Opportunity for BUSM 4th Year Students: Instructional Project Elective
For those interested in the teaching side of pediatrics (or any other specialty), BUSM offers an interesting elective during 4th year that I took advantage of and really enjoyed. The Instructional Project Elective gives medical students a 4 week block of time to develop, implement, and examine a curriculum piece of their own design along with a faculty mentor. Past projects are scattered throughout the BUSM curriculum and have been published to medical education sites like the AAMC’s MedEd Portal (www.mededportal.org).
For my project, which I did during my first block of 4th year, I worked with pediatricians Rachel Thompson and Lie Tjoeng to turn the 3rd year pediatrics clerkship’s fluids and electrolytes lecture into a “flipped classroom.” Now, instead of listening to 45 minutes of lecture, students watch a video lecture at home then spend the in-class portion of the session working through a case in groups with the help of a chief resident. I used the 4 weeks to research adult education methods, do a literature review, plan the project, record and edit the video lectures, and design the clinical case.
It was a busy 4 weeks and required some more work after the elective was officially over, but the elective can be a lot more than just a great learning experience. My flipped classroom the project is now incorporated as a permanent part of the pediatrics clerkship (or at least as permanent as any didactic session can be). It also gave me the opportunity to work very closely with Drs. Tjoeng and Thompson, both of whom were great to work with and provided tons of help with the process of applying to peds residency. The project also made it onto my residency application CV, has been a great talking point on residency interviews, and is now in the peer review process for publication on the MedEd Portal.
Dr. Gail March, the elective’s coordinator, provides great lessons about medical education and is very good about finding students a faculty mentor. I came into the elective knowing I wanted to do a project in pediatrics, but the flipped classroom idea was something that was developed after meeting with Drs. March and Thompson. Don’t feel like you have to come in knowing all the details of your potential project.
The Instructional Project Elective is a great way to combine an interest in teaching with an interest in pediatrics. There were lots of people in the department with ideas who were looking for students to take a project on, and there also lots of mentors who would be glad to help you complete a project idea you already have.
The link to the course is below. Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions.
-Kyle Pronko
http://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm-reg/teachingscholarly-activities/