Concentration: Medical Education

Project Mentor: Dick Dollase, EdD

Graduation Year: MD 2010

Concentration Title:
Redefining the Clinical Experience in Medical School

Concentration Description:
When I began my concentration project, I hoped to create a modular unit that would improve the way that specific topics are presented. Over the end of the first year of medical school and into second year, I had been taking topics that we had learned in the classroom and arranged them into brief 3-5 minute video podcasts. The project became more defined: I would develop an embryology curriculum that integrated video, images, and text on a user-friendly website. Initially, I worked with the embryology of the heart: this would integrate some video podcasts that I had already created, such as the aforementioned video about the fetal circulation, and text and images to better present the development process. These would then be followed with USMLE-style questions to assess viewer comprehension. The project could then be evaluated by these scores, and by other user feedback. Ideally, the goal was to provide a format by which other users could post topics or messages on this website. I joined the Physician as Communicator elective, and would share new videos or written work on a monthly basis. Through this course my skills as a presenter greatly improved, and the pieces for the project became more refined. Around this same time, my online videos found an audience: one on lyme disease has over 16,000 views, an explanation of penicillin has over 8,000 views, and the video on fetal circulation has been viewed over 43,000 times.