A century after the famous Flexner Report, medical education in the United States stands again on the threshold of fundamental change. A prominent advocate of renewal and adaptation will visit the UI Carver College of Medicine Thursday, Nov. 6, to share his vision of four critical changes on the horizon of medical education.

David Irby, PhD, is a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and co-directed a national study on physician preparation that will be published next year. He will deliver the keynote address at the College’s annual medical education celebration, to be held Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Medical Education and Research Facility. Irby’s talk begins at 12:30 p.m. in the Urmila Sahai Auditorium, 2117 MERF. (more…)

The master’s in medical education (MME) program, which aims to foster educational excellence in the UI Carver College of Medicine, is accepting applications from prospective degree candidates. The application deadline is Nov. 15 for entry into the program in the Spring 2009 semester.

The MME program, administered by the Office of Consultation and Research in Medical Education (OCRME), began in 2007 and is designed to permit full-time faculty members to complete its requirements in as few as two or as many as five years. Its purpose is to strengthen medical education by allowing participants to develop skills in instructional design, teaching methods, educational measurement and faculty development. (more…)

Benita Wolff, associate dean for diversity in the UI Carver College of Medicine, is holding office hours in MERF this fall to make herself available to students. The office hours take place from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. each Monday in the McCowen learning community director’s office. Wolff plans to continue the office hours in the spring, she said, though possibly on a different schedule.

“It’s an opportunity to have an open door,” Wolff said. “No distractions, just time to hear from and interact with medical and PA students.” (more…)

Benet Pardini, PhD, MPAS, faculty director of the Rubin Flocks learning community, died unexpectedly Monday, Oct. 6. In addition to leading the Flocks community, a position he had held since 2006, Pardini was a physician assistant in pediatric cardiology at UI Hospitals and Clinics. He held joint faculty appointments as clinical associate professor of pediatrics and molecular physiology and biophysics.

Pardini came to the UI in 1983 as a postdoctoral fellow studying neural control of circulation and central autonomic regulation of the cardiovascular system. A growing interest in clinical service led him to pursue training as a physician assistant, and he completed the UI Physician Assistant Program in 1998. He earned several Teacher of the Year nominations as a lecturer in physiology for first-year medical students and worked with third- and fourth-year medical students during their clinical rotations in pediatrics.

Gregarious and outgoing, Pardini had many interests, including photography, sailing, beekeeping and the outdoors. He also served on the Solon Community School District board. He loved his family and is survived by his wife Margaret, a staff nurse in oral surgery at UI Hospitals and Clinics, and the couple’s two daughters, Emma and Ruth.

National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11, and the UI Carver College of Medicine student group MEDIQS will celebrate by handing out pins and selling T-shirts that allow members and allies of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities to show their support. The group also will sponsor a full-page ad in Vital Signs, the medical student newspaper, expressing solidarity with the College’s GLBT community.

Other events include a talk by Laurie McCormick, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry, on gay and lesbian mental health issues, which will take place Thursday, Oct. 9, at 12:30 p.m. in room 2189 of the Medical Education and Research Facility.

MEDIQS—Med Iowa’s Queer Students—enters its third year as a student organization dedicated to raising awareness of GLBT issues not only in the medical community, but also the university at large. Once an informal social support group, MEDIQS was established to help address misunderstandings about sexuality in the medical profession. (more…)