Principal Investigators: Tana Boyer, Associate Professor of Clinical Anesthesia, Anesthesia, School of Medicine; Sally Mitchell, EdD, MMSc, Associate Professor of Clinical Anesthesia, Vice Chair of Education, Statewide Assistant Clerkship Director, Department of Anesthesia, Indiana University School of Medicine, Email: mitchsaa@iu.edu; Jian Ye, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Clinical Anesthesia, Lead Career Mentor, Faculty Liaison to Anesthesia Student Interest Group, Department of Anesthesia, Indiana University School of Medicine, Email: yejian@iu.edu
Project Title: Obtaining the Trifecta: Aligning UME, GME, and Faculty Development in Medical Education Research at Riley Hospital for Children
Funding Level: $15000
Abstract:The ability to conduct high-quality medical education research is a needed and coveted skill among academic physician faculty.1 However, this skill is rarely taught in UME and GME, and effective mentors are scarce.2 Students typically envision research careers as bench or clinical research with NIH grant funding; they are naïve to this inspiring and fulfilling career path. The medical education community needs to attract, engage, and support medical students, physician trainees, and junior faculty members as medical education researchers to advance the profession, revise curricula, and guide the future of training.3,4 Without well prepared and innovative future leaders, the field of medical education and anesthesiology will stagnate. We will create a medical education research committee and mentorship program (MERCAMP) built upon the structure of our existing, successful medical education research elective. We will track engagement, output, and outcomes. We propose to leverage local expertise in agile science to design effective nudges for trainees and faculty. Nudges will focus on changing the behavior of academic clinicians to become academicians. We hypothesize the nudges will: (a) improve scholarly output (quantity and quality); (b) develop anesthesiologists as medical education researchers; (c) improve mentor-mentee relationships (quantity and quality); and (d) affect cultural change in our department. Doing so will advance the participants’ careers and improve the concepts, methods, and techniques of education in anesthesiology. We will ensure the inclusion of women and underrepresented minorities in medicine within our pipeline program of anesthesia medical education researchers and future anesthesia leaders.