Transformational Times
Words of Hope, Character & Resilience from our Virtual Community
Friday, December 4, 2020
In this Special Global Health Issue:

Guest Director's Corner
  • Joseph Kerschner, MD: Learners and Justice: Our Present and Future

Editor's Note
  • Bruce Campbell, MD: Waiting in Lines

Perspectives/Opinions
  • Stephen Hargarten, MD, MPH and Tifany Frazer, MPH: Global Engagement Elicits the 3Cs
  • Bipin Thapa, MD: Dasain and Tihar

Poetry Corner
  • Julie Arthur: Words for these Times, a Pandemic

Your Turn
  • See how readers answered last week's prompt: Who are you grateful for at MCW, Froedtert, Children's Wisconsin or the VA?
  • Respond to this week's prompt: If you could travel anywhere in the world on a humanitarian mission, where would you go and why?
  • Respond to this week's character question: How easily do you forgive?

Announcements & Resources
  • Register for Kern's Upcoming Virtual Events
  • Apply to the Kern Institute's Faculty Scholars Program
  • Respond to Kern's Request for Student Representatives
  • Respond to Kern's RFP to build Transformation Collaboratories
  • Learn How You Can Be Involved in the 2020 MCW Common Read
  • Kern National Network Connections Newsletter - December 2020
Guest Director's Corner
Learners and Justice: Our Present and Future

by Joseph E. Kerschner, MD - Dean, MCW School of Medicine, and EVP and Provost of the Medical College of Wisconsin

In a Leadership Plenary Address as the Outgoing Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Dr. Kerschner explains the importance of listening to our learners, creating culture change, focusing on diversity, committing to being anti-racist, and transforming medical education. Dr. Kerschner gave his address on November 17th, 2020, which is linked here: video of his full address and the complete transcript.


The AAMC is a unique organization with a unique position to influence medical education, research, and our nation’s health. I have always tried during my leadership year on the AAMC Board to put learner topics front and center, because at the very core of the AAMC, our organization needs to be about our medical students and residents who, after all, represent – not only our future – but our present. And, when given a voice, they provide important insights and identify solutions to our current challenges. Below are three topics students identified as the most important areas for emphasis by our medical schools, academic health systems, and the AAMC.
Editor's Note
Waiting in Lines

by Bruce H. Campbell, MD - Editor,
Transformational Times

In recognition of MCW’s annual Global Health Week, Dr. Campbell shares some of what he has learned from his global humanitarian trips …


"At its best, medicine is a service much more than a science.” - Paul Farmer, MD
 
Long lines form when the global health team show up. In El Salvador, people arrive in the backs of trucks and then wait hours for one of our provider groups to assess their stomach pains, headaches, or dental problems. The men, all in long pants despite the heat, talk while women in bright dresses tend the children. In rural Kenya, women in cotton print Kanga wraps and men in tattered clothes come from all directions by foot, bicycle, or “boda boda” (the ubiquitous motorcycle taxis), waiting on long benches in the equatorial sun. At the medical center in Eldoret, Kenya, the hallways adjacent to the ENT Clinic are packed with people wearing US-donated t-shirts bearing the names of sports teams, universities, and companies – shirts re-sold to them by roadside vendors.
 
There is no way we could ever operate on everyone who shows up. What could we possibly offer to so many people?
Perspective
Global Engagement Elicits the 3Cs

by Stephen Hargarten, MD, MPH, and Tifany Frazer, MPH - MCW Office of Global Health

In this essay, Dr. Hargarten and Ms. Frazer share how the missions of MCW, the Kern Institute, and the Office of Global Health overlap, and celebrate how students – taken outside of their normal cultural contexts to experience medical care in low- and middle-income countries – return with new appreciations for the value of competence, character, and caring in medicine … 

An MCW medical student recently reflected on a positive experience with a mentor:

“We can easily forget we are treating a person and not just the disease. Despite feeling like we know best, we sometimes forget to include patients in the decision-making process. The doctor and patient collaborated to help develop their own healing systems outside from dependency on medications. Medications for chronic pain were replaced with relationships.”

As we celebrate MCW’s 10th Annual Global Health Week, we are reminded that global engagement opportunities expose our students to new healthcare practices, build their character by challenging their personal beliefs, and stimulates the development of innovative solutions for patient care. As one trainee reflected, after observing that access to technology is restricted in low resourced settings, “You have to use and rely on your clinical skills and judgment. You likely become a better steward of resources, and arguably a better clinician.”

Perspective
Dasain and Tihar

by Bipin Thapa, MD, Assistant Dean, Clinical Science Curriculum, Associate Professor, Internal Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin


Dr. Thapa explains the traditions of celebrating Dasain and Tihar and how our different holiday customs all share the values of gratitude, charity, human flourishing, right over wrong, and peace …

Dasain and Tihar are the two biggest festivals in Hindu culture. The exact nomenclature and rituals vary from ethnic community to geographical areas. However, the spirit is shared by all Hindus in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Burma and Hindu diaspora all over the world, approximately 1.2 billion people.
"[Global Health] is a discipline that holds within itself a deep contradiction — global health was birthed in supremacy, but its mission is to reduce or eliminate inequities globally ... Global health must free itself from the persisting blindness of supremacy and embrace its alternative — equity and justice."


by Seye Abimbola, MD, University of Sydney and
Madhukar Pai, MD, PhD, McGill University  


Will Global Health Survive its Decolonialization?
The Lancet | 2020; 396 (10263): 1627-1628
This week we’re honored to share a piece by Julie Arthur, an MCW Education Program Coordinator II. She says, “I have worked for MCW for almost 12 years, and have been writing poetry and fiction since first grade! I believe as much as medicine heals, words do too.”


Words for these Times, a Pandemic
by Julie Arthur


Could I write words for these times?
Arrange letters in some fashion
To make the distance bridged.
Writing is a powerful weapon, I am humanity’s soldier,
Words are an offering, a salve.

But nothing I write can unbreak my son’s literal broken heart.
Nothing I can write can sooth the figuratively shattered hearts I see on the floor all around me.

We are masked these days whether 
we wear them or not, 
and those masks hide the smiles 
as well as the frowns, the fear 
-that doesn’t just emote from the eyes you know-
and the recognition that these days, which are not for always, are at least for now.

I am not young nor old
And feel I should have wisdom to not feel so breathlessly scared every moment.
Steadfastness escapes me at every turn, I’m left chasing it, just as all are chasing answers 
As to how things will end, how we’ll all get out
Of this ok.

These times are not for always. 

Something I repeat as a hymn or a hum underneath the terror of the currents of my day.
An oar on this lonely lifeboat to white knuckle 
And never let go of.
I wish I could give so many things to others,
Hope, or inspiration, or kindnesses,
Things to pack for the singular journeys we seem to all be on together.

Perhaps these words, these letters, can be 
The salve then, used when the wounds are fresh,
When it’s night and things overwhelm,
To read and reread and in the silence to know:
I am there with you too.

Dr. Amy Wagner 😍
– Alyssa Vaughn, MD, MCW 2019 Medical Student Alum, PGY2 at University of Colorado in General Surgery


The MSA program!
– Simmi Bharwani, Anesthesia Student


Bryn Sutherland
– Anonymous 


I am grateful for the opportunity five years ago to be involved in clinical research at MCW. As a nurse, I have been in clinical research for about 20 years and to return to the campus where I started as a student nurse (County Nursing School) is to come full circle.

Nursing and research bring gratitude to my life in helping promote patient care and doing research to change cancer treatments for better outcomes.
- Cheryl Knapp, Staff


Cassie Ferguson, an absolute gem!
– Enrique Avila, Medical Student


Jean Mallett, Dr. Malika Siker, Dr. Michael Levas, Dan Garcia
– Javier M.


We're thankful to the Kern Institute for delivering turkey dinners and your famous Kern cookies to all of us working on Thanksgiving at Froedtert, Children's Wisconsin and the VA!
-The FH, CW and VA Residents

Respond to next week's reflection prompt:


If you could travel anywhere in the world on a humanitarian mission, where would you go and why?
Kern Grand Rounds Presentation
Women and COVID-19: 
Challenges, Opportunities, 
Thoughts for the Future

Please be sure to join us for Grand Rounds with Elizabeth Ellinas, MD,
Director of the MCW Center for the Advancement of Women in Science and Medicine (AWSM), Associate Dean for Women's Leadership, and Professor of Anesthesiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

The COVID-19 crisis has found women in the forefront of the battle against the pandemic both at work and at home. Please be sure to join as we consider the effects of COVID on women and their careers and share challenges by gender.
January 21, 2020
Live Virtual Presentation
9:00 - 10:00 am CT
Apply to the Kern Institute Faculty Scholars Program


The Kern Institute announces two opportunities for faculty development through our Kern Scholars Program: 

Master of Health Professions Education
We are looking for faculty interested in pursuing a Master of Health Professions Education through the New York University Langone’s Department of Medicine. 

Master of Arts in Character Education
The Kern Family Foundation is graciously inviting any interested faculty member to apply for the Master of Arts in Character Education at the Jubilee Center for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. 
Students: Are You Interested in Being Involved in the Kern Institute?


We are seeking student representatives with an interest in medical education to help guide our Kern Institute programs and initiatives at MCW. We are very interested in student voices and perspectives to help us with our work!

Your time commitment would be participation in monthly or bi-monthly meetings, with opportunities to participate on special projects. Please select the area (below) you are most interested in to send a message to that leader.
Kern Institute Announces Request for Proposals
LOI Due December 23, 2020

The Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education at the Medical College of Wisconsin is pleased to release this request for proposals to build Medical Education Transformation Collaboratories, cross-institutional, multi- and inter-disciplinary, multiple stakeholder communities of practice that work together in a sustained effort around a shared project to transform medical education by engaging in both innovation and scholarship.
 
We seek submission from teams of 3 to 5 individuals who will devote compensated time to build a community of practice around medical education transformation. These collaboratories will serve as incubators for the creation of generalizable knowledge as we move rapidly into a new era of medical education. Eligible groups must include at least one member employed at an LCME-accredited medical school, with other members currently affiliated with institutions or organizations with a stake in health and healthcare. Please click the link to view the RFP.
Participate in the MCW Common Read!

We are extremely moved by the overwhelming interest shown in this year’s Common Read program, featuring How to Be an Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. It is a true testament to your devotion to racial equity and determination to make the MCW community a safer and more inclusive place for all.

We understand that many of you are eager to get involved, so we have outlined some ways that you can participate via the link below.
The Kern National Network
Click anywhere on the image for the KNN's current newsletter
MCW COVID-19 Resource Center
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