Academic medicine… what is it? Essentially it is the branch of medicine pursued by doctors who engage in a variety of scholarly activities. Generally, academic medicine is tied to a university based system and the scholarly activities can be quite varied. As an academic physician, I am expected to participate in scholarly activity and provide service to my section (pediatric hematology & oncology). Some of my activities relate directly to the research I do and some of the activities are training and mentoring those physicians that come after me.
Honestly, I never wanted to be a teacher and I don’t consider myself to be a great teacher, yet here I am and it’s part of my job. Teaching is hard and often under- or unappreciated. I’ve definitely had some amazing teachers in my life and I hope one day that I am a fraction of what they are, but until then, I will keep trying to improve.
Training a physician is very time intense. At a minimum, physicians go through 4 years of undergraduate, 4 years of medical school (2 of which are generally ‘clinically based’) and 3-7 years of advanced training in their chosen specialty.
Teaching clinical medicine is a strange thing. Facts and pattern recognition is relatively straight forward to teach, but I think it’s the “other stuff” that is the hardest. How do you teach someone to “read” a family or lay out the best way to think through a problem? I guess that is really teaching the ‘art of medicine’ and I’m fairly certain there isn’t one right way and you have to constantly adapt to the situation and the learner. Some days I find myself in really impossible situations in regards to teaching…what is the most appropriate way to deliver bad news? Navigate emotionally charged and tense situations? Be fully transparent about errors while maintaining trust? It is big stuff and I hope I do it justice and continue to learn and improve and pass it on down the line.
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