News

#IAMSE18 – Call for Focus Sessions – Deadline September 15

The International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) is pleased to announce the call for focus sessions for the 22nd Annual IAMSE Conference to be held at the Green Valley Ranch and Resort, just outside of Las Vegas, from June 9-12, 2018. The IAMSE meeting offers opportunities for faculty development and networking, bringing together medical sciences and medical education across the continuum of health care education.

The purpose of a 90-minute Focus Session is to “focus in” on a specific topic in small group discussion format. Groups of 10-50 individuals consider a particular topic in an interactive format. Formats can be variable. Additional information about Focus Group formats is available here.

This year’s theme is, “Integrating Nutrition and Wellness Education in Teaching the Health Sciences.” Please note that Focus Sessions do not necessarily need to be related to either wellness or nutrition.

All abstracts must be submitted in the format requested through the online abstract submission site found here.

Submission deadline is September 15, 2017. Abstract acceptance notifications will be returned by November 15.

Please contact Brandi Hinkle at brandi@iamse.org for any questions about submission.

We hope to see you next year!

IAMSE – Congratulations to the 2017 Educational Scholarship Grant Winners!

The International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) would like to congratulate the 2017 Educational Scholarship Grant Recipients. We received many high quality grants this year. There were 25 submissions, and we are happy to congratulate the following on receiving the IAMSE Educational Scholarship Grant this year:

  • Osvaldo Lopez, Ph.D. (Rowan University): “Incentive structure and student participation in active learning strategies in medical school”
  • Terrence Miller, Ph.D. (Touro University Nevada): “A Comparison of SOAP note style exam questions to traditional vignette style exam questions”

Grant submissions were open to all IAMSE Members. Funding preference was given to new projects, which must be relevant to the mission of IAMSE. The results of funded projects are presented at a future IAMSE meeting. If you would like to submit a proposal for the 2018 IAMSE Educational Scholarship Grant, watch for an email later this year!

IAMSE – Congratulations to the Master Scholar Award Winner!

The International Association of Medical Science Educations (IAMSE) would like to congratulate the winner of the 2017 Master Scholar award.

William B. Jeffries, Ph.D.
Professor of Pharmacology and Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont

William B. (Bill) Jeffries, Ph.D. is a Professor of Pharmacology and the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dr. Jeffries earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in pharmacology from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science. While in graduate school he began his 37-year education career as a graduate assistant, teaching freshman biology labs. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in the Department of Pharmacology.

After his fellowship, Dr. Jeffries joined the faculty at Creighton University. There he was elected Fellow of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research of the American Heart Association and spent two decades as a successful research investigator in hypertension and molecular pharmacology. At Creighton he became very active in health sciences education, teaching and directing courses for medical, nursing, pharmacy, dental and graduate students. He assumed a leadership role in graduate education as director of the Pharmacology Graduate Program for 7 years. He also developed an NIH-funded program to help prepare underrepresented minority students for research and medical careers. This program continued at Creighton for 15 years. He was also a driving force in medical curricular reform, overseeing the integration of Pharmacology content in a major curricular change at Creighton.

These early experiences led to Dr. Jeffries’ scholarly efforts in education, including effective teaching through active learning, curriculum design, strategic institutional planning and technological innovation. Dr. Jeffries served on the IAMSE Board of Directors for 7 years and is a past chair of the Division for Pharmacology Education of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He has also served on several national groups and committees of the Association for American Medical Colleges and as a faculty member in its LEAD mentorship program. He has been a long term contributor to IAMSE and its programming, contributing numerous workshops and seminars. He has authored over 100 scholarly works.

Dr. Jeffries primary scholarly interest today is faculty development. He has made over 70 education presentations, seminars, and workshops regionally, nationally and internationally with the goal of improving medical teaching. Jeffries is coeditor (with Dr. Kathryn Huggett) of two editions of An Introduction to Medical Teaching, a faculty development manual for medical educators. He is a contributing author to many other medical teaching works, including IAMSE’s How-To Guide for Active Learning, A Practical Guide for Medical Teachers, Knowledge Objectives in Medical Pharmacology, the Guidebook for Clerkship Directors, 4th and 5th Editions, and The Eight Roles of the Excellent Medical Teacher. He is an outspoken proponent of active learning, and his advocacy for its use in medical education has been featured in many medical education meetings, the New York Times, Boston Globe, the AAMC Reporter, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the US News and World Report.

The Master Scholar Award recognizes an IAMSE member who has a distinguished record of educational scholarship, including educational research and/or dissemination of excellent and scholarly approaches to teaching and education. This could include development of multimedia medical educational programs, research in the areas of curriculum design and evaluation, student assessment, or innovative programs and methods.

IAMSE – Visit the WAS Archives!

As you probably know, IAMSE offers three Webcast Audio Seminar (WAS) Series every year. Did you know that we maintain an archive of all WAS seminars on the IAMSE website as well? The archive is the perfect opportunity to revisit your favorite series or to catch up on missed seminars, such as the Spring 2016 series on Curriculum Design and Evaluation or Winter 2014 series on Practical Applications of Active Learning!

The Webcast Audio Seminar archives are located on the IAMSE website under the Events heading as Web Seminars. Here, you will be able to search the archives or browse by year and series.

If you have any questions or problems accessing the archives, please just let us know at support@iamse.org.

#IAMSE18 – Call for Pre-Conference Professional Development Workshops

The Professional Development Committee is soliciting proposals to be considered for the 2018 IAMSE slate of Professional Development Pre-Conference (Saturday) workshops. Proposals will be accepted through September, 1, 2017. The committee will review all proposals and select 3-4 full day workshops and 6-8 half day workshops for the meeting.

IAMSE Professional Development Pre-Conference workshops focus on Career/Professional Development, and the workshops should be useful for advancing the career of the attendee. The broad umbrella areas of focus for these workshops include:

  • Leadership/Advancement as a Medical Educator
  • Research/Scholarship/Publications
  • Instruction/Assessment
  • Technology

Professional Development Pre-Conference workshop proposals must include the following information:

  • Title of workshop
  • Name and e-mail of Organizer
  • Facilitator(s) information
  • Summary of workshop and how it will advance the career of the attendee
  • Level of workshop (Introductory/intermediate/advanced)
  • Who should participate

All abstracts must be submitted in the format requested through the online abstract submission site found here.

Please contact Brandi Hinkle at brandi@iamse.org for any questions about submission.

IAMSE – Congratulations to the Master Teacher Award Winner!

The International Association of Medical Science Educations (IAMSE) would like to congratulate the winner of the 2017 Master Teacher award.

Tracy B. Fulton, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California

Tracy Fulton has spent the last 23 years at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she earned her PhD and is professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. As a grad student, while studying telomerase in yeast, she explored her love for teaching as an adult literacy tutor, an animal museum docent, a K-5 classroom helper, and a TA for dental school biochemistry. She settled on professional school education as her target path and since joining the faculty in 2000 has directed and taught in courses in the Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry, earning many teaching awards from her students and peers. In the inaugural Bridges medical curriculum, Tracy directs the REGulatioN (Renal, Endocrine, GI, Nutrition) block, and chaired two working groups to establish an assessment system that emphasizes open-ended questions. Tracy is active in IAMSE, past secretary for the Association of Biochemistry Educators (ABE), and co-chairs the NBME Test Material Development Committee for pharmacology and biochemistry. Tracy is on the leadership team for MedU Science, a project involving many IAMSE members focused on use of basic science concepts in clerkship clinical decision-making. She is working with IAMSE/ABE colleagues Janet Lindsley and Tina Cowan on an NBME task force to implement a nationally supported metabolic map as a reference on Step exams. Tracy’s involvement in IAMSE has been pivotal in her professional development; she thanks the organization’s leadership and membership for many of her most rewarding experiences, collaborations, and friendships in education.

The Master Teacher Award honors an IAMSE member who, over the course of many years, has consistently demonstrated extraordinary excellence in teaching, both at his/her institution and within IAMSE. Any teaching can be recognized, but nominations of members who have been active teachers at the annual IAMSE meetings or web seminars are particularly encouraged.

IAMSE – Administrative Office Closed July 3rd & 4th

The IAMSE Administrative Office will be closed on Monday and Tuesday, July 3-4, in observance of Independence Day in the United States. We will resume normal business hours on Wednesday, July 5th. We would like to wish everyone a safe holiday!

IAMSE – Save the Date! Fall 2017 WAS: Evolution and Revolution in Medical Education

IAMSE is pleased to announce the Fall 2017 Webcast Audio Seminar Series!

Evolution and Revolution in Medical Education – Global Challenges and Solutions in Health Professions Education

The Fall 2017 IAMSE Web Seminar Series takes on an increased international flavor as presenters review health professions education around the world each with unique challenges and solutions. The goal of this series is to foster the exchange of ideas in the community of health science educators. Continuing with our longitudinal focus on competency-based-education, the series begins with an overview of medical education in Canada with an emphasis on the initiatives of the International Competencies in Basic Medical Education (ICBME). From the Far East, we will hear a presentation on Chinese medical education (World-China initiative) which places an emphasis on primary care in China. A panel will provide an overview of the European model of health professions education from globalization of education to global healthcare. Another presentation will explore medical education challenges and solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The series will conclude with a session focusing on an integrated model of medical care: childhood disease prevention in South America. At the end of the series the audience will be able to identify global challenges and solutions to medical education that may provide valuable perspectives at the local level.

Registration to open in July. Please visit www.iamse.org for more information.

IAMSE Call for Connects Announcements – Deadline June 30

The next issue of the electronic membership newsletter of the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE), IAMSE Connects, will be published in July. The purpose of this newsletter is to connect the IAMSE membership with information, opportunities, resources and each other.

We are very pleased to dedicate one section of this newsletter to recognize the professional accomplishments of our members but we need your help! Have you received awards or promotions or landed a great new job in the last year? We would like to know about it and celebrate your accomplishments in our newsletter.

Please send your news to Brandi Hinkle at brandi@iamse.org or submit it online here for inclusion in the next edition. Sorry, we can only include professional accomplishments in the newsletter, but welcome you to share your personal news on the IAMSE Facebook page! Thanks for your help!

Deadline: June 30, 2017.

#IAMSE17 – Thank You from the 2017 Program Committee

The 2017 IAMSE Meeting has come to a close and it truly is one for the record books! First, this year marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of IAMSE and we celebrated the occasion by honoring IAMSE Founder, Dr. Roger Koment. Second, meeting registration numbers were the highest in the organization’s history! The response to this year’s theme, “Delivering Evidence-Based Health Sciences Education” was impressive. The outstanding plenary presentations enlarged our understanding of the research on learning and cognition. The high-quality conference sessions, oral presentations and posters demonstrated application of these research-derived principles and challenged us to make changes in our own work as educators. Finally, and thanks to the efforts of the Student Research Committee, we benefited from the participation of learners and welcomed them as future colleagues into our conference and organization.

Membership in IAMSE is more than paying the annual membership fee and joining the listserv. Attending and contributing to the annual meeting helps the organization – our organization – fulfill its mission to “advance health professions education through teacher development and to ensure that the teaching and learning of medical science continues to be firmly grounded in foundational sciences and the best practices of teaching.” Without a doubt, the 2017 meeting hit the mark while still offering the networking, professional development, and participant engagement for which our meeting is known.

Sincere thanks and appreciation to the 2017 Program Committee, the Larner College of Medicine, and the University of Vermont for their dedicated and enthusiastic support in planning this outstanding meeting in Burlington, Vermont.

For updates on next year’s meeting, be sure to follow the IAMSE Facebook and Twitter pages.

Have You Seen our Member Surveys?

Did you know that the average class size of our members is over 100? Did you know that 20 IAMSE members have recommended IAMSE to their colleagues recently?

Every month, IAMSE lists a new survey question on the member’s only site. The surveys can be found at the bottom of any Member’s Only pages under the heading, “Online Surveys.” Have you answered them?

The next time you log in, be sure to answer that month’s survey question!

Featured Member: Peter de Jong, MSE Editor-in-Chief

This year I will be celebrating my 10th year as a member of IAMSE. I joined the organization in 2007 when I was invited to attend the meeting in Cleveland, OH. It was there that I had the opportunity to meet so many new wonderful people. The association felt like a welcome home where dedicated educators shared their passion about teaching and training young people towards a career as health science professionals. I joined the Board of Directors as Vice-President in 2008, and I worked to strengthen the international perspective of the organization. In 2010, I was entrusted with the position of Editor-in-Chief of the association’s online peer-reviewed journal, Medical Science Educator. I still enjoy working to transform this publication into a professional and respected journal in the international medical education research literature. Within IAMSE there are many opportunities to learn from others about current best practice in education, to network with colleagues, and to have inspiring discussions at the annual meeting. Whether you are an educator in the basic or clinical health sciences, in medicine, nursing, PA or otherwise, from the US or from elsewhere in the world, I feel we all should be members of IAMSE and participate in this wonderful family of educators!