Rebecca Sternschein, MD
Fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Brigham
and Women’s Hospital
PGY6
July 1, 2019
I am interested in understanding and improving medical
education in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) at both the graduate
medical education (GME) and continuing medical education (CME) levels. To
accomplish this, I have been developing a project that focuses on exploring the
experiences of clinical teachers in the MICU at BWH for which I was fortunate
to receive COE Medical Education Research Grant funding. My study is a
qualitative examination of MICU educators’ attitudes about teaching and perceptions
of the impact of teaching on professional satisfaction and physician
well-being.
I started by conducting a needs assessment survey through REDCap of
faculty and fellows working in the BWH MICU. I have also held two separate focus
groups (one with faculty and one with fellows) to gain an in-depth
understanding of the variety of experiences as a teacher in the MICU. The focus
group discussions also addressed individuals’ opinions regarding the potential
rewards and challenges of teaching in this environment. One of the obstacles I
encountered in this stage of the project was the difficulty of scheduling focus
groups with busy pulmonary and critical care physicians. I am now in the early
stages of the qualitative analysis of the focus group transcripts, and while
this is a time-consuming and challenging process, it is fascinating to identify
emerging themes from the transcripts.
So far, I have analyzed the preliminary
findings from the needs assessment and the data has been accepted for
publication as an abstract and poster at the American Association of Chest
Physicians (ACCP/CHEST) 2020 national meeting. These data demonstrate that
although most physicians report minimal to no dedicated training on teaching,
most identify teaching as a task that is enjoyable, meaningful and essential to
their role as an ICU physician. Here I struggled with finding the best way to
display the data visually, and ultimately discovered that simplicity is key.
(see image) The next step for this project is to complete the qualitative
analysis of the focus group transcripts.
I will also determine if any additional structured interviews are
indicated to address topics or themes that require more in-depth exploration. I
am looking forward to writing up the results of the research in the coming
months. This project has been extremely educational for me, particularly
because this is my first qualitative research experience. The most important lesson that I have learned
at this stage of the project is the immeasurable value of helpful, motivating,
expert mentors.
