We are pleased to announce five new recipients of Augusta Webster Grants for Educational Innovation at the Feinberg School of Medicine. These five Feinberg faculty submitted proposals in response to a request for applications last fall, seeking investigator-proposed projects in medical education-related scholarship and research. Each principal investigator will be designated an Augusta Webster Faculty Fellow in Medical Education. The grants provide up to $25,000 per year for up to three years. Eighteen proposals were received this cycle, representing twelve medical school departments, centers, and institutes. Approximately 40% of the proposals focused on undergraduate medical education, and 40% on graduate medical education; the remainder addressed continuing education and faculty development. Two were from medical school education programs in the allied health professions. A committee of former Augusta Webster fellows served as reviewers; final decisions were made by the education dean and associate deans. The newly appointed Augusta Webster Faculty Fellows are: | Daniel B. Evans, MD, is assistant professor of medicine, director of the subinternship program in internal medicine for fourth-year medical students, and a key clinical faculty member in the internal medicine residency. Dr. Evans will conduct a 3-year study entitled Web-based Education for Beginning interns on Handoffs (WEB-Handoffs), which will involve the creation of methods for teaching and assessing effective transfer of responsibility for patient care from one inpatient team to another, and track potentially measurable improvements in patient care. He will be assisted in this work by Drs. Ashish Didwania, Diane Wayne, William McGaghie, and Ms. Elaine Cohen. | | | Heron Rodriguez, MD, is assistant professor of surgery (vascular surgery). He serves as education coordinator for the surgery residents’ vascular surgery rotations, and as director of surgical career counseling for Feinberg medical students. Dr. Rodriquez and Dr. Debra DaRosa, vice chair for education in the department of surgery, will work with industrial engineering experts from NU’s McCormick School of Engineering to create An engineered-designed time-management system for prioritizing and actualizing resident clinical learning activities based upon curriculum goals and objectives. The goal is to ensure “Education over Service” by maximizing surgical residents’ opportunities to access the OR cases they need to meet their residency requirements and individual learning goals. | | Eytan Szmuilowicz, MD, instructor in medicine, was recently recruited to Northwestern following chief medical residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a palliative care fellowship at Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard, Dr. Szmuilowicz developed an effective curriculum to teach end-of-life care and served as director of medical student and resident education for the Pain and Palliative Care Service at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Working with Drs. Adeboye Ogunseitan, Mark Williams, and Alfred Rademaker, Dr. Szmuilowicz is funded for a two-year project, Development and Assessment of a Palliative Care Curriculum for Hospital Medicine Physicians. | | Marianne Tschoe, MD, assistant professor of medicine, will create a three-year project on Improving Hospitalist Teaching Skills. This work, an offshoot of Dr. Tschoe’s recent participation in the Harvard Macy Program for Educators in the Health Professions, will evaluate the effect of formal training and mentorship on hospitalists’ teaching abilities and their interest in education. | | Donna M. Woods, EdM, PhD is assistant professor in the Institute for Healthcare Studies at the Feinberg School and serves as co-director of the Institute’s graduate programs in Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety, including one of the nation’s first masters programs in the discipline.This one-year project will create a pilot patient safety program within three of the core clinical clerkships for Feinberg medical students – pediatrics, emergency medicine, and primary care. The project, entitled Achieving Patient Safety Competence in Medicine: Testing Methods for Patient Safety Education and Evaluation, will also serve as the focus for the participation of Dr. Woods and four other Feinberg School faculty in the Sixth Millennium Conference in Medical Education, to be sponsored by the Shapiro Institute for Education at Beth Israel-Deaconess Hospital this spring. |
Augusta Webster, MD (1903-1993) a member of Northwestern’s Class of 1932, was the first woman to be named a full professor at the medical school and in 1953 became the first woman in the country to head a department at a major teaching hospital – the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Cook County Hospital. It was at "the County" that she earned her fame as a teacher of medical students and obstetrical residents, and as a dedicated physician and friend to the medically underserved people of Chicago. She was a founder of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 1948 she received the Alumni Medal of Northwestern University, and in 1954 she was named "Woman of the Year" by the American Medical Women’s Association. In 1991, Barbara Olin Taylor, PhD created the Augusta Webster Faculty Fellowships in Medical Education in her honor, with the intent of fostering the career development of innovative medical educators. |
