AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL WVRHEP FIELD FACULTY AND SITE COORDINATORS THAT WILL UTILIZE THIS MANUAL

Dear WVRHEP Field Faculty,

Thanks for taking the time to review this manual prior to the first IDS Facilitator training session. The Faculty Development Committee of WVRHEP has worked on the various chapters of this manual to help achieve a baseline for all the IDS facilitators to begin with in the search for a great IDS session. We know that if you look over this manual prior to the meeting on October 22, that our time there may be used more fruitfully.

There are many components to the success of a good IDS session. Case selection is just one of them. This manual starts with the newest IDS policy that all IDS facilitators need to be “trained” prior to IDS delivery. This was felt to be an essential step to equalize the quality of IDS delivery in every consortium. Some IDS facilitators were still lecturing, or delivering straight slide shows to the students. However, one of the basic tenets of adult learning style has to do with interactive learning, using knowledge already stored and adding new information to build new learning centers. Adults like information that is practical and useful, and then it is easier for them to incorporate into their mental library.

The manual begins with a collection of thoughts on health education.Imogene Foster (nursing instructor ) has supplied some of the ideas about why we do what we do in the next 4 chapters. She includes the basic goals of preparing health professional students to be the “best they can be”, as well as the basic approach to health care improvement. This is background information important to us in our role as teachers, not just health care providers. We want to improve quality health care and her inclusion of a section entitled “Ten Rules to Improve Health Care” are offered to give you food for thought..

I bring in the Pew Competencies for all health professions, as we again remind ourselves of our ultimate goals in teaching our health professional students. The Pew Commission was formed in 1989 and dissolved in 1999 after writing a report and coming up with the 21 Competencies that they felt were essential in every health professional. Read up on those and reflect if these are the professionals we are turning out to the public. If not, what else can we do differently. If so, then let’s pat ourselves on the back for a job well done.

Helen Baker (medical school educator) has contributed a section on writing objectives for your IDS session. Another tenet of adult learning is that adults need to know what is being taught. It’s an old saying in giving any kind of instructive talk, that you tell the audience:

“here’s what I am going to tell you”

“here’s what I am telling you”

and here’s what I just told you”

After all that, hopefully they will retain about 30% of what you told them. Ask them to use the information you just taught them, and they will return another third. Helen is showing that by identifying a few objectives for every session, both the facilitator and the students will have a better grasp on the information that needs to be learned that session.

Next, Michele Kopf (nurse practitioner) has written a section on the instrumental steps needed to include all students in a good IDS session. She covers case selection, student expectations and practical issues for deliverance of the session itself.

Then several disciplines have been asked to specifically include ideas on how their discipline may be incorporated into an “everyday” IDS session. Dan Brody (dentist), Ralph Utzman (physical therapist), Carla See (pharmacy educator) and Heather Congdon (pharmacy field faculty) have all done a brief introduction into how they think these disciplines can be included in IDS sessions.

Jill Cochran (nurse practitioner) creates a chapter on ways she has found to take the IDS session beyond the classroom setting – whether a field trip, community projects and or research – Jill takes a twist on the “traditional Classroom IDS” and goes out on an exciting new limb.

Helen Mitchell has done a unit on ethics for you. She includes some basic terminology and ideas for working ethical concepts into an IDS. When conversation gets quiet, bringing an ethical question into the mix will stimulate conversation, and is appropriate to help get anyone into the flow.

The field faculty is being asked more and more to comment on professional values seen in and displayed by our students. I have written a brief compilation on professionalism – some scenarios to look for and ways to identify traits that may need to be reinforced or ones to be improved. There are no good measures out there yet (the Group on Student Affairs of the AAMC is working on a “professional development assessment tool”), but it is still a work in progress. In the appendix I have included a sample one from another school – if we have time we can all comment on this and may be we need to construct our own assessment tool.

Finally we end in the appendix with supporting information.

(1) We have a case for IDS demonstration submitted by Mark Newbrough for an IDS demo this committee recreated at WVU RHEP day in 2003. It gives you an idea of how the various questions can be worked into the scheme of things.

(2) We have some simple icebreakers I have used to open up a session where most of those involved don’t know one another.

(3) I have included HP 2010 websites and references, as all our community service and projects should reflect back to those good health objectives for our state.

Many other things can be included, and may need to be after our first training session. Keep your mind open and come with ideas.

Sincerely,

Rosie Cannarella MD,MPH

Chair – WVRHEP Faculty Development Committee

Remember, nothing great is ever accomplished without enthusiasm.

Emerson