Physicians have always known that to provide competent care, it is necessary to establish effective communication with the patient. But medical students haven’t always been taught how to communicate effectively, and even when they have, there hasn’t been a clear and consistent model for them to use throughout their training.

Until now.

Beginning this fall, first-year UI medical students will learn how to conduct medical interviews based on the Calgary-Cambridge model, a method designed to integrate the structure and interview skills students need to become effective clinicians. And to help kick off the initiative, Jonathan Silverman, the British physician who helped develop the model, visited the UI Carver College of Medicine in May. Silverman met with course directors, simulated-patient instructors and other medical educators to introduce the model and share his insights concerning how to teach the medical interview. Read the rest of this entry »

An opportunity to study abroad had a big influence on Gerry Wickham—it brought him to the United States.

Wickham, a native of Wexford, Ireland, joined OSAC in May as curriculum coordinator with the McCowen learning community. His journey to the UI began with a year at Dominican University in Chicago, where he met his future wife and Burlington, Iowa, native Heather Hermann. After finishing his studies at the University of Ulster’s Belfast, Northern Ireland, campus, where he earned a bachelor’s in health psychology and management and a diploma in area studies in 1999, Wickham came to Iowa to begin graduate school and establish a family. Read the rest of this entry »

Jean Lantz, the UI Carver College of Medicine’s registrar and director of student programs and records, is leaving the UI to become assistant dean for student affairs at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago. Her friends and colleagues in the College and across campus gathered to say goodbye and wish her well at an indoor picnic hosted by OSAC June 10. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s either like training a new pilot for solo flight or fielding a baseball team that’s ready for the big leagues. No matter which analogy Don Van Dyke, M.D., chooses to describe medical education, his point is that mentorship is an indispensable part of the process.

Van Dyke is a professor of pediatrics in the UI Carver College of Medicine and epidemiology in the College of Public Health. He has honed his teaching and mentorship skills over a long and varied career. Concerning pilots, he said, “There’s ground school, but that’s just the first step. You have to stick with them until they’re soloing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Members of the UI Carver College of Medicine’s class of 2008 celebrated one last time together on the occasion of their graduation May 16. Prior to the evening commencement ceremony, the College invited graduates and their families, friends and colleagues to enjoy some fellowship along with light snacks and beverages in an afternoon gathering. Read the rest of this entry »

“The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine,” a major conference hosted by the UI Carver College of Medicine, has established its place as an annual forum in the national dialogue between the medical and literary communities. The second “Examined Life” conference, organized by the College’s Writing Program, took place April 23-25 on the UI campus and drew more than 140 participants from across the United States and Canada; indeed, one individual traveled from as far as Australia and another came from the United Kingdom to participate in the gathering.

Physicians and medical educators, writers and teachers of writing, editors, publishers and medical students came together to share their experiences and ideas about the value of writing in medical education and practice and about the contributions physicians can make to the world of letters. Such diverse perspectives are a crucial aspect of the conference’s success, said Margaret LeMay-Lewis, the Writing Program’s coordinator. Read the rest of this entry »

With recent approval from the UI Provost’s office, the Carver College of Medicine now offers a certificate in medical education. Available to College faculty and professional staff, as well as UI resident physicians and fellows, the certificate program gives interested individuals a new way to enhance their scholarship and skills in teaching, curriculum design and educational assessment.

The College also offers a master’s degree in medical education and a Teaching Scholars Program for faculty. The new certificate is different from the master’s program because it requires 12 semester hours of credit, compared to the 30 hours needed to complete the master’s program, and does not involve a portfolio project. The Teaching Scholars Program, established in 1999, focuses primarily on preparing faculty members to disseminate advanced knowledge of teaching and curriculum among their colleagues. Read the rest of this entry »

The white coat symbolizes the physician’s twin covenants with compassion and science. At the UI Carver College of Medicine, as at most other U.S. medical schools, students receive their first white coat in a ceremony that conveys to them their role in carrying on what the Arnold P. Gold Foundation calls the “noble tradition of doctoring.”

Adam Case, a student in the UI’s Medical Scientist Training Program, got his white coat four years ago, but it’s not white anymore. First he had it embroidered not with his name, as do most students and physicians, but with the motto, “I LIKE YOU.” Then he let a group of kids in a pediatric cancer clinic tie-dye it.

“I told them to dye it in a way that they would love to see a doctor,” Case said. Read the rest of this entry »

The DVIP Bench Press, held March 26 in the MERF atrium, netted bragging rights for the winners and a whopping $3,200-plus for Iowa City’s Domestic Violence Intervention Project. The annual event, now in its sixth year, is the McCowen learning community’s largest single fundraiser and benefits DVIP’s Youth Activities Fund.

The Department of Urology picked up the departmental award for the most pounds lifted in both the maximum-only and maximum-and-repetitions categories. Urology’s 32 participants lifted a maximum total of 4,795 pounds, or 150 pounds per lifter. The department’s maximum-and-repetitions total was 48,220 pounds. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a “clear Iowa link” between the UI and Jordan University of Science and Technology’s Faculty of Medicine, said Thomas Schmidt, Ph.D., assistant dean of student affairs and curriculum. That link prompted Schmidt, a professor of molecular physiology and biophysics and Harold A. Myers Professor in Medical Education, to visit Jordan in early February to give two presentations on the UI’s medical curriculum.

Schmidt’s visit to Jordan, in turn, led him to begin a collaboration with AbdelFattah Al-Hader, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the medical school at Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), and Yousef Khader, M.D., assistant dean, on an abstract to be submitted to the upcoming 12th annual meeting of the International Association of Medical Science Educators in Salt Lake City in July. It is even possible, Schmidt said, that his visit might lead to a formal agreement between the UI Carver College of Medicine and JUST’s Faculty of Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »