Keynote: Changing and Unchanging Medical Education | Sunalta ABC
January 30, 2025 from 8:00am MDT to 9:00am MDT
Abstract
In some ways, medical education is in a state of constant flux and change, yet in other ways medical education today is not so different from the way it looked a century ago. We have embraced problem-based learning, OSCEs, digital technologies, and competency based medical education, yet we still focus on apprenticeships, vocation, and high stakes exams. In this keynote presentation, Dr. Ellaway will explore the paradox that medical educators can be simultaneously obsessed with quality improvement and innovation and yet act in ways that resist change and embrace inertia. She will consider different theories of change and what they can tell us, along with emerging (and perhaps troubling) concepts of precision medical education and professional resistance. A constant theme in the presentation will be the question “how much is enough?”. How much change, how much stability, how much innovation, and how much stewardship is enough? Although these questions cannot be answered in any absolute way, the exploration of medical education as something that is simultaneously in a permanent state of change and in a permanent state of inertia will be illuminating!
Learning objectives
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
- Describe major aspects of change and inertia in medical education today.
- Apply theories of change to their own work as residents and medical educators.
- Appraise the challenges of education in medical physics in new and illuminating ways.