Medical Education Grand Round: The Sciences of Learning: State of the Art  
Monday, November 23rd 2020 - For recording of this session please email The Academy here 

David Hirsh, MD, FACP
The George E. Thibault Academy Associate Professor and Director, HMS Academy

Overview: In this metacognitive romp, the speaker will teach empirically-derived educational science engaging the audience using that very educational science--it is "a play within a play" to generate learning and retention about learning and retention.

In more than a century since the Flexner Report, the fields that comprise "the sciences of learning" (education, neurobiology of learning, social and cognitive psychology, among others) have advanced greatly. Despite this progress, medical education is yet to fully translate these empirically-derived sciences to our educational practices.

In this session, we will actively engage six empirically-derived sciences of learning using these sciences of learning. The hope is that education leaders, classroom teachers, clinical educators, and learners will value and benefit from these approaches and be better able to serve our learners, our patients, and even ourselves.

Learning Objectives: Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to

1. Define and discuss the empirically-derived sciences of learning;
2. Practice the sciences of learning metacognitively within the session itself; 
3. Translate the sciences of learning into medical education and support others to use (and enjoy) these approaches

Medical Education Grand Round: From Content to Connectivity: Educating Virtually for Success  
Thursday, October 22nd 2020 - For recording of this session please email The Academy here  

Overview: Education is undergoing an unprecedented transformation. What does the future hold for teaching and learning, and what are the lessons that we can learn from changes in other "content industries" over the past 25 years?

Reflecting on his recent experience in helping lead Harvard University's pivot to digital learning during the pandemic, Harvard Business School Professor and Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, Bharat Anand, will engage our community in this Academy Medical Education Grand Rounds to consider these questions, and their implications for medical education in our digital environment. Professor Anand will share insights from his celebrated book, The Content Trap, and their applications for virtual teaching and learning. His core thesis is that success will come not only from exchanging content but developing connectivity.

Medical Education Grand Round:  The COVID Moment: A Call for an Innovation System to Address the Disruption in Medical Education 
Thursday, September 17th 2020 - For recording of this session please email The Academy here ​​​​​​​

Overview: The pressures on higher education have reached a critical point. Even before the pandemic, concerns about education's "value" were already growing, especially in relation to the cost of delivering programs and charged tuition. Critical questions emerged: Is the primary goal of a university education to deliver content? Or develop skills? How does a professional school differ from other schools? With the pandemic, medical schools needed to confront the question: "What is essential in medical education that requires 'in-person' experiences?" Indeed, most medical schools needed to move pre-clerkship students online, and pause the rotations for their clinical students, all while still trying to graduate them on time. What did we communicate to our students and to our profession about the value of medical education with these moves?

This "COVID Moment" should not only be a milestone for how public health systems in our country respond and are redesigned, but also a milestone for education systems, especially medical education. But what will we do with this clarion call?

In this interactive seminar, divided into 2 parts, the presenter will engage the audience with principles underlying large and small-scale innovation in education during a time of crisis. The presenter will reflect on the experiences from medical schools across the country, and offer work at the University of Michigan (UM) as an example. In the second part, he will describe R.I.S.E., a UM health sciences education innovation initiative launched 2 years ago, designed to build a system of innovation which can guide the institution as it reshapes the future of health sciences education. R.I.S.E. deliberately develops individuals as change agents, enables their transformative ideas in education, and grows a community of practice committed to improving education and health. The presenter will engage the audience in a discussion on whether systems of innovation can change a risk-averse education culture and make future responses to crises more effective than the current one.

Medical Education Grand Round: "Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste" - Lessons to Date for Medical Student Education at HMS from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Friday, June 5th 2020 - For recording of this session please email The Academy here ​​​​​​​

Overview: The adage "never let a good crisis go to waste" is often attributed to Winston Churchill in the course of his work with Stalin and Roosevelt to form the United Nations as World War II was coming to a close. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of the human condition, and medical student education is no exception. For his annual end-of-year Medical Education Grand Rounds, Dean Hundert will offer reflections on what we are learning from the current crisis about medical education - and about ourselves as medical educators - that may inform a better future for our students and their patients. Please reflect on what you believe may be even better about medical education as a result of innovations forced by the crisis to date, and come prepared to share your ideas with Dean Hundert and fellow medical educators across the HMS system.

Medical Education Grand Round: Supporting and Expanding Case-Based Learning in Undergraduate Medical Education
Wednesday, March 23rd 2020 - For recording of this session please email The Academy here ​​​​​​​

Overview: Case-based learning has established itself as a mainstay of modern medical education. By framing classroom materials in realistic scenarios, case-based learning allows students to relate their learning to actual patient care. Case-based approaches provide students enough structure to ensure necessary learning and create the freedom for students to develop and pursue their own hypotheses. Case-based learning takes many forms. Collaborative formats--such as HMS's "case-based collaborative learning" or CBCL--are especially engaging for students and promote learning by leveraging the contributions of peers.

In this annual student-led HMS Academy Medical Education Grand Rounds session, we will explore efforts to further support and advance the utility of CBCL to train the next generation of physicians. Although case-based learning provides students with opportunities to develop critical interpersonal skills, what happens when group social dynamics go awry? How can these collaborative environments facilitate student creativity in order to foster critical thinking? If the case method is an opportunity to interest students in real-world issues, what topics are we currently neglecting? We begin by discussing supportive tools to facilitate classroom social dynamics and students' abilities to engage creatively with case-based learning in the preclinical curriculum. We then turn our focus to a novel application of this format to highlight new topics, such as global health, during students' clinical training

Medical Education Grand Round: Annual Literature Review Session| Dismantling Racism in Medical Education: Diversity is Not Enough 
Thursday, February 27th 2020 - For recording of this session please email The Academy here ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Overview: It is our mission to provide equitable care to all our patients, and we are proud when we do so. But how well can we care for, cherish, and partner with our diverse patient populations if we do not care for, cherish, and partner with our diverse trainees and faculty? Although our institutions increasingly voice a commitment to diversity, the experiences of our learners and faculty lead us to ask: is diversity enough? Are we willing to engage deeply in the difficult work of laying bare and dismantling racism in medical education? Are we ready to commit ourselves not just to diversity, but also to equity and inclusion? The medical education literature shows that programs that are thoughtful and deliberate about selection, promotion, mentorship, and community-building have higher rates of trainee and faculty satisfaction and retention. What can we learn and apply from these programs? And what are the areas not yet studied or addressed that call out for our attention? 

In this forum's annual literature review session, we will revisit the themes of seeing, naming, and combating racism in medical education that we explored in the February 2019 Medical Education Grand Rounds. We will explore the recent literature to help tackle the question of whether diversity is enough. We will highlight the work of the HMS Health Equity Education Working Group and ongoing work at HMS and HMS-affiliates in this area. In this session, we will have opportunities for discussion to explore the actions we can take to build an environment where all learners and teachers can thrive. Participants should come prepared to share, to listen, and to participate fully in a guided group conversation on where we are and where we should be heading.