Reflections from the SGIM Education Committee Regional Bite-Size Teaching Award Winners

The love of teaching is driven by passion, joy, and a commitment to lifelong learning. This year the SGIM Education Committee was inspired to honor our trainees and junior faculty by showcasing: their skills as educators, how they inspire learners using innovative teaching strategies, how they engage learning audiences, and their development of new frameworks to enhance deeper levels of learning. The Bite-Size Teaching competition provided a forum in each region for recognizing these amazing SGIM educators.

We would like to congratulate the regional winners of the Bite-Size Teaching Competition, including:

• Mid-Atlantic: Dr. Jordan See, General Internal Medicine Fellow, University of Pittsburgh (https://youtu.be/pte_2Z4jReM)
• Mountain West: Drs. Natalie DeQulilfeldt & Yaa Asare –Resident Physicians, University of Colorado (https://youtu.be/1JyPpBRFkJE)
• Midwest: Dr. Jennifer A. Woodard, Geriatrics Fellow, Medical College of Wisconsin (https://youtu.be/8zT50aoDl3c)
• California/Hawaii: Dr. Prerak Juthani, Resident Physician, Stanford Medicine (https://youtu.be/LsjSD7cVaFo)
• Northwest: Dr. Vincent Raikhel, Clinical Instructor, University of Washington (https://youtu.be/t7kFTErRPz0)
• New England: Dr. Nathan Wood, General Internal Medicine Fellow, Yale University (https://youtu.be/ne1jGt4dcGE)
• Southern: Dr. Abigail Clark, Resident Physician, Emory University School of Medicine (https://youtu.be/d7idbk9LJ9U)

These individuals demonstrated their passion, creativity, and commitment to teaching. Some agreed to share insights about themselves.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your bite-size teaching presentation?

A: “I entitled my teaching session, “[What] To Eat or Not to Eat? Uncomplicating the Science of a ‘Healthy’ Diet.” I’m passionate about the connection between diet and health, and I feel for folks who are confused about the science of nutrition.”–Nathan

A: “I used a slide show to discuss the effectiveness of buprenorphine in treating opioid use disorder and introduced a basic algorithm to initiate buprenorphine in the hospital setting. I chose this topic because buprenorphine is one of the safest and most beneficial medications we have in medicine.”–Abigail

A: “For the past two years I have had the opportunity to develop a rapid response curriculum for the internal medicine residents at my institution. I find this work so fascinating as rapid responses can be stressful for learners and vulnerable for patients. As part of the rapid response curriculum, I have developed several chalk talks on common rapid response categories such as altered mental status (AMS). I selected my AMS chalk talk for the teaching competition because it fit nicely within the timeframe for the competition while also presenting a useful framework for managing hospitalized patients with AMS.”–Vincent

A: “I loved the Bite-Size Teaching Competition because I believe that teaching is such a big part of our training as future physicians, but we rarely get dedicated time to do it. I am so glad that the SGIM meeting had dedicated time to teaching. The topic that I picked for my teaching competition was “The Fundamentals of Right Heart Catheterizations (RHC).”–Prerak

A: My topic was “Bringing the 5M’s to IM.” We are not training more geriatricians, so we need to make all internists comfortable with geriatrics and give them a basic toolkit.”–Jennifer

A: “I love teaching communication skills. For this presentation I focused on verbal de-escalation. I think that as physicians, every day, we have the privilege to take care of patients when they are at their lowest point and a lot of times it comes with high emotion, anger, frustration, etc. Unfortunately, we often bear the brunt of it, so verbal de-escalation is something that all of us can relate to.”–Jordan

Q: How did you showcase who you are as an educator and your goals of teaching through the teaching strategy you used in the competition?

A: “One of my favorite learning activities to do with learners is called a “think-pair-share.” Learners get a chance to think by themselves, chat one-on-one with a neighbor, and then share what they discussed with the larger group. This allows both introverts and extroverts to engage with the learning in a way that feels comfortable to them, and it’s much more interactive than a lecture.”–Nathan

A: “I really love chalk talks because they allow me to modulate the interactivity of the session based on the learner’s questions and thoughts. As confusing as rapid responses can be, developing clear frameworks for learners can allow them to organize their decision making.”–Vincent

A: “I opened the presentation with the story of a patient I saw as a resident. It helped being able to relate the skills back to a real-life example. I also employed the use of a metaphor, in this case a bridge and crossing a bridge together with the patient and then with that metaphor, using it as a mnemonic.”–Jordan

A: “I always love case base presentations and focusing on a patient that ideally the whole team is familiar with. But in this case, I had to create a case and used an AI generator to create a picture of the patient and bring her to the forefront of the teaching.”–Jennifer

A: “I first started with objectives of my presentation and what the audience can expect to get out of my talk. From there, I went through a standardized approach to RHCs called “WCP” (Is the patient Wet?; Does the patient have decreasing Cardiac output?; and Does the patient have elevated Pulmonary artery pressures?”) approach. Then I demonstrated how this approach can be applied in real examples.”–Prerak

Q: What was the impact of the competition on your identity as an educator?

A: “Every time I lead a learning session and pose questions to the audience, as in this session, I get new responses from the learners. Many of their responses tend to fall into buckets and patterns that are predictable, certainly, but there are always new ones. This helps me to continue to see myself not only as a teacher, but also as a lifelong learner.”–Nathan

A: “It really gave me confidence. It gives validation to my work that I have been engaged in for so long. I really have an aspiration to be an expert at teaching physician communication skills and this opportunity was one step forward.”–Jordan

A: “I was lucky to be invited to participate in the competition because it gave me dedicated time to create a presentation and schema for approaching tough topics in medicine. Doing more exercises like this, can help me as an educator develop more schemas for common medical problems.”–Prerak

A: “This was a real honor to have my teaching recognized through this competition. I really appreciate this opportunity and it solidified the idea that intentional practice and iterative revision of teaching sessions has positive outcomes for my teaching.”–Vincent

A: “The competition inspired and encouraged me to continue learning how to teach effectively. I am excited to take the feedback I received at the competition and apply it to future teaching points.”–Abigail

Q: What advice would you give future competitors about preparation and delivery?

A: “I would encourage future competitors to find ways to get their learners talking to each other. Even the best-delivered lecture won’t be able to compete with sessions that incorporate cooperative learning strategies. Best of luck.”–Nathan

A: “I think the best step to take in preparing for a competition such as this is to seek high quality feedback from mentors.”–Abigail

A: “Start with a topic that resonates with you, then define a specific learning objective. Be deliberate about how you’d like to support audience engagement and interaction.”–Vincent

A: “You should be passionate about your topic, that just makes it so much easier.” –Jordan

A: “It is important to have a test group. I also recommending being realistic about how much time you have and its okay to take a narrower topic because 10 minutes is not long at all.”–Jennifer

A: “It’s important to work backwards and see what you want the audience to take away from your presentation and then see how you can ensure that this happens.”–Prerak

The SGIM Education Committee thanks these winners for sharing their teaching talents in the first set of regional SGIM Bite-Size Teaching Competitions. By sharing their teaching expertise, they can hopefully inspire others to participate in this year’s competitions. We encourage all SGIM members to highlight their work and the importance of clinical educators at all our institutions.