Program for Academic Clinician Educators
In 2016, the Department of Medicine created the Program for Academic Clinician Educators (PACE) to support the career development of its clinician-educators. These faculty members make crucial contributions to the success of our department, by developing and improving innovative educational programs, and engaging in educational research to guide how we teach and assess health professions learners.
The PACE program will provide each Scholar with financial support, which may be used for medical education research, innovative program development in education, salary support and/or career development of the Scholar. The Division Head or Dean must pledge to protect at least 10% of the effort/time of the Scholar for the duration of the award. Each Scholar will be expected to participate in an education scholarship “Works in Progress” group for additional project support and mentorship, and program progress will be evaluated annually with continued year of funding contingent on demonstrated progress during the initial year of support.
The Department of Medicine Announces the 2020-21 PACE Scholars
Amiran Baduashvili, MD, is a Visiting Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Dr. Baduashvili’s PACE project will develop an online clinical decision-making curriculum. The goal is to help train medical students, residents, fellows and faculty in bedside application of Bayesian reasoning. Such an approach to clinical reasoning involves assessment of disease probabilities, integration of new diagnostic information (a physical exam finding, lab result or imaging finding) into the probability estimates, and formulating management decisions that are well-informed and founded in objective evidence, with consideration of patient values and preferences.
Adrienne Mann, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Deputy Chief of the Medicine Service at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center, and an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Mann’s PACE project will support the creation of a novel, web-based personal and professional coaching program for women trainees in medicine and surgery. In partnership with stakeholders in residency program leadership, Dr. Mann’s aim is to improve coping skills and perceptions of personal and professional roles, reduce burnout, and create a supportive community of women trainees. Through this project, critical insight will be gained into the feasibility, challenges, and opportunities of web-based group coaching interventions for fostering wellbeing and resilience among physicians.
Melissa New, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center. The focus of Dr. New’s project is to create an advanced bronchoscopy curriculum and simulation-based training program. The curriculum will train pulmonologists in endobronchial ultrasound and biopsy techniques, as well as management of low frequency but high-risk lower airway emergencies. The curriculum will be designed to be presented in person or via distance learning and will develop and pilot low-cost simulators for hands-on practice. The program will be presented to fellows at the University of Colorado, and materials will be adapted for dissemination nationally.
International Scholar (mentored project without funding)
Golden Tafadzwa Fana, MD, is a Lecturer, Consultant Physician, in the Department of Medicine College of Health Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe (UZCHS). Dr. Fana’s project is to develop a pre-internship orientation program designed to bridge the gap in current medical curricula in addressing specific educational needs of interns related to professionalism, ethics, communication skills, patient safety and safe prescribing. This program will target new medical school graduates from UZCHS, and the training is expected to enhance interns’ professional development and improve their work-experience, career satisfaction and career development.
Golden Tafadzwa Fana, MD, is a Lecturer, Consultant Physician, in the Department of Medicine College of Health Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe (UZCHS). Dr. Fana’s project is to develop a pre-internship orientation program designed to bridge the gap in current medical curricula in addressing specific educational needs of interns related to professionalism, ethics, communication skills, patient safety and safe prescribing. This program will target new medical school graduates from UZCHS, and the training is expected to enhance interns’ professional development and improve their work-experience, career satisfaction and career development.
Returning Scholar (competitive renewal)
Elizabeth Kudron, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Division of Bioinformatics & Personalized Medicine). She will use her PACE funding to create fully online Graduate Certificate Program in Personalized Medicine. Content developed for the certificate program will be adapted to create an online, post-graduate curriculum on Implementing Genomics in Clinical Care (IGCC). Program participants, DOM, and SOM are anticipated to benefit from the development of this curricula and program through the enhanced ability to remain informed about the rapidly developing field of Personalized Medicine.
Inaugural Recipients of Clinician-Educator Faculty Grants
Janet Corral, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Division of General Internal Medicine). Her PACE project builds off several successful pilot programs to create a digital, just-in-time (JIT) coaching system (JITCS) for educators at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. JITCS delivers evidence-based teaching tips to faculty as they lead assigned teaching events. A local needs assessment will drive a user-friendly design of JITSC, which will then be developed and implemented in SOM courses, as well as the DOM clerkship and DOM residency. JITCS will provide CU with an innovative platform to help faculty development meet local needs in the digital era, while simultaneously building CU’s national and international reputation in best evidence medical education, just-in time faculty development, and intelligent tutors.
Katherine Frasca, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Division of Infectious Diseases). She will use her PACE funding to create a comprehensive, inter-professional, patient-centered, educational curriculum on HIV prevention for Internal Medicine residents and allied health professions trainees. HIV prevention training in PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is critical for general medicine trainees, since this is a public health intervention that has been shown to be cost-saving in the prevention of HIV infection. The toolkit for successful HIV prevention includes not only PrEP, but also STD screening and treatment, sexual health counseling, and addressing barriers to PrEP adherence such as mental health disorders and substance use. A critical component to providing this care to a predominantly LGBT population is the establishment of cultural competency by the trainees. The format of this program will be inter-professional training in HIV prevention (including PrEP) via a structured online curriculum and hands-on clinical experience.
Katarzyna Mastalerz, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Division of Hospital Medicine). Her PACE project will focus on incorporating an educational communication component for residents into an interprofessional inpatient unit called an Accountable Care Unit (ACU) aimed at reducing inpatient medical errors, a large percentage of which are attributable to poor communication and ineffective teamwork. Developing effective methods of teaching interprofessional education (IPE) is an important aspect of providing higher quality, safer patient care. Most IPE is done pre-clinically or in simulation settings, but research shows that poor communication and lack of effective teamwork persist on inpatient wards, making this educational intervention a key way of incorporating team- and communication-based curricula into clinical settings to improve patient safety.
Paul Menard-Katcher, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology), and Associate Gastroenterology Fellowship Program Director. He will use his PACE funding to develop novel curricula and trainee assessment instruments using CBME-based tools such as entrustable professional activities (EPAs) to better train medical learners and to aid in trainee competency assessment. Medical education is in the process of a transition to competency-based medical education (CBME), at the heart of which is a focus on outcomes and abilities of the medical learner, rather than on a time-based training process. Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are descriptions of competency that are observable and measurable, and provide a tool by which clinically-based trainee outcomes may be assessed. There is a critical need for the development of such instruments to facilitate the transition to CBME, particularly in the medical subspecialties. Successful development of this program will facilitate the overall goal to transition medical education from an apprenticeship model to CBME.