Educators-4-Care Associates Program

Background

The Educators for CARE program (E4C) was established to enhance the development of medical students as skilled and compassionate physicians, providing a formal curriculum aimed to foster the development of some of our core values – Compassion, Advocacy, Responsibility, and Empathy – from the beginning and throughout medical school. The E4C faculty teach and mentor Stanford Medical Students within the structure of formalized learning communities that help to foster a continual relationship of faculty and students learning together in small groups.

The Associates Program seeks to expand the concept of community and reinforce our core values by extending the opportunity to participate to a broader pool of faculty. Faculty will be provided the opportunity to teach within the learning community structure, receive faculty development sessions related to the program mission and the opportunity to receive mentorship and feedback on teaching.

Program Participation

Associates Curriculum 
The Associates program offers a formal curricular series over the summer prior to the start of the academic year; participating faculty will be required to attend a minimum of 7 of the 9 sessions. The topics covered are below.

Please note that dates have not yet been identified for 2019-20.

Medical Student Teaching

Associates will teach alongside of, and sometimes independent of, the E4C faculty as part of the Practice of Medicine (POM) course. POM is a six-quarter series extending throughout the first two years of the MD program, interweaving core skills training in medical interviewing and the physical examination with other major threads addressing the context of medical practice. Core clinical skills are acquired through hands-on practice, and evaluated through an extensive program of simulated medical encounters, in which students interview, examine, and manage patients in a mock clinic. POM sessions are scheduled in the afternoons of MTThF, Monday and Friday are POM year 1 and Tuesday and Thursday are POM year 2. Associates will be asked to identify their availability during the week and teach in three sessions per quarter.

In addition to the pre-clerkship teaching opportunities, the E4C meet with their clerkship students for the Doctoring with CARE session six times per year. Doctoring with CARE sessions each consist of a small group debriefing/discussion, in which students on their core clerkship rotations can discuss and reflect on intense experiences from clerkships. Doctoring with CARE is designed to offer a regular opportunity for students to discuss the challenging issues they face in their clinical training. The idea for this session stems from the belief shared by many students and faculty that students could benefit from specific time devoted to discuss or reflect on intense experiences in a non-threatening setting. Many students find such opportunities lacking, and have expressed a desire for this type of dialogue. Our goals for Doctoring sessions are that students learn coping strategies from their fellow medical students; that students develop skills of self-reflection; and that we promote and maintain humanism and professionalism. We believe Doctoring will provide another avenue to guide students’ development of four core values of the medical profession – Compassion, Advocacy, Responsibility, and Empathy (CARE).

Other Opportunities

• Curriculum development and program expansion in both existing courses and linkage to core clerkships and ACGME competencies
• Creation of special programs to support students in maintaining their clinical skills who will then seek efficient re-entry into clinical training after prolonged breaks (e.g., to complete research or PhD)
• Work on existing and new projects, such as those under development for videotaping oral presentations and use of electronic stethoscopes to enhance physical examination skills
• Development of innovative classroom and small group techniques to leverage the new LKSC building and its state-of-the-art technology
• Local, regional, and national presentations as well as publications, both in the medical education literature and other high-visibility journals
• Links to promotion efforts by establishing criteria of skills, innovation, and impact as well as developing an academic portfolio to go with annual review and summary recommendations to the appointments and promotions committees, as well as the chair of the respective department
• Development of a thoughtful and comprehensive remediation program that detects, diagnoses, plans, implements, and evaluates issues for students with marginal passes or failure on clinical rotations

Application

If you are interested in participating in the E4C Associates program please complete the application. Applicants will then be invited to meet with the Director of the program to discuss their goals and commitment to participation.