UVM College of Medicine Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education William Jeffries, Ph.D., is co-editor for the new edition of a textbook designed to “provide medical teachers with the core concepts of effective teaching practice and information about innovations for curriculum design, delivery and assessment.”
The first edition of An Introduction to Medical Teaching was published by Springer in 2010. Jeffries collaborated with Kathryn Huggett, Ph.D., Creighton University’s assistant dean for medical education, on that first edition, after discovering that a previous text for entry level medical faculty had gone out of print.
The goal for writing the book, Jeffries says, was to gather “our most expert colleagues to put together a book that would be a how-to guide for just about every type of teaching experience one might encounter in an academic medical center.”
For the second edition, Jeffries and Huggett have updated the text to include new research and developments in educational theory. New chapters address the flipped classroom model, scientific engagement, elective courses and global health. The book expanded from 13 chapters in 206 pages in 2010, to 17 chapters in 271 pages for the second edition.
Other topics in the second edition include an array of teaching methods - such as problem-based learning, team-based learning, teaching clinical skills, and teaching with technological tools – as well as additional subjects related to medical education including designing courses, assessing student performance, and teaching as scholarship.
Springer, the publishing company, says the book places a heavy emphasis on educational results. “Although designed for teachers, the work reflects a learner-centered perspective and emphasizes outcomes for student learning.”
Other College of Medicine faculty contributed to the text. Cate Nicholas, Ed.D, director of education and operations for the UVM/Fletcher Allen Simulation Lab, wrote a chapter on simulation-based learning. Majid Sadigh, M.D., director of global health at clinical affiliate Danbury Hospital/Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) wrote a chapter with Katrin Sadigh, M.D., and David Chia, M.D., M.Sc., on designing global health experiences.
Students and faculty from the College also feature prominently in the photo selections. In addition to photos of teaching sessions in locations around campus, the cover features UVM Professor of Medicine Martin Lewinter, M.D., teaching a session for residents and students on heart sounds with a standardized patient.
Jeffries says the textbook was a lesson in cooperation between many different experts with a passion for teaching and learning.
“Editing a book is always time-consuming and difficult,” he says, “but the final product has produced many collaborations with our authors and a number of notes of thanks from faculty around the world who use it for their teaching and for faculty development.”
More from the publisher on An Introduction to Medical Teaching