Diary of a medical educator

You would not believe me, but I am writing this piece at more than 10,000 feet high. I am on my way to the Latin American Conference of Residency Education (LACRE) in Santiago, Chile. I will be presenting one of the previous studies that we ran for my doctoral project. I will be discussing the topic of how professional culture influences professional identity on medical educators. Professional identity refers to how they see themselves, and life itself. Members of a profession share knowledge, values and attitudes. Professional culture, as described by Hargreaves & Fullan (1991), could be categorized into individualized, balkanized, per project collaboration, and extended collaboration. -           Individualized: refers to a medical educator focused on the service provided to the students. Every professor in the educational setting would be focusing on his own subject, and not about the curriculum as a whole. -   ...

Last year, in AMEE  2018 conference, I had the opportunity to participate in the new format of Point of view. My topic was “Hybrid clinical simulation: Inclusion of immersive technology to develop skills on undergraduate medical students”.  I talked about how clinical simulation provides an opportunity to train in a safe environment through the reasoning of clinical cases to obtain the best option for care. One of the things that need to be considered is mastery learning the approach were the student must repeat the task until he demonstrates his mastery. Simulation as we know it is limited to the physical space and the acquisition of, sometimes very expensive equipment. That is why some tools such as the use of apps, augmented and virtual reality, have become strong trends. However, its focus has been mainly on the development of skills and training for medical specialties, there is a gap for training on basic skills part of the undergraduate curriculum,...

Last year, I attended for the second time to the AMEE conference. I felt very empowered after attending several lectures and workshops. Here is a picture of the Tecnologico de Monterrey group at AMEE. And although I came back with a few new great ideas to implement, somehow I felt that there had to be something else that I could do. I learned about the AMEE Fellows and Associate Fellows, and I knew I wanted to apply. The previous years had been a very special journey where I had an initial preparation for me as an educational leader, but belonging to the thriving AMEE community would be an intensive learning experience that will help me to continue growing as a professional. It would allow me to participate in more engaging projects with senior medical educators with whom I share a passion. This synergy would result in significant contributions to medical education. Say CHEESE! Getting to talk a few minutes with THE legend, was very inspiring. He was very down to earth, ...

Last year I had the amazing opportunity to start a FAIMER fellowship in the beautiful city of Santiago, Chile. I started this program with a proposal to develop a VR setting to contribute to a patient safety culture. For me, it was a personal journey, as I got involved in this theme because my family and I experienced it in first hand when my mom had surgery. This project, allowed me to get to know the FAIMER family. This program was developed to improve world health through education, through a powerful community of very committed people.   These family, that I did not know that I had, were willing to provide feedback, learn together, and sometimes even being a shoulder to cry on. In this learning community, I have met the kindest people I have ever known, but most importantly, we are dreaming together about how to make the world a better place. I wouldn’t dare to say we have everything figured out, but we are doing something. I want to share a picture with you of la...

Traditionally, these professors in medical schools have had a solid preparation in their discipline and seek to transmit this knowledge and experience to their students. It is often expected that these physicians, without previous training in educational practice, offer quality teaching as a complement to the provision of services (Konerman, Alpert and Shashank, 2016); however, medical educators need to pursue formal training in education. It could be a workshop on your own institution, a fellowship or even a master’s program. However, considering that medical education is a field, and not a discipline, the faculty profiles that one can find in the teaching centers are wide. Most of the faculty development programs are generic to try to accommodate as much as the professional profiles they received, I would definitely recommend any developers and CPD leaders to tailor the programs to the specific needs of their context. Last year, we had an amazing opportunity to work with the AMEE...

This question resonates to the bones…medical students have participated for centuries accompanying expert physicians observing their consultations, visits and even surgeries to learn from the medical practice in situ (Valdez-García, 2007). This has been the prevailing way in which training of new professionals is carried out; however, the profession itself has advanced considerably in the last hundred years through the development of credentialing processes, and ethical standards (Steinert, 2012). This has created multiple career opportunities within the area of ​​health. In addition to the opportunity for doctors to do a medical residency, and dedicate themselves to clinical-care, they can pursue a career as educators, researchers or a mixture of these. Being of particular interest these last ones which have been recognized in multiple studies as academic doctor, medical teacher, clinical educator or medical educator (Salcedo, 2016, Schuwirth and van der Vleuten, 2006, Roberts,...