2011 Spring: The Use of E-Learning in Medical Education

Peter G. Anderson, D.V.M., Ph.D. is Professor and Director of Pathology Undergraduate Education at  the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. Dr. Anderson has a long-standing commitment and dedication to teaching and he has championed many innovations to health sciences education, particularly in the area of technology enhance learning.  He has held leadership positions in numerous educational organizations including IAMSE, GRIPE, UMEDS, ASIP, and he is currently on the Board of the NBME and serves on the USMLE Step 1 Committee and is chair of the USMLE Pathology committee. Dr. Anderson has received numerous teaching awards including the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award, the Ellen Gregg Ingalls/UAB National Alumni Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching, the UAB Teaching Scholar Award, the UAB School of Medicine Excellence in Education Scholarship Award, and the UAB President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for the Joint Health Sciences

Peter de Jong is an E-Learning staff adviser at the Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands. In this position, he has been managing several major programs within Medical School, including the introduction of a digital learning environment, the use of laptop computers by all students, and recently the implementation of an audience response system for lectures and symposia. He has initiated several studies in the field of mobile learning and is involved in an online testing project for Medical School and a streaming rich-media project for Leiden University.

Peter has a Master degree in Medical Technology from Eindhoven University and a PhD in Biophysics/ Physiology from Maastricht University. For several years, he has been Chair of the national working group on E-learning in Medicine of the Netherlands Association for Medical Education (NVMO). Currently he is involved in the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) as Editor-in-Chief of the peer reviewed online journal Medical Science Educator.

Dr. Sheila Chauvin is founding Director of the Office of Medical Education Research and Development, founding Director of the Academy for the Advancement of Educational Scholarship, and tenured Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, and in the Behavioral and Community Health Sciences Program, School of Public Health, at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. She has 35 years of professional experience and is well-known for her expertise and achievements in educational research, teaching/learning effectiveness, faculty development, curriculum and educational program development, development and implementation of assessment and evaluation systems, educational leadership and change processes. Dr. Chauvin has worked with colleagues at LSUHSC and at a variety of medical schools to enhance teaching and education and to create programs and activities that foster faculty development and educational scholarship. Colleagues often described Dr. Chauvin as a teacher of teachers and an effective mentor. They cite her leadership effectiveness and adept skills for facilitating innovation, collaboration, and successful change and improvement processes. More recently, Dr. Chauvin was principal investigator for an AHRQ-funded study targeting simulation-based operating room teamwork training at the point of care. She works extensively with faculty in designing and evaluating simulation-based training across the medical education continuum. She is also Chair of the statewide Medical Simulation Training and

Dr. John L. Szarek is Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Basic Sciences and Director of Clinical Pharmacology at The Commonwealth Medical College (TCMC) in Scranton PA.  He also serves as the Education Director for Simulation at the school and is currently interim chair of the Department of Basic Science. Dr. Szarek received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, a B.S. in Pharmacy from the University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy, and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Illinois Urbana. Prior to joining the TCMC faculty, Dr. Szarek spent 16 years on the faculty at Marshall University School of Medicine where he was actively involved in scientific research which resulted in numerous articles. He spent 5 years in Dominica as the Chair of Pharmacology at Ross University School of Medicine. There he started and ran the simulation program for the second year medical students. Dr. Szarek came to TCMC from A. T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona where he was Professor of Pharmacology and Director of Human Simulation. Dr. Szarek has participated in many workshops on teaching and learning including two sponsored by the Harvard Macy Institute. His interests focus on the use of technology in medical education and students’ emotions during learning. He has conducted workshops for medical school faculty on the local and national level on several topics including facilitating small group sessions, the use of simulation in medical education, question writing, and presentation skills.

Drs. Mary E.W. Dankbaar is program manager e-learning at the Erasmus University Medical Centre of Rotterdam, project manager of the strategy study on ICT & Education at the University Medical Centre of Utrecht (The Netherlands) and chairwomen of the Dutch Special Interest Group on e-learning in medical education. She has over 10 years of experience in designing and implementing online instructional interventions for companies and educational institutions. She has written a number of articles on e-learning and was co-author of a book on knowledge management. Her academic focus is on the design, development and implementation of technology to improve learning.

Rachel Ellaway Ph.D is the Assistant Dean and Associate Professor for Education Informatics at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine as well as the Director of Simulation. Dr Ellaway is the author of the OpenLabyrinth virtual patient authoring and delivery system, chair of the AFMC Informatics Resource Group and she writes a regular educational technology column for Medical Teacher. Her work in developing and implementing profession-focused educational systems was recognised in the award of a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education to the University of Edinburgh in 2005.

Dr. McGee is currently the Assistant Dean for Medical Education Technology and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where he directs the Laboratory for Educational Technology and maintains a clinical practice in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. His academic focus is on the design, development, implementation and assessment of technologies to advance medical education throughout the health science continuum.

His lab consists of eight education and technical specialists responsible for the creation of original programs for the School of Medicine, including: 1) the Navigator digital curriculum, 2) Virtual Patient clinical simulations, 3) online Collaborative Learning Portfolios for mentored student projects, and 4) personalized point-of-care learning modules. Students, faculty, and trainees have adopted these programs as part of their daily curricular activities at the medical center. Continuing education from the University of Pittsburgh and the American Gastroenterological Association also use these technologies. Support for these initiatives relies on a balance of institutional funding and external educational grants from the NIH, CDC, foundations and industry.

Dr. McGee holds leadership positions as Editor for Web-based Education for the American Gastroenterological Association, Co-Chair of the Virtual Patient Working Group at MedBiquitous (a medical education standards-developing organization) and editorial board member for AAMC�s MedEdPortal.

His current research and development work is in virtual patient simulation, online collaborative learning for students and mentors, and incorporating social networking into a web-based curriculum. Dr. McGee maintains an active schedule as a tertiary referral gastroenterologist. He teaches and mentors students and trainees and is the Course Director for Innovations in Medical Education, part of the Masters in Medical Education curriculum.

Dr. McGee graduated from Louisiana State University School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology at the University of Florida where he also served as Chief Medical Resident. He completed advanced endoscopy training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. While in his endoscopy training, the new Harvard-Beth Israel Institute for Education and Research invited him to head their computer-based learning initiatives. There he pioneered virtual patient simulation funded by a $1.6 million grant from the Macy Foundation. In 2001, after five years on the Harvard faculty, the University of Pittsburgh recruited him to establish his own Laboratory for Educational Technology at the School of Medicine.