In this Issue: A message from Adina Kalet, MD, MPH

Dear Readers,

September is a time for renewal. Kids are back in school, the summer has come to an end, and in my faith, we gather to celebrate the birth of the world through our “high holy days.” At the Kern Institute we have been taking time to reflect and plan. We spent a day in retreat a couple of weeks ago, to contemplate where we have been and consider where are going next. In that spirit, the Transformational Times team is taking a short sabbatical to refresh our processes, update our vision and begin again.

The Transformational Times was born during the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, when the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) sent all of the students and many faculty and staff members home. As I have recounted before, we decided to transition our existing quarterly newsletter into a weekly offering, and rename it the Transformational Times. We hoped this would keep our work alive and support our medical education community.

As those early weeks turned into months then years, we kept up our pace, publishing 178 weekly issues of the Transformational Times and two curated books. We have taken only a handful of holiday weeks “off.” We are proud we have helped people share personal stories about their work and worlds. The tagline to be “delivering stories of hope, community, caring and resilience to our community,” has largely been honored.

The Transformational Times has been a success in many ways. We have grown our readership both inside and outside of MCW and received a great deal of supportive feedback and a few critical comments; we take all of our feedback very seriously. Through these efforts, we have hosted a hardy, broad conversation around the transformation of medical education and accelerated the expansive acceptance at MCW and beyond of new models for educating physicians that embody the character and caring essential to health and health care. This is the mission of the Kern Institute.

What to expect in the future

With the pandemic largely in the rear-view mirror, we are taking a break to reimagine the Transformational Times. Over the next few weeks, under the leadership of our new Co-Editors-in-Chief Wendy Peltier, MD and Himanshu Agrawal, MD, we will seek input from our readers. Our Editorial Board will ensure we continue to prioritize creating community and encouraging storytelling that promotes the ideas and discourse at the heart of health professions education.

Drs. Peltier and Agrawal will do this work along with our multidisciplinary editorial board which includes Bruce Campbell, MD (founding Editor-in-Chief); Kathlyn Fletcher, MD; Adina Kalet, MD, MPH; Karen Herzog (Milwaukee-based journalist); Justine Espisito, (Kern Institute staff); Joy Wick, (Kern Institute Communications Consultant); William Graft. Jr., MD (Resident, Internal Medicine/Psychiatry); and medical students Julia Bosco, Linda Nwumeh, Wolf Pulsiano, Sophie Voss and Emelyn Zaworski.

Our immediate goals are to work with Kern Institute members and the MCW leadership to:

• Refine our processes, policies, and submission guidelines
• Publish regular, theme-based issues that engage broad swaths of our community
• Leverage our Philosophies of Medical Education Transformation Lab (PMETaL) to build a civil discourse framework that enables diverse and profound conversations about our professions
• Have our editing team, including two former journalists, actively assist and encourage writers of all comfort levels
• Explore more flexible publishing platforms (video, audio, social formats, etc.)
• Integrate our work with the Kern Institute Podcast Network

We plan to continue and expand popular features of the Transformational Times, including:

• Themed issues for special days (e.g., Veteran’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving) and events in the medical education year (e.g., The White Coat Ceremony, Match Day, Graduation)
• Programmatic reports from the Institute, including The Learner Continuum Hub, Educator Development Hub, and the Medical Education Data Science, Human Centered Design, and the Philosophies of Medical Education Transformation labs
• Project reports from the Transformational Innovations (TI2), KINETIC3, and the MCWFusion curriculum, including Learning Communities, The Good Doctor Course, the Character and Professionalism Thread, and Learning Dashboards
• Works-in-progress on medical school to residency transitions, character measurement, and professional identity formation
• Summaries of Qualitative Research Methods, the Kern Institute Collaboration Scholarship (KICS) group journal clubs and collaborations, the Medical Education Matters Podcast, and our Medical Education Transformation book series
• Collaboration reports with Academic Affairs, the MCW Affiliated Hospitals (MCWAH) GME programs, MCW-Central Wisconsin, MCW-Green Bay, Thrive on King, the School of Pharmacy, the Physician Assistants Program, Genetic Counselling, Anesthesia Assistant Program, and the Graduate School
• Reflection on and coverage of the emerging issues of our times

Please Provide Input

While we won’t be publishing for a few weeks, we will be accepting submissions, and we encourage you to reach out to us with your ideas.

We want to hear from you! Whether this is your first or your 178^th time reading the Transformational Times, please provide us feedback by taking our survey. If you have advice, opinions, or critiques, please reach out with your thoughts and feelings during this time. And thank you for reading, sharing, and caring.

In the meanwhile, watch this space for announcements of our Kern Institute events and related content.

Sincerely,

Adina Kalet, MD MPH is the Director of the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education and holder of the Stephen and Shelagh Roell Endowed Chair at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Autumn's Way 

By Charles Ghigna 

In their yellow-most goings, 

leaves of maple 

ride breezes to the ground. 

You can hear their sound 

each autumn afternoon 

as the crisp air cuts 

through the trees 

and hurries us along 

the golden sidewalks 

home. 

Connection Cafe: Learning Communities as a Crucible for Medical Student Professional Development

Thursday, Oct. 5, from 4 to 5 PM

Virtual. Registration Required.

Join the Kern Institute as we welcome presenters and panelists to discuss learning communities and coaching in medical education, and how the Medical College of Wisconsin has implemented them in the curriculum.

Our panelists will discuss how learning communities have increasingly become part of medical education, providing personal and academic support to students and fostering professional identity development.

Navigating Ambiguity: Using Mindfulness & Self-Compassion in Healthcare Innovation

Thursday, Oct. 5, from 3 to 4 PM

Hybrid event

In-person:

Medical College of Wisconsin

HUB A1035, Dunn Conference Room

8701 Watertown Plank Road

West Allis, Wisconsin 53227



OR Virtual (link to be provided to registrants)

Registration Required.

Join the Kern Institute for this TI2 Wellbeing Workshop featuring Amelia Coffaro (she/her), C-IAYT, Certified Yoga Therapist in oncology support. This workshop is open to any healthcare professional who is curious about ways to integrate evidence based, mind-body practices and skills into their lives in a way that can help meet the emotional demands of their work, and encourage personal and collective wellbeing. There is no experience necessary to participate. Everyone is welcome!

Navigating ambiguity is an inevitable and essential part of innovation. We bring our ideas into the world without any guarantee of what may come — taking risks, pivoting, letting go of failed ideas and beginning again — putting our entrepreneurial thinking and skills to the test in a way that is both exciting and unsettling. As we live into the space of the unknown, how might we equip ourselves with the necessary skills to support our personal and collective resilience and well-being?

Qualitative Analysis of medical students and their professional identify as it relates to the healthcare system 

Wednesday, Oct. 11, from 12:15 to 1 PM

Virtual event

Registration Required.

Join the Kern Institute to discuss recent published scholarship with its author as part of the Collaboration for Scholarship Journal Club. 

On Oct. 11, Andrea Leep will discuss perspectives on the article "Qualitative Analysis of medical students and their professional identify as it relates to the healthcare system."

Andrea N. Leep Hunderfund, MD, MHPE is Medical Director for the Office of Applied Scholarship and Education Science at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and Associate Director of the Mayo Clinic Program in Professionalism and Values. She also serves as Co-Chair of the Research in Medical Education (RIME) Committee for AAMC and leads Mayo Clinic’s engagement with the Kern National Network (KNN) for Flourishing in Medicine. She enjoys teaching neuroscience to medical students, physical therapy students, residents, and fellows and exploring ways to make systems work better for people. 

Faculty Vitality Award Overview and Recipient Presentation

Noon to 1 p.m.

Wednesday, Oct. 25

Virtual event

Join this presentation to learn more about the Faculty Vitality Award and hear from prior year recipient, Kathlyn Fletcher, MD, MA, professor in the Department of Medicine, as she presents her completed project.

This session will be facilitated by Meena Bedi, MD, MS, professor in the department of radiation oncology and FY24 chair of the Faculty Career Development Committee. Dr. Bedi will provide an overview of the award and application process. 

Contact: Alex Holle, Office of Faculty Affairs, [email protected]

Night on Call Consortium Update: The State of Our Near Graduates' Readiness

7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Monday, Nov. 6

Hyatt Regency 305 Chehalis

Seattle, WA

Are you planning to attend the AAMC Annual Meeting in Seattle? Please join Drs. Sondra Zabar and Adina Kalet for this session and networking opportunity. The program will include a review of Night on Call data to date and a discussion about the future of assessing readiness for residency, followed by appetizers and networking.

RSVP: [email protected]

Learn more about Night on Call

Learn more about AAMC's Annual Meeting

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

JGIM Medical Education Theme Issue

The goal of this Theme Issue is to highlight and promote rigorous research on current issues of broad interest to medical education at any level. Topics of special interest include but are not limited to:

• Education in quality/safety
• CBME
• Equity in medical education
• Social justice including responses to recent SCOTUS decisions
• Technology/AI in medical education
• Humanities in medical education
• The UME to GME transition
• Faculty development, recruitment and retention of medical educators

Papers must be submitted no later than Feb. 5, 2024, and will be accepted on a rolling basis. Publication date is Winter 2025.

Learn more

Wendy Peltier, MD and Himanshu Agrawal, MD, Co-Editors-in-Chief

Editorial Board: Bruce Campbell, MD, Kathlyn Fletcher, MD, Adina Kalet, MD, Karen Herzog, Justine Espisito, Joy Wick, William Graft. Jr., Julia Bosco, Linda Nwumeh, Wolf Pulsiano, Sophie Voss, & Emelyn Zaworski