MEDICAL BULLETIN

Medical faculty, students present Scholars Collaboration research findings in Amsterdam, Chicago

Five students and two faculty members from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine presented the findings of collaborative research at the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) conference in Amsterdam Aug. 30 to Sept. 3. AMEE is the largest international medical education meeting. This year, only 350 of the 1,100 submitted abstracts were accepted for presentation. Among the accepted were all five submitted by the School of Medicine.

The five projects were developed through the medical school’s Scholars Collaboration for Teaching and Learning, a program launched in 2002-2003 by Terry Wolpaw, M.D., associate professor of medicine, associate dean for curricular affairs and a 1988 alumna of the medical school. The Scholars Collaboration links medical school faculty members with second-year and fourth-year medical students to conduct educational research in teams, with the philosophy that teachers and learners must work together to improve education. Dr. Wolpaw said she is confident that many of the projects will be incorporated into the medical school curriculum.

The projects cover a wide array of topics. Mimi Singh, M.D., and medical students Amy Coulter, Shernett Griffiths and Victor Ibrahim collaborated on “CASEing the Community…A Community Preceptorship Course.” They investigated the benefits of a preceptorship course for second-year students in which the students worked in a doctor’s office to gain real-life experience as well as personal advice and guidance.

“Treating Obesity, Treating the Neighborhood: A Program for Medical Students to Assess Medical and Socioeconomic Issues of Obese Patients” was a project conducted by Eileen Seeholzer, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, and students Brian Chow and Margaret Gross. They designed a program for second-year students to learn about both the medical and social contributions to obesity and explore treatment options.

Ileana L. Piña, M.D., professor of medicine, and students Marwa Sabe and John Castor developed a four-year medical school curriculum plan to improve recognition and evidence-based therapy of heart failure in their project, “There is an Imminent Need to Change Heart Failure Education.”

In “Bird Watching Techniques Improve Medical Student Pattern Recognition in Histology and Histopathology,” William Bligh-Glover, M.D., instructor of anatomy; Rina Lazebnik, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics; and student Benjamin Sayers applied the flashcard system that bird-watchers use for pattern recognition to the study of histology and histopathology (the microscopic examination of diseased tissue).

“Team Learning: Tackling Connective Tissue Diseases” is a project conducted by Nora Singer, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, and students Danielle Soranno and Christopher McCoy, who researched a learning strategy to encourage active learning. For each class, students did preparatory reading on connective tissue diseases. Then, in class, they took an individual quiz before dividing into groups to take a group quiz and work together to solve cases.

Students Griffiths, Gross, Sabe, Sayers and Soranno, along with Drs. Piña and Bligh-Glover, attended the AMEE conference, where they presented posters and gave brief presentations about their work. They enjoyed representing Case and sharing their work with the international medical community.

Chicago in October

An additional Scholars Collaboration project was accepted to the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare held in Chicago Oct. 6-8. The project, “Doc Talk: Communicating to Patients, Peers and Community,” was conducted by Lily C. Pien, M.D., and students Virginia A. Miraldi and Daila M. Pravs, who tested a program to help medical students improve their public speaking skills. Dr. Pien attended the conference to give an oral presentation.

—Laura Marx