Augusta Webster Grants for Educational Innovation 2005-06 Recipients

Patricia M. Garcia, MD, MPH will study the Integration and Assessment of Computer-Facilitated Group Learning and Digital Cases in the PBL Curriculum in order to further our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in problem-based learning formats and work toward the school’s goal of better utilizing information technology resources in the PBL curriculum.  Her project is funded for two years.

Dr. Garcia is associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and Chief, Division of Undergraduate Medical Education for the department.  In addition to her departmental education duties, which include responsibility for the third year medical student clerkship, she is course director for the problem-based learning curriculum in the first and second year of the medical curriculum.  She is also a member of the Feinberg School’s Curriculum Committee. 

Dr. Garcia received her MD and MPH degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  Following residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at UIC, she completed a fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine at Northwestern/McGaw Center for Graduate Medical Education.  She has published extensively in the area of perinatal HIV transmission.  Dr. Garcia has been honored for her teaching prowess through her department’s Magnus P. Urnes, MD teaching award – which she has received three times - and by the Feinberg School Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2003) and the American Medical Women’s Association’s Gender Equity Award (2004).  At the national level, she was recently nominated to become a member of the Undergraduate Medical Education Committee for the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics and is currently a member of the USMLE Step 3 Computer Case Simulation Scoring Committee for the National Board of Medical Examiners.

Lee Lindquist, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics, will create a Geriatrics Immersion Program for First Year Medical Students to Improve the Care of Elderly Patients.  She will expand a pilot program, instituted in September 2004, assessing the impact of a ten-week clinical geriatrics experience early in medical school on students’ attitudes and knowledge about care of the elderly.  Her project is funded for three years.

Dr. Lindquist received her medical degree from the Feinberg School and completed internal medicine residency and a combined fellowship in general internal medicine and geriatrics at the Northwestern McGaw Center for Graduate Medical Education.  Since joining the faculty, Dr. Lindquist has also completed her MPH, focusing her thesis work on health literacy in the elderly.  She recently garnered significant media attention for an article comparing the cost of assisted living to the cost of living on a cruise ship. During residency training Dr. Lindquist received the NMH Resident Teaching Award three times, as well as the VA Medical Resident Educator Excellence Award.

Peter S. Pang, MD, assistant professor of emergency medicine, and three colleagues from the emergency medicine department will work on Curriculum Re-Design Focused on Systems-Based Practice to Improve Patient Safety and Quality.  They will design and implement a curriculum in patient safety and systems-based quality improvement strategies for emergency medicine residents, including an innovative model for morbidity and mortality conference that will increase residents’ understanding of the root causes of medical error.  The project is funded for three years.

Dr. Pang is a graduate of Brown University and the School of Medicine at the University of Texas at San Antonio.  A recent graduate and chief resident of Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospital combined program in Emergency Medicine, he has had significant experience in teaching housestaff and students as chief resident.  Currently, he is a regular lecturer for the student emergency medicine clerkship and faculty advisor for both the residents; mandatory administrative rotation and the morbidity and mortality conference.  Despite being a brand new attending physician, he was recently awarded the best teacher award from the graduating class.

Carla M. Pugh, MD, PhD, assistant professor of surgery and associate director of the Northwestern Center for Advanced Surgical Education, will be Evaluating Potential Uses of Simulation Technology in Teaching and Assessing Hands-On Technical Skills.  Dr. Pugh is also an assistant professor of education in the NU School of Education.  Her project, which will extend her prior work in simulation of the pelvic examination to develop a similar model for prostate examination, is funded for two years.

Dr. Pugh is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the Howard University College of Medicine, where she also completed her general surgery residency.  She received her PhD in Technology and Medical Education from the Stanford University School of Education, completing her graduate work while practicing as a staff surgeon with the Kaiser Permanante Medical Group.  Her work in creating models for clinical simulation and studying both qualitative and quantitative aspects of student performance has previously been supported by the Spencer Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Board of Medical Examiners.

Nancy Schindler, MD, assistant professor of surgery, will develop Collaborative On-Line Learning Modules (COLM) for the clinical clerkships.  She and her co-investigator Dr. Julia Corcoran, also of the Department of Surgery, will utilize the surgery clerkship’s new system for tracking students’ clinical experiences, identifying areas where the learning objectives are not well met through work with patients.  They will then create web-based learning modules to help fill these gaps.

Dr. Schindler received both the BA and MD degrees from Case Western Reserve University.  She then completed general surgery residency at the Northwestern McGaw Center for Graduate Medical Education, and a fellowship in vascular surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital.  She is now Director of the third-year surgery clerkship at the Feinberg School, and advisor to the Loyal Davis Surgical interest group.  She teaches extensively in the clerkship, the surgical residency and faculty development programs, and also teaches first year medical students in gross anatomy.  She is a member of the Feinberg School’s Curriculum Committee and of the Committee on Graduate Medical Education at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare.  At the national level she is a member of the educational research committee of the Association for Surgical Education.  Dr. Schindler is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Health Professions Education at University of Illinois at Chicago.