Ain't nobody got time for that

It's been a while since I've posted. Even before that I wasn't posting often like I had when I started the blog. I'm just wiped. Yes I know everyone else is too.

When I became Clinical Education Coordinator it completely consumed me. The pressure of at any time needed to address something. Worrying about clinical placements. Emergencies popping up with preceptors and students. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork and babysitting deadlines and the tracking of paperwork. And don't even get me started on preceptor development. Then these new standards. Oy, the clinical education coordinator in my view is just as important if not more in some ways than the ever golden title/role of Program Director.

I had too many life changes at once. The job -Taking over as Clinical Education Coordinator, Tom becoming Chair of our Dept., then a year later 2 new faculty and 1 doctoral assistant search and them coming in and changing too many things at once which was quite difficult and hard for me to process/adapt (I have been to 5 different places prior to Ball State. I had learned to adapt/assimilate then try to change). Becoming Chair of the ATEC and few other things. Personal - My father passed away the same semester all of the searches were going on and he was quite important and his death has proven to be quite devastating. Right before he passed a friend passed way from Cancer and that was quite devastating in a different way.

So what is my point. Well for one, a life, ain't nobody got time for that. Before my Dad passed I felt like I could remember things, keep track of things in my head pretty good. After he died it was such a huge distraction that it seemed to have kicked me off of whatever mental train I was on and put me on one that was slower, had many stops, and sometimes went off track. It took me months to recover and I am still not the same. Part of that is how different things are due to Tom no longer being our PD.

So I had failed to blog much if at all. I just didn't have the mental energy. I think I am finally getting out of that funk finally. I also have something happening at the end of this semester which will take a HUGE distraction off of my plate.

I wanted to say Hi and defend myself not that I need to. I have many pent up thoughts and opinions I look forward to sharing.

It's been a tough week so far but this family always cheers me up

Literally every line from that show is a quote.

"How am I suppose to find somebody willing to into that musty old trap clap?"

 There is a white board on my office door. We put a quote a day up!

ATEC Programming is out but how do we get more preceptors to attend?

 

The housing, programming and registration is out for the 2013 Athletic Training Educators Conference. The theme is Model Practice and Future Directions. Full disclosure I am chair of the conference. The theme is a result of a few things. First there really isn’t one huge pressing issue in AT Education. Second, the last few conferences have had themes (2009 - Millennial Learner, 2011 - Evidence-Based Practice) and from feedback the themes are nice but can be overkill. So we put a call out for anything. 

What I really wonder about is how to encourage more preceptors/clinician educators to attend the AT Educators Conference?

We really would like to see more preceptors (formerly referred to as Clinical Instructors and/or Approved Clinical Instructors) to attend/present at the conference. Preceptor refers to a teacher/instructor, or an expert or specialist, such as a physician, who gives practical experience and training to a student, especially of medicine or nursing. I am not sure how many true clinician educators (preceptors) attend. I know there are some who are faculty (have a PhD or terminal degree) and also practice athletic training who attend but I am referring to pure clinician educators. They may teach a class here and there but their primary role is to provide patient care. Research has shown the preceptor is a vital part of the students’ education. I would love to hear their input. I know we have one individual speaking this year who is a clinician educator (Brian Vesci) but I for one would love to see more clinician educators involved. I would assume this is due to work and family responsibilities. Also January isn’t the best time for some clinicians to travel depending on their patient care responsibilities. Not exactly sure but mainly Program Directors, Clinical Education Coordinators, and general faculty tend to be the primary presence at the AT educators conference but the preceptors are ½ if not more of the students’ experience. 

If anyone out there has any ideas as to how we can encourage more preceptors/clinician educators to attend please let me know.

Also this post is 100% on behalf of myself. I am not speaking for the NATA, nor the ATEC committee.

ATEC 2013 Update

Hello Hello,

Well ALL of the programming is done for the ATEC 2013. I believe registration will go out mid September.

It was an interesting process and I am happy to say that it was a true blinded process. We had no idea who was presenting except for a couple of plenaries that were picked but we had to follow up with or about.

Because we wanted to check for any overlap (a person on or submitting 2 breakouts) of authors we had Anita look at if that was the situation anywhere. Fortunately we only had 1 of those instances and it worked out.

I am very happy with our programing!

All for now!

SIGs or Special Interest Groups

Hey now!

Truth be told I love Wikipedia. Don't judge me. Another interesting thought I wanted to share was also sparked from the recent ASPE conference. Its on the topic of SIGs or special interest groups.

According to Wikipedia:

A Special Interest Group (SIG) is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to affect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences.

These are not committees. They are groups that work towards a common goal. I haven't been on one yet until this past meeting because they were so specific. For example, one is Genourinary Training/Teaching Assistants or GTA SIG. Genourinary Training Assistants help teach medical students genourinary medical skills.

I joined the Hybrid Simulation SIG because I am very interested in learning more about them and staying involved with other medical and nursing educators.

This all had me thinking AT and how these would be very useful for educators. SIGs on certain topics such as teaching clinical skills, clinical education administration, healthcare informatics, or SIGs that focused on topics such as gathering new publications in certain areas to help other educators stay up to date or a SIG on educating preceptors. The topics are endless.

Clerkship guide?

How awesome would it be if we had something like this in AT??

****KINDLE VERSION NOW AVAILABLE for $19.99****

http://www.gegensatzpress.com/kindle.html

The Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, 4^th Edition, offers both new and experienced medical school clerkship directors high‐level and often detailed information and guidance on the best ways to organize a clerkship, develop and evaluate a curriculum, implement that curriculum and evaluate the students' performances within those curricula. Others interested in or already involved in undergraduate medical education will also benefit from the book’s content, with its focus on professional development and personal career development.

In addition to updating the materials in chapters carried over from the 3rd edition, this edition adds chapters on advising and mentoring of students, nurturing professionalism, incorporating basic sciences into clinical experiences, developing residents as teachers, developing and teaching clinical reasoning, longitudinal integrated medical education, the fourth year and subinternships, simulation, and developing residents as teachers.

Editorial Board:
Imran Ali, M.D.; Michael Cahalane, M.D.; Maya Hammoud, M.D.; Lyuba Konopasek, M.D.; Shahram Lotfipour, M.D.; Doug Paauw, M.D.; Beat Steiner, M.D.; Nutan Vaidya, M.D.

Bruce Z. Morgenstern, M.D.; Editor‐in‐Chief

Print version is $55.00 U.S.A. ($65.00 Canada)

You may preorder the book by going to Gegensatz Press at http://www.gegensatzpress.com/4th-ace-guidebook.html

ATEC 2013 update

Hello everyone,

Well the submissions are in and under review.  

28 plenary, 31 model practice and 40 breakout submissions

They are blinded!

I should have everything complied from the sub-committee by July 30th and we should have a phone call that week. This would enable us to get letters out the beginning of August. 

I've already reviewed them.

That's all for now. 

Study guides

 Hey Now! 

I've blogged about study guides before. I am on a list-serve for medical educators and this came through and I have to say I felt validated. 

I couldn't register for the webinar because I I was out of town but it was nice to see I am not nuts.

*Ronald Harden is a rock star in medical education.

 

An AMEE MedEdWorld Webinar‘Study Guides: An important tool for the teacher and the student in today’s curriculum or training programme’ will be presented by Ronald Harden on Tuesday 5^th June 2012 at 0900 and 1600 UK/BST.

Closing the communication gap between the teacher/trainer and the student is an important challenge. The education programme too frequently is a ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ with uncertainty as to what students should learn, how they can learn, when they can learn, and how they know if they have learned. Study guides offer a practical approach to closing this communication gap. Study guides support trends in medical education including the moves to self-directed learning, outcome-based education, problem-based learning, integrated curricula, distributed learning and the adoption of a wide range of new learning technologies. The ‘study guide triangle’ will be described as an approach for considering the relative importance of the different elements of a study guide. How a study guide can be used to manage students’ learning, describe student activities, and provide content information will be illustrated. Ideas about how to set about producing a study guide and what makes an excellent study guide will be presented.

You can register online as an individual or as a group at http://www.amee.org/Login.aspx by selecting ‘webinars’ from the left menu. If you are a MedEdWorld or an AMEE Member you can sign up free of charge.

If you need any further information on how to participate, please visit the AMEE website: http://www.amee.org/index.asp?lm=118

I hope to see you online.

*Ronald Harden

ATEC 2013 update

Hi Folks

Well the submissions for the ATEC are in. 99 programming proposals. Just to give a frame of reference, for 2011 there was only a call for breakout sessions, so there were 50 submissions. There were also 50 abstracts submitted, (67 in 2011).

We have 99 submissions for plenary, model practice, and breakout. I don't have the individual numbers of which out of those 99 submitted for what yet.

We are fine tuning our rubric of how we will judge the submissions. The rubric is basically taking all of the submission guidelines (title, learning objectives, etc.) and looking at each and first asking did they do that or not? From there we will go forth. They are all BLINDED so don't know who submitted what which is nice.

We are taking about 2 weeks to review, then decide and hopefully have letters out early August.

That is all for now! 

Presentations

Hello, hello

One thing I've never discussed is my philosophy on preparing for presentations. I've discussed my feelings on writing along with some other funny bits.

Sometimes I sit in presentations and wonder many things. I don't doubt the person cares once they get up there, whether people are listening, learning, etc. I do often wonder about their preparation. 

Lets take the presentation power points or whatever format they put the presentation into. This all has to be thought out. Too much text can be overwhelming. Spacing, font, consistency all does matter. People do look at the text. Pictures can be good but are a gamble sometimes.

 

Some things I wonder about the presentation text/format?

Have they practiced this at all?
Have they really considered their audience and what the audience needs?
Did they double triple check any links to the web or videos?
Did they have someone else look at it?
Did they double and triple check for consistency of terms, grammar, spelling, etc.?
Are the presenters actually doing or have done what they are presenting about?

Then lets take the presentation itself.

Some things I wonder? 

Have they rehearsed more than one time?
Have they anticipated what they are going to say all throughout the presentation?
Have they thought out examples needed and/or offhand comments?
Have they thought out a back up plan  when using video?
Have they vetted the video to make sure it can play and know the functions of the computer to enable it to play?

Why ask these questions?
I guess I ask all of these questions because these are the same questions I ask myself when I get to the final preparations regarding a presentation. I also am not a fan of doing a presentation 1-2 days before it's to be presented. I like to have 1-2 days to process and really get to the next level of thinking about how to deliver the material, thinking through the presentation, anticipating questions, etc.

Prezis

Hello, Hello

 


Another thing that was huge at the ASPE conference were Prezis. I would say 1/4th of the presentations were Prezis and not power point.

Here is a link to a very cool one about Simulation

Prezis actually ended up not only on this blog, but also something to somehow educate folks about for the 2013 Educators Conference.

The downfall is the pricing. It's $159 a year unless you make your prezi public and have internet access. I am pretty nuts and would be willing to either purchase that or pay the $12.95  for internet for the day to make my presentation using a prezi.

Confederates?

Hello, Hello

I would have to say one of the most interesting things from the ASPE conference was the use of the term confederates.

No, it wasn't in reference to a history lesson.

 

 According to Dictionary.com

con·fed·er·ate

 [adj., n. kuhn-fed-er-it, -fed-rit; v. kuhn-fed-uh-reyt] Show IPA adjective, noun, verb, con·fed·er·at·ed, con·fed·er·at·ing.

adjective

1.

united in a league, alliance, or conspiracy.

2.

( initial capital letter ) of or pertaining to the Confederate States of America: the Confederate army.

noun

3.

a person, group, nation, etc., united with others in a confederacy;  an ally.

4.

an accomplice, especially in a mischievous or criminal act.

5.

( initial capital letter ) U.S. History . a supporter of the Confederate States of America.

So how does this apply to this post and AT education you ask?

In medical education, a person who is part of the simulation but not a learner is sometimes called a confederate. They are not the standardized patient but a person there to provide information to the learners. Here is an example where the term confederate is used in the literature. Pretty cool huh?