Reflections of the week

I have had many thoughts over the week.  After spending my life learning as a scientist it is hard to imagine that a departure back to humanities and reflection can be so refreshing.  I have had more time to think about the attainment of knowledge over the last couple weeks more than I ever have in my life.  I had the benefit of attending the Harvard Initiative on Learning and Teaching (HILT) and it brought many new concepts to me that are fascinating.  The greatest thinkers across the university reflecting on learning and teaching with a focus on student engagement and distance.

Specific to medical education and innovation there are a lot of things to think about.

The penultimate question is what is it that we NEED to learn in medical education.

With the immense amount of hidden curriculum in medicine, how much impact does formal education have on medical education.  Formal education no longer encompasses the majority of learning.

We should be producing intuitive physicians instead of regurgitative.

With the half -life of knowledge diminishing and content knowledge is available at the touch of a button, how do we train tomorrow’s physicians to learn to access knowledge content efficiently, have the “meta-skill to determine worthiness of content,” and give them the skills to rapidly synthesize and connect the content in a meaningful way.

Time is a commodity and time in class should be spent examining content in an applicable way.  No longer is content acquisition important, it is now content application.  To apply principles and form cognitive connections, the content still needs to be learned, but can this content be moved out of the classroom.  Where does technology fit in this model?  Will moving pre-clinical content to the online space, will this change the type of physicians we train.

Some other thoughts about innovation that came up from HILT:

-Are we innovating [in education] or are we just adapting from other disciplines

-The idea of libertarian paternalism and its role in creating a structured environment for learning

-The idea of what educational environment is technology creating? Is it inhibitory or excitatory?  (i.e. wifi distracting in the classroom)

Thank you T509 Massive and HILT for spurring these thoughts and giving me the opportunity to grow in a way I never thought I could.