The Boston Red Sox are in Florida for their spring
training. They are making
preparations for the 100 year anniversary of their home, Fenway Park. While they are focusing on this
important celebration, we all know that their “eye is on the ball.” They are looking ahead to doing
everything that they can to win the upcoming season. Attention to the birthday event inspires
and brings attention to their story. Simultaneous attention to the coming baseball season
is what it’s all about. The history,
the party, and the story of what has come before inspire the next step. This history lifts up the season!
This Red Sox story is a model for where we, the MGH
Institute of Health Professions, are headed. This year, 2012, is
the 35th anniversary of the Institute! During the fall term we will celebrate this important
birthday for the IHP! At the
same time three important themes are emerging as being distinctive and important
areas of focus for our future. These include Interprofessional Activity and
Competence, Inclusive Excellence and Multicultural Competence, and Active
Learning as foundational to entry level education. In the coming weeks, this blog will
focus on each of these themes in more detail.
Interprofessional Teaching
and Learning: Interprofessionalism
has a long history at the Institute. When our founders described the Institute in their
original planning, it was this concept of health professionals working together
that was at the forefront of their thinking. As the Institute changed locations (four times?), grew in
size from a few students to now almost 1200, and added and subtracted programs
of study it was this interprofessional concept that has been central to the
thinking. In the
1970s and 1980s, there was not much national attention on health professional
education and so the Institute was one of the few organizations with a
deliberate commitment to the topic of interprofessional studies. Today, we have a new Center
for Interprofessional Studies and Innovation that will soon be the home for two
new interprofessional academic degree programs and also for our prerequisite
courses. We have launched, with
our partners at Mass General, a new interprofessional dedicated education unit,
where a small number of our entry level students from all of our disciplines
learn together and from each other.
We are beginning to plan for a new multidisciplinary community focused
clinical model. These “real
world” opportunities are reinforced by the monthly Schwartz Rounds, the annual
Interdisciplinary lecture, common
coursework in ethics, and our new “Changing Courses II” teaching
fellowship.
Inclusive Excellence
and Multicultural Competence:
Inclusion of historically underrepresented groups in the health disciplines and competence in delivering care to
everyone continues to be a major national, local, and Institute theme. Our disciplines continue to have
broad underrepresentation by ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities. Health disparities are well
documented in the way that the poor and certain minority groups benefit from
the health system. Issues of
mistrust, under-and over-diagnosis of health problems, low health literacy, and access based
on social and economic status
continue to reduce quality and outcomes, drive cost to an unaffordable level, and also to drive
critically important moral and ethical questions. The Institute’s Diversity Committee led by
President Bellack, has developed a
model of inclusive excellence and a set of expectations regarding our progress
in welcoming a diverse group of faculty members, students, and staff. Equally important, the
committee has provided guidance
regarding the competencies that are expected from every IHP graduate!
Active Learning and
Entry Level Education: Development of critical thinking, problem-solving, case
studies, critical observation, and reflection are well documented approaches to
successful adult learning. These active approaches need to be
intertwined with sound theoretical, principled content knowledge. In traditional graduate
education, the approach has been to present the latter (content knowledge)
first in lectures and readings, provide some critical reasoning tasks in exams
and occasional discussions, and to leverage the more “active” components to
practicum or other field experiences. As we realize that the potential content for
almost any of the content matter that we teach is limitless; that the old
strategies for learning that focused on memorization and repetition do not
produce sustained access to information; and regardless of what we teach today,
the shelf life of content is quite short. Our Committee on Teaching Excellence (CTE)
has active learning on their agenda and continues to make information available
to us that informs and drives our competence in this arena. Our instructional support
group in Instructional Design, Information Technology, and Library are working
together to support our educational efforts. Most notable, last month the Institute opened remarkable new
space designed for active learning at 2 Constitution Center.
So, these three key themes are in our focus for the coming
years. Our eyes are on the
ball. As we look to our 36th
year we need to perfect our ability to teach and learn together in an
interprofessional context, while maintaining distinctive and excellent
disciplinary knowledge. We all
need to be sure that every student
feels welcomed, served, supported, inspired, and enhanced by his or her
experience at the MGH Institute.
We need to also be certain that when an entry level student graduates
from our programs that they know how to care for those who come from a variety
of cultures and backgrounds, especially the poor or otherwise
disadvantaged. And we need
to engage in ongoing discourse about how we will teach using the best methods to improve
learning and ultimately to impact practice.
Over the next several weeks, this blog will include a bit
more in-depth information about each of these topics. I am inviting some of our colleagues to write guest
contributions on each of these topics.
My hope is that this work can provide an important framework that benefits
your teaching and scholarship.
Keep your eye on the ball!
