with the students to kind of test out this idea or theory of mine,
and ask the Associate Clockship Director for medical students.
There is curricula time for third and fourth years that I have
at my disposal where usually that was spent with didactic teaching.
But I think I learned
in my years as an educator, decades as an educator,
that it's not what you see or teach, it's what
the students takes away from the session is what real teaching is all about.
So having that student initiated learning is really the core of teaching.
And most of the time, when I find that it's been a productive session is when
I come out of the session really feeling that I learned something and
I see that my students are empowered.
Maybe not with the matter or the stuff that I taught them, but
to get them really enthusiastic about it and wanting to learn about it themselves.
Most of the classrooms in the medical school
are typical classroom with rows of seats there.
So we actually get a workout before the session because we take
out all the chairs put it in a round seating so
that everybody can see everyone and we made the environment more playful.
We do use flip charts, we use colored markers,
and it's just such a fun environment.
I wish I could do that for all my classes.
And actually I have adapted that even in my say interpreting chest x-ray or
teaching them about shock, horror, fluid and electrolytes.
I now tend to do in groups so that it helps so
that it's not an individual that's being picked at so the pressure is less.
It's more of a learning environment and they learn to collaborate and
work in groups because medicine is definitely a team sport.
You asked me about the mindset, and I don't know if I'm answering the question
right or not, but I'll give you an example from my personal life where,
I have two kids and when my son was growing up,
I would just see the positive in him and I would be encouraging all the time.
And my husband on the other hand was very critical.
So the same results or
the same activity he would do, and I would be all ga-ga over it, and
my husband, on the other hand, would notice things that he didn't do.
And this used to be always an experiment
because he felt I was being too lenient and I felt he was being too strict.
So, well my son ended up being pretty good.
And I didn't know whether it was my appreciativeness or
was it my husband's critique that ended up turning him into the person he is.
So we decided, when our daughter was born, who is 14 years younger,
to try and use the appreciative inquiry, or
the appreciative mindset, to nurture her.
And my husband agreed.
And I'm proud to say that she's really grown up into a wonderful kid.
So I've wanted, because we are taught in the medical field, to be problem solvers.
So we approach everything as a problem, and
it's really nice to be able to change that mindset and
go from the solution aspect of it.
And that was one thing that I felt was the major change in my mindset where, and
I think it, in a way, was also in my patient interactions.
Because it allowed me to see my patient as a person more than as a disease
entity because we were starting with solutions in the interaction.
Instead of lambasting my patient about the obesity part of it,
I would ask them about what was some fun activity that they did,
what were some of the things that they could do.
And that's something that really opened my eyes and made me have fun
during my patient encounters because my patients taught me so much.
And I think that is one thing that I tried
to make my students understand that the disease part of it.
Disease can be understood in scientific terms, but illness is a human event, and
to see that person behind the illness is really what is important.
Because we may not be able to cure people, but we can at least make them feel better.
And I think that appreciative mindset has
percolated a lot of the way I even practice medicine,
and I feel it's what I try to inculcate in my students.
Because now it's not if a student has a problem that I email them or call them,
but I try to send these intimate emails or
face-to-face calls asking them what went well or
what was good about this encounter.
And I think slowly but surely It could lead to a cultural change.
I keep saying that you know, there are times after the session where the students
come up, and I may be, you make me feel that I can change the world.
But when I walk into the clinic and I see disgruntled physicians or
disgruntled nursing staff, that brings me down.
And I always say you have to be the change that you want to see in the world.
You may not be able to change the world, but you can change how you respond to it.
And that's something which I feel is what really has been my driving force.
And I hope that I can get like minded people together, and
ultimately make that culture change that I've been striving to do.
[MUSIC]
Dr. Cyndi BurnettAssociate Professor
Dr. John F CabraAssociate Professor
