Transformational Times
Words of Hope, Character & Resilience from our Virtual Community
Friday, April 23, 2021
In This Issue:

Director's Corner
  • Adina Kalet, MD, MPH: Remembering H. Jack Geiger, a Role Model and Troublemaker I Wish I Had Known

Perspectives/Opinions
  • Lee Ann Lau, MD, FACS: Transforming Today's Medical Learners Into Tomorrow's Global Health Leaders
  • Clara Bosco: Practical Wisdom in Medical Education: A Student Perspective
  • Jeffrey Amundson, PhD; Michael Braun, PhD; and M. Chris Decker, MD: Implementation Science and Medical Education Transformation

Some Questions For...
  • George E. MacKinnon III, PhD, MS, RPh

Poetry Corner
  • Maya Angelou - Still I Rise

Your Turn
  • See how readers responded to last week's prompt: Who is your personal hero?
  • Respond to this week's prompt: What is your favorite book?
  • Respond to this week's character question: What courageous acts have you seen this week?


Announcements & Resources
  • Volunteer for Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured
  • Register for Upcoming Virtual Events
  • Kern National Network News & Events
Director's Corner
Remembering H. Jack Geiger, a Role Model and Troublemaker I Wish I Had Known

By Adina Kalet, MD, MPH

This week, Dr. Kalet struggles with her regret at not humanizing her "heroes" when she had the chance …

It was with deep regret that I read his obituary because I never had the courage to get to know H. Jack Geiger as a person. Despite having him as a role model for decades, I missed the opportunity to have him as a mentor or friend, and I am poorer for it. 
Perspective/Opinion
Transforming Today's Medical Learners Into Tomorrow's Global Health Leaders

By Lee Ann Lau, MD, FACS

Dr. Lau describes the GME Scholars in Global Health Program, a two-year voluntary curriculum for residents interested in exploring issues of global health equity...


We have all witnessed the global nature of health through the lens of the current pandemic. It is timely that our globally engaged faculty along with the Medical College of Wisconsin Office of Global Health have started a new training program for residents and fellows to build character and competencies to enhance care for patients and their communities.
Perspective/Opinion
Implementation Science and Medical Education Transformation

By Jeffrey Amundson, PhD; Michael Braun, PhD; and M. Chris Decker, MD

Drs. Amundson, Braun, and Decker provide an overview of the basic stages of Implementation Sciences, acknowledging that the process must attend to the people and culture where it occurs …

Implementation science - a thoughtful, structured rollout of a new initiative - can help make new programs more successful. In the April 2, 2021 issue of the Transformational Times, Drs. Amundson, Webb, Prunuske, and Kalet discussed the use of implementation science methods in the curriculum transformation process. As we move forward with this change, and with the broader transformation of medical education driven by the Kern Institute, let’s take some time to reflect on implementation science: why it’s important, and what it tells us about how and why to start off right.
Perspective/Opinion
Practical Wisdom in Medical Education: A Student Perspective


By Clara Bosco - MCW-Milwaukee Class of 2022

Ms. Bosco explains how reframing the role of the medical student from "observer" to "an apprentice acquiring practical wisdom" can shift the relationships between faculty and learners in a meaningful, growth-centered way …

 In the case of the virtues…we acquire them as a result of prior activities; and this is like the case of the arts, for that which we are to perform by art after learning, we first learn by performing, e.g., we become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre. Similarly, we become just by doing what is just, temperate by doing what is temperate, and brave by doing brave deeds. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a 31-1103b 25).
Some Questions For...
The MCW School of Pharmacy's COVID-19 Immunization Program

By George E. MacKinnon III, PhD, MS, RPh - MCW School of Pharmacy

Dr. MacKinnon discusses how the MCW School of Pharmacy quickly ramped up its response to the call for COVID-19 immunizers…

Dr. MacKinnon answers the following questions:

  1. In what ways was the MCW School of Pharmacy well-position to quickly ramp up a response to the call for COVID-19 immunizers?
  2. How quickly did you decide that you needed to be proactive with the Wisconsin state legislature to change the rules for oversight and delivery of vaccine? What was that process like?
  3. When the next pandemic arrives (as it likely will!) what will we do differently?
  4. What reactions did you get from the SOP students, faculty, and staff to the process?
  5. What surprised you the most in all of this?
With no introduction necessary, a powerful poem by Maya Angelou, originally published by Random House in 1978 as a part of Angelou’s book, And Still I Rise.


Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.




Audre Lorde! A self-described "Black lesbian mother warrior poet" who wrote fearlessly.

–Jess Sachs, Student

Respond to next week's reflection prompt:


What is your favorite book?
Volunteer Opportunity
Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured

The Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured is expanding its patient load and specialty physician options for patients and are in need of more dedicated physicians to volunteer their time to serve our uninsured population as well as further educate our medical student volunteers on how to best care for these underserved communities.

Physicians interested in volunteering their time to serve the uninsured should contact Morgan Leissring, M1.
KNN Discussion Series
Seeking Strength in Times of Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed personal and professional challenges for everyone, but particularly for those in the medical field. Under such circumstances, what does and can human flourishing look like? To what extent is it possible and equitable in times of crisis—now and otherwise?
 
In this session, three exceptional speakers will share perspectives from pastoral care, critical care and global health work to provide insight on navigating crises and lessons for cultivating resilience. A Q&A moderated by Chris Stawski, PhD, senior fellow for the Kern Family Foundation, will follow the speakers' presentations.
 
Featured Speakers:
  • Krista Gregory, MDiv, BCC, founder of the Center for Resiliency at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas
  • Daniela Lamas, MD, pulmonary and critical care doctor for Brigham and Women’s Hospital
  • John Tarpley, MD, professor emeritus of surgery and anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and professor of surgery and head of department at University of Botswana
April 27, 2021
Live Virtual Event
4:00 - 5:00 pm CT
MCW Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine
4th Biennial Suicide Symposium

Addressing the role of clinical intervention and the experience of patient loss to suicide.
Register via Ethos: http://ocpe.mcw.edu/
Specialties - Behavioral Health - Suicide Symposium

For more information, please contact Kiara Bond
(414) 955-7250
April 28, 2021
Live Virtual Event
8:30 am - 12:15 pm CT
Kern Institute Grand Rounds
Advocacy on the Frontlines: Supporting LGBTQ Patients in Combat and Beyond

Please plan to join us for a Grand Rounds presentation with Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, Director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin (AHW) Endowment and Senior Associate Dean and Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin School of Medicine.

Dr. Ehrenfeld will discuss how advocacy can transform health care, health outcomes, and health equity in combat and beyond for LGBTQ+ patients and all marginalized populations.
April 29, 2021
Live Virtual Event
9:00 - 10:00 am CT
You are Invited to a Virtual Symposium
Understanding Medical Professional Identity Formation and Character Development Symposium

We are honored to invite you to attend a virtual symposium dedicated to advancing the impact of scholarship and innovation in professional identity and character development in medical education.

This symposium includes a keynote address from Adina Kalet, MD, MPH, concurrent workshop sessions, and Professional Identity Formation and Character Development Interest groups.
April 30, 2021
Live Virtual Event
9:00 am - 1:00 pm CT
7th Annual Carrie Falk Memorial Lecture
That's Unconscionable! Unconscious Bias in Palliative Care

This year's lecture will be presented by VJ Periyakoil, MD, Professor of Medicine, Associate Dean of Research (Geriatrics and Palliative Care), Founding Director Stanford Palliative Care Education & Training Program, and Stanford Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program.
May 6, 2021
Live Virtual Event
10:00 am CT
You are cordially invited to a celebration for the
2020-21 KINETIC3 Graduates of the Excellence in Teaching Track




This celebration will include a welcome address as well as an individual celebration of each of the graduates.We hope you will join us to congratulate them on their accomplishments!
June 2, 2021
Live Virtual Event
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm CT
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