Bridging The Foundational‐Clinical Science Divide By Priming PhD Trainees To Teach In Integrated Curricula: Pilot Program Outcomes
Authors: Zumwalt Ann , Dominguez Isabel 
Published: June 2021

OBJECTIVE

Despite growing emphasis nationwide on the integration of the foundational (basic) and clinical sciences in undergraduate medical curricula, these efforts remain a challenge. One notable barrier to integration may be educators themselves. While basic science and clinical educators are experts in their respective fields, typically neither group has been trained in the perspectives, motivating values, or knowledge sets of the other.

Our “Integrating the Educators” program is an innovative approach to develop the skills and competencies needed for PhD science educators working in integrated medical curricula. In this program, Ph.D. biomedical scientist trainees were exposed to: 1) best practices in medical educational techniques, and 2) the pace, setting, practice and focus of clinical teaching.

METHODS

The trainees were two Ph.D. postdoctoral fellows in BUSM departments. The trainees participated in a didactic course on best practices in teaching and shadowed physician mentors for 3 months. The following attributes of the program were assessed: trainees' motivations for participating, the strengths and weaknesses of the program, and trainees' knowledge, skills and attitudes about teaching.

RESULTS

The trainees were motivated by the opportunity to interact with clinician educators, to teach, be trained as an educator, and by an interest in the integration of basic and clinical sciences. They reported satisfaction with all of these factors except the lack of opportunity to teach. According to the trainees, strengths of the program include the opportunity for the trainees to observe the implementation of basic sciences in clinical teaching, ease of pairing trainees with physician mentors, and the flexibility of program timing and scheduling.

The program improved the trainees' knowledge about education concepts and vocabulary and they gained insights into the importance of integrating basic science into the clinical setting. However, the application of these concepts as measured by pre‐ and post‐program lesson design was not as significant as anticipated.

CONCLUSION

The results of our pilot program demonstrate that this program structure is a productive approach to expand trainees' knowledge and skills in education and to expose trainees to factors that impact teaching in a clinical setting. Trainees and clinician mentors agreed that the program addresses an important need in medical education and in basic scientist medical educator training. In the future we will ensure that the trainees have opportunities to teach and to shadow clinicians in more varied settings. We will also more intentionally direct the trainees to the intended lessons of the program, i.e. that clinical teaching requires lessons to be short, clinically relevant, and quickly accessible to learners with a variety of backgrounds.

Support or Funding Information

This program was supported by an Education Pilot Grant from the Boston University School of Medicine Department of Medicine.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.