached beyond themselves to both the people and organizations with which  they are involved.

Over the past three years, I have immersed myself in leadership development literature related to health systems and health professions education. In my pursuit of a comprehensive leadership framework that encompassed leadership demonstrated at several levels and applied to health care, I came across Dickson & Tholl’s  (2014) “LEADS in a Caring Environment” framework. The recently released second edition Bringing Leadership to Life in Health: LEADS in a Caring Environment expands on the original leadership framework and represents the key skills, behaviors, abilities, and knowledge required to lead in all sectors and all levels of the health system. It provides an in-depth perspective on how LEADS is used in different contexts, including how LEADS relates to diversity and Indigenous cultures. This post highlights the five domains of the LEADS Framework. 

Fall semester is a time for new starts, new students, and new faculty. As we continue to navigate what we do to help our students learn in a virtual environment, how might you apply some of the same approaches to orient new faculty? Consider incorporating some of these ideas: