In this series, Department of Surgery faculty, who were voted as top educators by the Yale School of Medicine's Class of 2024, share reflections on the role of academic surgeons in shaping medical education.
How do you manage your time and priorities to ensure effective teaching while handling other duties?
Teaching happens everywhere
R. Peter Manes: It is important to schedule time to handle teaching responsibilities. I try to do this well in advance, so it is locked in my schedule. Also, we should remember that teaching does not need to be an extended period of time. Teaching happens on the fly, in the clinic, in the operating room, or in the hospital. A two-minute conversation can be a very teachable moment. I try to take advantage of any time I have available.
Combine missions
Saral Mehra: Carving out any extra time in an already packed schedule can be hard, so we need to combine missions. Combining missions is the best way to appear to do more than may seem possible in a given amount of time. I try to include students in my research mission; whereby you can be an educator and a researcher at the same time. Same goes for being an educator and a clinician. It takes a little extra effort to satisfy two missions at once; but students see it as giving 100% to education (even though you are also doing research and/or clinical care at the same time).
The time in between
David Stitelman: As a resident, I had a dozen caned talks for medical students and would teach these topics in the time in between patient care (meals/patient wake up/elevator rides). I would give each student a sheet of “everything you need to know to be a good surgical intern”. I use this as a starting point for the students on service. One of these canned talks has become a lecture during the clerkship didactics based on the “how to admit a patient” talk. One of the other canned talks is how to tie surgical knots. The medical students and residents, I hope, get a lot of mileage out of this. This framework, I hope, is also a lesson showing residents and students how to teach others.