The Future Comes Early for Medical Educators
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Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, CA, USA; 2Medical Service, San Francisco VA Medical Center San Francisco, CA, USA; 3Division of Hospital Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Chicago, IL, USA.
Many experts have foretold of a digital transformation in medical education. Yet, until recently, day-to-day practices for frontline clinician-educators, who cherish close physical and intellectual contact between the patient, learner, and teacher, have remained largely unchanged. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted that model and is forcing teachers to pursue new ways to reach learners. We provide a roadmap for educators to start their transformation from an analog to a digital approach by harnessing existing tools including podcasts, social media, and videoconferencing. Teachers will need to enhance the same pedagogical and interpersonal practices that underpin effective in-person education while they learn new skills as they become curators, creators, and moderators in the digital space. This adaptation is essential, as many of the changes in medical education spurred by COVID-19 will likely far outlast the pandemic. J Gen Intern Med DOI: 10.1007/s11606-020-06128-y © Society of General Internal Medicine 2020
digital interfaces are moving from the margin to the mainstream of medical education. Many teachers who have made the necessary changes to their teaching to accommodate the physical and intellectual isolation of their learners are wondering what new skills should be permanently adopted for the future. In this article, we discuss three roles that front-line clinicianeducators currently inhabit—those of curator, creator, and moderator—and how each can be adapted using digital tools (Table 1). To emphasize an evolution in current skills, we focused on roles that nearly all clinician-educators fulfill (as opposed to more specialized or novel roles). We selected tools (podcasts, social media, and videoconferencing) that have low barriers to entry (free, easy-to-use interfaces, modest technology requirements) for the teacher, are familiar to learners, and have established scholarship in the medical education literature. This article provides a roadmap for teachers to extend their analog skills and become curators, creators, and moderators of the digital space.
INTRODUCTION
EDUCATOR AS CURATOR
For over a decade, expert panels, outside observers, and forward-thinking educators have foretold of a transformation in medical education from physical spaces to a digital existence.1–4 Yet, the day-to-day practices of the clinicianeducator have not changed radically, with most of us still following and cherishing the cognitive apprenticeship model of close physical and intellectual interaction between the patient, learner, and teacher. The COVID-19 pandemic, with social distancing and suspension of many in-person exchanges, brought this familiar approach to a halt. Frontline clinician-educators who did not have to grapple with the projected future in medical educa
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