Educators from the University of Louisville School of Medicine are sharing two successful programs with medical educators from around the nation today at the 2015 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Medical Education Meeting. Two teams are delivering presentations at the Baltimore event, and an educational grant will be announced for an interdisciplinary training program for internal medicine residents.

“The recent curriculum revision at the UofL School of Medicine has been a catalyst for multiple innovative approaches to medical education. We are committed to developing best practices in medical education and translating those practices to meet the needs of our immediate community by improving patient care,” said Monica Ann Shaw, M.D., M.A., vice dean for undergraduate medical education for the UofL School of Medicine. “I am very proud of the momentum we are gaining in educational scholarship and am proud of my colleagues and the University of Louisville’s presence at this national conference."

Members of UofL’s Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Oncology Palliative Care Education (iCOPE) Council will detail the program for training medical, nursing, social work and chaplaincy students in interprofessional palliative care education. Presenters Shaw, Leslee Martin, M.A., director of medical education, and Susan Sawning, M.S.S.W., director of medical education research, will share the details of iCOPE, developed with a grant from the National Cancer Institute. Surveys of 758 students reveal the program significantly improves the students’ palliative care knowledge, skills and self-efficacy related to working in teams.

In another session, Olivia Mittel, M.D., and Carrie Bohnert, M.P.A., are presenting a program that helps medical students learn to identify and assist victims of human trafficking. Mittel, assistant dean of student affairs, and Bohnert, director of the standardized patient program, developed a training unit for medical students that utilized a standardized patient encounter and an online learning module to teach the students to identify victims of human sex trafficking, communicate with suspected victims and refer victims to safety. This program addresses the fact that although 400,000 Americans are at risk for exploitation each year, only 10 percent of doctors will recognize trafficking victims.

Finally, Lorrel Brown, M.D., associate director of UofL’s Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship Program, has been awarded a grant from the Southern Group on Educational Affairs for her curriculum that improves resuscitation effectiveness through team simulations. The program, called “Code Blue,” brings together internal medicine residents, nurses, respiratory therapists and pharmacy residents to learn as a team to respond more effectively in actual “code blue” events. The grant will be announced during the conference.

November 12, 2015