General Pediatrics Master Educator

The Online Master’s Degree in Education (MEd) for Health Care Professionals will offer the formal part of the curriculum. This curriculum includes a) 10 core courses (each 3 credit hours) focusing on adult learning, curriculum and instruction, and educational measurement and research; b) a 3-credit-hour practicum with supervised teaching and an electronic educational portfolio project; c) the 3-hour master’s project, an educational research project. Fellows will have approximately 40% protected time to accomplish the requirements of the MEd program.

The Professional and Leadership Development component of the General Pediatric Master Educator Fellowship will be an ongoing seminar which spans both years of the program. The seminars will emphasize competencies necessary for today’s clinician educator: 1) educational scholarship (e.g. formal poster and platform presentations, manuscript and grant writing), 2) academic leadership (e.g. administrative and managerial skills, strategic planning, healthcare organization and delivery, coaching and mentoring, models for community-based education); 3) personal career development (e.g. strategies for life-long learning,  job/salary negotiation, career trajectories, work-life balance, advocacy and professionalism); and 4) specialty areas of focus (e.g. caring for the underserved, innovation educational methods, population health, health literacy and medical informatics/technology). 

The professional development seminar will include monthly meetings for the fellows to present and receive feedback on work in their specialty areas of focus, critique medical education literature, utilize electronic resources for medical education and participate in interactive learning sessions, topics described below, with content experts. Professional and Leadership Development activities will account for approximately 15% of the fellows’ time in the program. Potential topics for the series are listed below.

Topics for the Professional and Leadership Development Series include: 

Educational Excellence 

• Team based learning
• Teaching in the small group setting
• Providing Feedback
• Handling the difficult learner
• Adult learning principles and teaching styles
• Teaching clinical reasoning
• Innovative educational assessment tools
• E-learning, using Web 2.0 in medical education

Leadership and Administration 

• Leadership management and skills
• Emotional Intelligence
• Running effective meetings

Scholarship 

• Abstract preparation
• Workshop preparation
• Manuscript preparation
  • How to choose a journal
  • Writing a manuscript
  • Responding to reviewers
  • How to review a manuscript
   
• Poster preparation and presentation
• The “ins and outs” of an IRB submission
• Visually displaying results – graphs & charts
• Practicing your “elevator talk”

Professional Growth/Satisfaction 

• Developing an educator portfolio
• Writing and reviewing your CV
• Promotion Requirements
• Work life balance
• Finding a mentor and creating a positive mentoring relationship
• The art of negotiation and job evaluation
• E-Professionalism in the era of social media
• Time Management

Patient care activities are an integral part of the overall fellowship program to help fellows build their clinical experience in general pediatrics. Although the fellows’ primary role in these settings will be patient care, there will be a senior faculty present for advice, questions, and consultation, which will enhance this experiential learning aspect of the fellowship. Because the senior faculty are experienced in the needs and evidence-based care of underserved populations, these clinical sessions will provide the opportunity the fellows to learn how to provide for these needs in a primary care setting.

Fellows will provide care in several diverse general pediatrics sites that all care for patients from underserved populations:

• Pediatric Primary Care Center (PPCC) 
• Hopple Street Health Center (HSHC) 
• Fairfield Pediatric Primary Care Center (FPPCC) 
• Complex Care Center

Bedside teaching will mainly occur in general pediatric sites. Teaching in these areas will include supervised precepting/teaching, feedback and milestone evaluation with residents and medical students. In addition to clinical teaching, fellows will have opportunities for presenting in more formal arenas, including the Primary Care noon conference series, primary care pathway meetings, the Regional Educator Faculty Development workshop (annual) and the Resident Advocacy rotation.