SCHOLARSHIP IN HEALTH PROFESSIONS EDUCATIONJim Lau and Sarah Williams

Surgery and Emergency Medicine

Medical Education Scholars Program

August 13 2014

From Rachel Yudowsky, MD, MHPE and Georges Bordage, MD, PhDMHPE 501 at UIC DME

G & O’s• The importance of making it count “twice”• Education **as** scholarship• Conceptual frameworks in Med Ed scholarship• Where folks have gone wrong… and how you can avoid it

Teaching…scholarship

• Being a teacher, presumably a good teacher• Being an “excellent” teacher

• e.g., receiving high ratings by students and peers or winning a teaching award like the Golden Apple Award

• Being a “scholarly” teacher• i.e., basing one’s teaching on best practices, and state-of-the-art

knowledge

• Doing “scholarship of teaching” • discovery• Integration• application

Fincher, RM & Work, Perspectives on the Scholarship of Teaching. Med Educ, 2006; 40:293-95.

What is Scholarship?

“a tangible product, such as a journal article, a book, a presentation, or an endurable educational product, of new knowledge or its presentation, that was peer-reviewed and publicly disseminated, from which others can learn from and build upon.”

“The Disciplines Speak: Rewarding the Scholarly Professional and Creative Work of Faculty” (1995), Diamond et al.

Scholarship

• This definition contains four basic elements:• a tangible product• new knowledge or its presentation• peer reviewed• publicly disseminated from which others can learn from

and build upon

Scholarship

• Are you addressing an important problem?  • How are you framing the problem?

• How are you using existing literature, best practices, and conceptual framework(s) to plan and execute your interventions or study?

• Can your work be “scholarly”?

Types of Scholarship

• Discovery: original research, new knowledge• Integration: synthesizing a topic, linking disciplines• Application: applying knowledge to consequential

problems• Teaching

Boyer, E. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990.

Discovery

• Original research to obtain new knowledge within a discipline,

• Knowledge for its own sake,• Skillful, systematic exploration of the frontiers

of knowledge, and• Typically disseminated to a specialty

audience (thus the discipline-related expertise mentioned above).

Integration

• Tradition of synthesizing,• Making connection among discoveries, within

and across disciplines & their boundaries,• Drawing together, illuminating original

research to provide new insights or place in broader contexts, and

• Translating research for an interdisciplinary or non-specialist audience.

Application

• Application of knowledge to solve consequential, important problems

• practical problems provide the stimulus for research & development

• Bridging theory and practice• Tradition of engagement, service to the community

Studies Can Be Classified As:

• Descriptive • studies that report what was done

• Justification or effectiveness • studies that report how well it worked

• Clarification • studies that report how or why it worked

Cook, DA, Bordage, G, Schmidt, H. Description, Justification, and Clarification: A Framework for Classifying the Purposes of Research in Medical Education. Medical Education. 2008; 42:128-33.

And then, how is this work judged?Carnegie Foundation: 51 grant agencies, 58 scholarly press directors, and 31 scholarly journal editors

• Glassick’s 6 standards (Academic Medicine, 2000)• Clear goals• Adequate preparation• Appropriate methods: #1 reason for manuscript rejection

(Bordage, 2001)• Significant results: #1 reason for manuscript acceptance• Effective presentation• Reflective critique

• Glassick, CE. Boyer’s Expanded Definitions of Scholarship, Standards for Assessing Scholarship, and the Elusiveness of the Scholarship of Teaching. Acad Med, 2000;75:877-80.• Bordage, G. Reasons Reviewers Reject and Accept Manuscripts: The Strengths and Weaknesses in Medical Education Reports. Acad Med, 2001;76:889-896

1. Clear Goals

• 1. Clear goals: • Is the basic purpose stated clearly?• Are the important questions in the field identified?• Are objectives realistic and achievable?• What are you adding? • Why should I care?

2. Adequate Preparation

• Have you done a critical review of the literature and are you using an appropriate conceptual framework?

• Do you understand what has been done in the field and are you taking it to the next level?

• Are you bringing the appropriate skills and resources to the table?

• ***This can be scholarship in its own right***

3. Methods

• Are you using the appropriate methods to achieve your goals• quantitative/qualitative/stats/survey etc.• have you applied them appropriately to your question?• #1 reason for manuscript rejection

• Stats correct?• Optimal design?• Sufficient sample and data?

4. Results: So What, Who Cares?• Did you achieve your goals?• What does your work contribute to the field?• What new frontiers does your work open up?• ***#1 reason for accepting manuscripts***

5. Effective Presentation• Is your style and organization effective?• Are you choosing the right forum for the right audience?

(local, regional, national)• Is your message presented with clarity and integrity?• Are your take-home messages clear?

Reflective Critique• Did you critically evaluate your own work?• Is your critique based on a solid breadth of evidence?• Are you using evaluation to improve future work?• Do you

• acknowledge limits• link with the bigger picture?• Make new insights? Reflect on unexpected results?• Identify future research opportunities?

Exercises for home

• 1. Review your favorite educational scholarship paper

• Classify it as:• Descriptive• Justification• Clarification

• Reflect and apply to your next project

• 2. If you have submitted a paper and had it rejected, go back and apply Glassick’s criteria to your work

Thank You!

•Q

uestions?

JNLAU@STANFORD.EDUPTANAKA@STANFORD.EDU

SRWILLIAMS@STANFORD.EDU