Training Medical Professionals as Higher Education Professionals: Developing a Certification in Health Professions Education

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Training Medical Professionals as Higher
Education ProfessionalsDeveloping a
Certification in Health Professions Education

• Karen Hughes Miller, Ph.D.
• University of Louisville
• (Louisville, Kentucky, USA)

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Presented at

• Collaborating Across Boarders An American-
  Canadian Dialogue on Interprofessional Health
  Education, October 24-26, 2007
• University of Minnesota
• Academic Health Center
• Twin Cities Campus
• Minneapolis, Minnesota

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Background

• Physicians, nurses, and other health sciences
  professionals who teach often find their
  knowledge of teaching is learned on the job.
• Although professional development sessions on
  teaching are efficient, they may not always be an
  effective solution to addressing topics as
  complex as adult education theory or curriculum
  analysis.

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Background

• Medical education is growing as a recognized
  discipline with its own grants, publications, and
  conferences.
• For healthcare faculty to fully participate in
  what this discipline has to offer, they must not
  only be expert in their fields but also be
  educated in medical education (Eitel, Katz, and
  Tesche, 2000 and Benor, 2000).

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Background

• In 2003, the University of Louisville College of
  Education and School of Medicine Office of
  Medical Education joined forces to create a
  Certificate in Health Professions Education
  program.
• The objective of this presentation is to share
  our experience as a replicable model for other
  institutions.

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Program overview

• The Certificate in Health Professions Education
  is awarded by the Universitys Graduate School
  after participants complete four 3-credit hour
  graduate courses.
• Participants must be admitted to the Graduate
  School and all courses are graded and taken for
  academic credit.

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Program overview

• The curriculum allows participants to join in any
  term of any year rather than waiting for a
  two-year rotation.
• Each course is grounded in a syllabus already
  approved for the College of Education and Human
  Development (CEHD), but is customized for health
  science professionals.
• Courses include Research Methods, Program
  Evaluation and Planning, College Teaching, and
  Adult Education and Development.

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Current program sequence
ELFH 683 College Teaching syllabus development, teaching and assessment strategies, students rights, the role of research and publication in the academic arena. Fall, 2007
ELFH 661 Adult Development Learning basics of instructional design, principles of adult learning, and teaching in the clinical environment. Spring, 2008
ELFH 600 Research Methods Research problem identification, research methodologies, and introductory statistics. Fall, 2008
ELFH 606 Program Evaluation and Planning Course and program planning and validation. Spring, 2009

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Customized content for HSC

• Examples of customized content include
• The course on Adult Education and Development
  includes clinical teaching issues such as bedside
  teaching and the protocols of teaching using both
  real and simulated patients.
• Techniques for teaching psychomotor skills (i.e.
  intubation) are included along with techniques
  for teaching cognitive skills such as quick
  recall.

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Customized content for HSC

• The instructional design for the four courses is
  grounded on the principles of meeting
  instructional needs for working professionals
  such as described by Cheetham and Chivers (2001).
• Faculty and participants represent the entire
  range of healthcare education at U of L including
  medicine, nursing, dentistry, and public health.

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Customized content for HSC

• Courses apply a blended model of online and
  face-to-face instruction.
• Class meetings are held on at the Health Sciences
  Campus.
• Teaching teams include education and health
  sciences faculty and guest lecturers are often
  used.
• Field trips to look at different teaching venues
  are built into the schedule.

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Course Calendar ELFH 606- 76 Program Evaluation
and Planning
Week/Session Topics Faculty/presenters Advance Readings, Class Assignments, and Tasks
Week 1 January 11 Course overview and organization introduction to program evaluation as an area of specialization introduce the class project Dr. Muriel J. Harris Dr. Karen Hughes Miller Ms. Gail Haynes Dr. Deborah S. Armstrong Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and Worthen- Chapters 1 and 2. Introduce faculty and students discuss student expectations from the course.
Week 2 January 18 Objectives Oriented Evaluation The U of L School of Medicine Curriculum Evaluation project (as an evaluation example). Other evaluation stakeholders managers. Gail Haynes Karen Hughes Miller Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and Worthen- Chapters 4 and 5. Harden the Integration Ladder a Tool for Curriculum planning and Evaluation (article posted in Week 2 folder).
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The blended learning model
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The blended learning model
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The blended learning model
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Program success

• The first course in the program, College
  Teaching, was offered in the fall of 2003.
  Fourteen students enrolled and 12 completed the
  course.
• The next course offered, Introduction to Research
  Methods, also began with 14 and ended with 12.
• However, we saw a slump in enrollment for the
  next course, Adult Development and Education and
  by the spring of 2005, only four students
  enrolled in the Program Evaluation course. That
  group was combined with doctoral students taking
  the course in the College of Education.

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Program revision

• Consensus among participants and faculty was that
  we may have been packing too much content into
  the courses. While the course participants were
  well grounded in scientific method and physical
  science research, the social science research
  methodologies of education were new.
• This type of feedback was an essential component
  of the curriculum redesign for future courses.
• Courses had to be tailored to the specific
• needs of health science educators.

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Program revision

• An additional strategy for encouraging
  certificate completion was to analyze all course
  rosters since the beginning of the program and
  contact former participants who were still at U
  of L.
• A formal letter on Office of Medical Education
  letterhead was sent reminding them which
  course(s) they needed to for certification and
  encouraging re-enrollment.
• Response to this small campaign was very positive
  and several former participants returned in the
  fall 2006 or spring 2007 semesters.

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Program support

• To encourage new students to enter the program,
  lunchtime open house sessions are now held at the
  end of each semester to introduce the next course
  being offered and to introduce potential students
  to participating faculty.
• Over the past several semesters, these sessions
  have become informal get togethers so all
  sorts of questions and concerns can be addressed.

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Program outcomes

• The Certificate in Health Professions Education
  at the University of Louisville is not a large
  project but by using a cycle of course delivery,
  reflection, and refinement along with some
  consistent participant recruiting strategies, the
  program is growing.
• By the end of the spring 2007 semester, we had
  awarded 10 certificates.
• For the fall 2007 semester, we have seven new
  enrollees in the program, and eight who are
  active returnees.

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Program outcomes

• One unexpected positive outcome is that two
  Certificate participants have recently enrolled
  in the College of Education in order to complete
  Master of Education degrees to add to their
  M.D.s.
• An additional positive outcome, beginning this
  year, is that new faculty in Public Health are
  being required to take the College Teaching
  course. (If we do our job right, they will take
  the remaining courses for certification!)

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Program outcomes

• And the most recent positive outcome
• ELFH 606-76, Program Evaluation and Planning,
  won a 2007 Kentuckiana Metroversity Award for
  Instructional Innovation

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Limitations of our model

• Students in the certificate program are self
  selected and highly motivated. Grades in any
  given course are usually A or A. This may seem
  intimidating to new faculty considering the
  program.
• It is a serious commitment of time and effort for
  already busy healthcare professionals. They must
  be perceive real value for the program.

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Our three major challenges

• Making the course work load realistic and
  appropriate for working professionals while
  maintaining academic integrity.
• Retaining participants once the enter the
  program.
• Maintaining diversity among program faculty to
  insure an interdisciplinary approach.

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Ongoing program objectives

• Objective
• Continuous assessment and course improvement.

• Process
• Collect and analyze course and faculty evaluation
  data, review course content and design each time
  the course is offered.

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Ongoing program objectives

• Objective
• Active recruitment of new participants and
  faculty.
• Recognition of the Certificate as an academic
  credential of value.

• Process
• Information sessions, email and list serve, word
  of mouth.
• Publications and presentations.

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References and resources

• Benor, D. E. (2000). Faculty development, teacher
  training and teacher accreditation in medical
  education twenty years from now. Medical
  Teacher, 22(5), 503-512.
• Cheetham, G. and Chivers, G. (2001). Part I, How
  professionals learn the theory. Journal of
  European Industrial Training, 25(5), 250-269.
• Cheetham G. and Chivers, G. (2001). Part 2, How
  professionals learn, the practice. What the
  empirical research found. Journal of European
  Industrial Training, 25(5), 270- 292.
• Eitel, F., Kanz, K-G., and Tesche, A. (2000).
  Training and certification of teachers and
  trainers The professionalization of medical
  education. Medical Teacher, 22(5), 517-526.

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References and resources

• Miller, K.H. and Greenberg, R. (2007). Training
  Medical Professionals to be Educators Developing
  a Certification in Health Professions Education.
  Journal of the International Association of
  Medical Science Educators (JIAMSE), special
  supplement, October, 2007, in press.
• Muller, J.H., and Irby, D.M. Developing
  educational
• leaders the teaching scholars program at the
  University of California, San Francisco, School
  of Medicine. Academic Medicine. 2006 8111,
  959-964.
• Robins, L, Ambrozy, D., and Pinsky, L.E.
  Promoting academic excellence through leadership
  development at the University of Washington the
  teaching scholars program. Academic Medicine.
  20068111, 979-983.
• Wilkerson, L.A., Uijtdehaaghe, S. and Relan, A.
  Increasing the pool of educational leaders for
  UCLA. Academic Medicine. 20068111, 954-958.

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A closing note.

• In addition to articles on the UCLA, UC San
  Francisco, and University of Washington models,
  the November 2006 issue of Academic Medicine
  includes several more articles on medical
  education fellowships.