CSM 2018 PRE-CON: Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC) Program

Date:  February 21, 2018

Time: 8am-4pm

Location: New Orleans!

Purpose: The Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC) program is intended to provide the knowledge necessary to understand the purposes and processes of medical education research, to become informed consumers of the medical education research literature, and to be effective collaborators in medical education research. Alone, MERC is not intended to produce independent medical education researchers.

The program is open to all who are interested in improving their educational research skills and is targeted for those with a background in medical education but relatively less experience in conducting educational research. The courses are targeted for clinicians and other educators who desire to learn research skills that will enable collaborative participation in medical education research projects.

Curriculum: Each three hour workshop focuses on a key skill or area in educational research, emphasizes opportunities for hands-on activities and active participation, so as to maximize the applicability of the workshop principles.

ACAPT, the Education Section and APTA have partnered together to present two of the workshops as CSM pre-cons.  The two workshops available on February 21, 2018 are:

Searching and Evaluating the Medical Education Literature:  This workshop is intended for individuals, medical educators, and clinician educators who want to learn how to effectively search the published medical education literature and to evaluate the value of those searches. After participating in this workshop, learners will be able to:

• Formulate an effective approach to searching the medical education literature;
• Conduct a search using relevant MeSH headings;
• Apply basic information retrieval skills to a variety of information resources
• Create search alert to stay current with the latest literature on their research interests
• Communicate effectively with a research librarian;
• Evaluate the search results using specific review criteria.

Questionnaire Design and Survey Research:  This workshop will provide some basic principles in questionnaire/survey design and give workshop participants an opportunity for hands-on experience designing a questionnaire. Following participating in this workshop, learners will be able to:

• Walk through a set of conceptual and practical issues in questionnaire design & survey administration;
• Outline the steps to take in developing and implementing a questionnaire/survey;
• Write questionnaire items and match them to appropriate response items;
• Reference resources upon which they can draw for subsequent help in specific applications.

Speakers
Linda Perkowski, Ph.D. is currently serving part-time as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at a new medical school, Central Michigan University (CMU) College of Medicine where she also holds the title of Professor Emeritus. While at CMU she served in the roles of Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Interim Dean, and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Administration. Prior to coming to CMU, she held educational leadership roles at the University of Minnesota Medical School, University of Texas-Houston Medical School, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston Texas. 

She was one of the founders of the MERC (Medical Education Research Certificate) program sponsored by AAMC. She currently serves as a workshop facilitator as well as a member of the national steering committee. She has served as chair for the Southern Group on Educational Affairs; a founding board member of the Association for Standardized Patient Educators; and president of the Society of Directors of Research in Medical Education. She has a Masters in Clinical Psychology and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Community Health. Her research interests and professional focus have been on faculty development, curriculum innovation, program evaluation, and standardized patients. She has conducted workshops locally, nationally and internationally in the areas of teaching, learning, research, evaluation and standardized patients.

Carol S. Hodgson, MS, Ph.D. received a Master of Science degree in biochemistry from the University of California, Riverside in 1983 and a doctorate in Education at UCLA in 1990.  Before entering the field of medical education, Dr. Hodgson was a researcher in preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, School of Medicine.  In 1992, Dr. Hodgson entered the field of medical education at the UCLA School of Medicine and in 1999 became the Director of the Center for Educational Development and Research.  She was recruited to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2000 and served as the Director of the new Office of Educational Research and Development.  In 2004, she was named the Associate Dean and Director of the new Office of Educational Development and Research at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver), School of Medicine.  In 2010, she became the first J Allan Gilbert Chair in Medical Education Research at the University of Alberta (UofA) and in 2017, the founding Director of the IDEAS Office.

Dr. Hodgson is an expert in curriculum design, evaluation, educational research, and faculty development.  She has considerable hands-on experience with curricular change efforts at three medical schools where she developed and implemented successful problem-based learning curricula and centralized evaluation systems.  She has taught in numerous faculty development programs and as part of this work, she has trained more than 500 faculty members locally, nationally, and internationally.  Locally she has co-directed the UCLA, UCSF, CU Denver, and the UofA Teaching Scholars Programs.  In addition, she was one of the original faculty members of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Fellowship in Medical Education Research and later one of the faculty of the AAMC Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC) program.    

Register here:  http://www.apta.org/CSM/Registration/
**note that the workshops will be listed under the date of Feb 21 and associated with the Education Section**

Workshops are limited to 25 registrants each.  We will have 2 rooms, each with both offerings of the workshops above.  Each workshop is 3-hours long.

Those interested in receiving a MERC Certificate must complete six (6) workshops. In order to receive a MERC Certificate you must first complete six (6) workshops. Upon completion you then have to register for the MERC Certificate Program and pay an additional fee of $100.  See all MERC workshop descriptions by clicking here.

Background  The MERC program was recognized by the leadership of the Education Leadership Partnership (ELP) as an essential first step toward making educational research a priority, as identified in the Excellence in Physical Therapist Education Task Force report, the Best Practices in Physical Therapist Clinical Education Task Force report,  and recommended by the APTA Board of Directors.  Additional initiatives are in development to further this priority and we invite you to continue to watch the websites of APTA, ACAPT, and the Education Section for more details.

The Education Leadership Partnership (ELP) is a collaborative of members of APTA, the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy, and the Education Section, committed to the common objective of reducing unwarranted variation in physical therapist practice through use of best practices in education.