Benjamin R. Kinnear, MD, MEd

Biography

I am an Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds) hospitalist, which means that I care for both children and adults when they are hospitalized. I became a physician because we spend much of our adult lives in our professional roles, and I wanted to spend my time serving others. Med-Peds allows me to care for patients of all ages, and Hospital Medicine provides the opportunity to help people when they are acutely ill and in need. I am humbled to have the opportunity to serve both adults and children in the Cincinnati area, and always do my best to earn the trust given by my patients.

My central academic and administrative roles are in Medical Education, or the systems we use to train future healthcare professionals. My interest in education began as a medical resident and grew during my chief resident year. I currently serve as an Associate Program Director for both the Med-Peds and Internal Medicine residency programs, helping to lead education initiatives such as our Medical Education Pathway, quality improvement training and competency-based assessment programs. I have furthered my education training through a Master of Medical Education (completed in 2018) and a year-long education research fellowship called the Education Research Scholars Program. I am just now beginning a PhD in Health Professions Education program through Maastricht University. I have been extremely lucky to be part of an incredibly innovative and collaborative education team here in Cincinnati.

My research interests include learner assessment, time-variable education, competency-based medical education and entrustment. My colleagues and I attempt to answer questions such as: 1) When are medical trainees ready to deliver safe and high-quality care with less supervision? and 2) When are they ready to graduate? Measuring competence and determining readiness for unsupervised practice is complicated, and we hope to better understand the optimal ways to do both.

I have a clinical interest in using the point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) for the care of pediatric and adult hospitalized patients. I teach at multiple local and regional POCUS training conferences and believe this is a technology that can improve the care of hospitalized patients.

I received multiple teaching awards, including the Junior Faculty Education Achievement Award from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (2020), which is given to a junior faculty member every year based on their educational achievements, and the Pediatric Faculty Teacher of the Year Award (2020), given to one faculty member by graduating Pediatric residents. In 2020, I was chosen for the Macy Faculty Scholars Program, a grant-funded opportunity to lead an educational innovation. I will be leading efforts to pilot time-variable training in our Internal Medicine residency program.