Skipping the Postdoc

February 25th, 2011 by pcahn

In 1981 the average age of investigators receiving their first R01 grants was 36. In 2009, it was 42. Because attaining independent funding is often a requirement for securing an assistant professorship, the delay has led to a prolonged postdoctoral period.

Recognizing that an increased training period has the potential to stifle creative thinking among the most innovative minds, NIH director Francis Collins has established an Early Independence Award. These grants, roughly equivalent to an R01 award, would enable talented scientists to begin independent research directly from their doctoral program.

In explaining his rationale, Collins mentions the importance of giving motivated young investigators a lab of their own. The new award will require departments to support the winners, but in return they will receive an energetic colleague with a promising future.

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Assessment

February 24th, 2011 by pcahn

The Teagle Foundation has released a book called Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment. The project brings together essays by experts in literature and assessment to suggest ways that teachers can measure student learning when it comes to less tangible outcomes.

Medical educators tend to think of their content as concrete. Learners, after all, must demonstrate their knowledge through national exams. But, in other ways, training medical students and residents resembles the teaching of literary studies. We hope learners gain empathy, professionalism, and the ability to "read" a patient. The suggestions in the book can help academic medical centers gauge their success in conveying these abstract qualities.

One model that may apply to the medical setting is the verified resume. Originally designed by the Department of Labor to emphasize skills training for the workforce, the six-item score card resonates with the goals of medical training. The verified resume includes measures of:

  • responsibility
  • team player
  • listening
  • creativity
  • acquiring and evaluating information
  • working with cultural diversity

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Posted in Faculty development | 98 Comments »

Who’s Watching Google?

February 18th, 2011 by pcahn

It's become part of our browsers, our research habits, and our vocabulary. Most academics would agree that Google has made their lives easier. It provides us not just with searches but also scholarly articles, e-mail, shared documents, directions, and airline information.

A new book from Siva Vaidhyanathan warns that we should not uncritically welcome "Googlization." Although signs of malfeasance are not apparent yet, Vaidhyanathan worries that Google's goals do not align neatly with scholars' goals. Google is publicly traded and accountable to shareholders. The company collects our personal information to put to its own, profit-making ends.

In an interview, the author lists other concerns. Google's ease makes students less rigorous in their research. Its algorithms favor popularity, not accuracy. Of course, there's the loss of productive time given over to watching YouTube videos. Despite the critique, the book concedes there is a lot to admire in Google. Let's just be wary of any monopoly.

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Immigration

February 17th, 2011 by pcahn

Yesterday, the Faculty Development and Diversity Committee along with the Office for Multicultural Affairs sponsored a talk on immigration law. The two lawyers, Roy Watson and Greg Suskind, specialize in working with academics and physicians.

I understood vaguely about the difficulties noncitizens face in finding work in the United States, but I was overwhelmed by the complexity. According to their slides, trainees can work in the United States under an alphabet soup of visas: J-1, J-2, O-1, or H-1B. Some of those have time limits or require the worker to return home for two years before reentering the U.S.

It seems that the entire system has been set up to make it difficult for foreign nationals to secure permanent employment in the U.S. This policy makes sense in theory, and many of the sending countries probably enforce similar laws to protect their citizens. Still, in the medical and scientific field, the presence of researchers from abroad enhances collaboration and enriches our country.

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Longhand

February 16th, 2011 by pcahn

I began my training in the last days of the card catalog and the first wave of the Internet. It was still a novelty to own a computer, but I brought a word processing machine--essentially a souped-up typewriter--to my freshman dorm.

Like many of my generation, the grammar of computers has influenced how I approach writing. I look at a paragraph and wonder what I can cut and paste. I scroll down the page and add notes to myself for future sections of the paper. Of course, I also spend time changing fonts and backing up files.

Several studies have now demonstrated the benefits of writing by hand. People who wrote down their goals were more likely to achieve them. Students who wrote down vocabulary words were more likely to learn a foreign language. The physical act of writing seems to trigger the part of the brain that focuses attention.

When it comes to long manuscripts, I'm still more likely to use a computer, which allows for more easy editing and sharing. But for to do lists, goal setting, and memorization, writing it out has the upper hand.

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The Science of Learning

February 15th, 2011 by pcahn

In a 2008 article in JAMA, Donald Berwick argued for broadening the acceptable categories of evidence in improving health care. Instead of asking, "Where is the randomized trial?" he suggested asking, "What is everyone learning?" When analyzing the best course of treatment, there are many methodologies that can guide clinicians.

The same goes for educators in their approach to teaching. Diana Chapman Walsh, the former president of Wellesley, writes about ongoing projects across the country to study how students learn. Of course, the initiatives in specialized centers may not always trickle down to the faculty who interact with students. So, rather than wait for a systemic shift, teachers can implement what we know about how learners learn.

One of the commenters on Walsh's article summarizes some key guidelines:

  • Cover fewer concepts in more depth. Think four chapters, not twelve.
  • Study the how and why of tech, not just the what.
  • Focus on course outcomes.
  • Practice, practice. Many exercises.
  • Feedback about every exercise. Fast. Formative feedback. Not just "that's bad." Instead: "That's bad. Here's why. Fix it, and show me again."
  • Show students how to learn your subject.
  • Give students measures they can use to assess themselves.
  • Give students access to personal, expert (relative to course level) help.

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The Pace of Promotion

February 11th, 2011 by pcahn

Every medical school has a different set of policies for promotion, but one thing they tend to have in common is time. Under ideal circumstances, a promotion can go through all the steps in six months. When it comes to full professor cases, the scrutiny is more intense and the process even longer.

Harvard Medical School has over 8,000 faculty members, by far the largest faculty of any medical college. Promotions to full professor there took at least two years with the home departments, hospitals, medical school administrators, and the university provost weighing in.

A new policy streamlines the process to one year. One of the biggest sources of time savings will come with a centralized digital repository for documents like external letters of recommendation. It's encouraging when institutions can identify redundancies and eliminate them. Transparency is also helpful. It would be ideal to use the online system to let faculty members know where their candidacy stands in the process much like journals alert manuscript authors to their place in the editorial queue.

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Online Journals

February 10th, 2011 by pcahn

Advocates of open access scholarship have been persuasive in their call for making materials freely available online. Harvard faculty now can deposit all their publications in a web-based repository, bypassing journal restrictions. One advantage of such databases, the theory went, was that online articles are more likely to be read and cited than those behind a subscription wall.

Now, a report from two economics researchers casts doubt on that assumption. They surveyed 260,000 articles published in 100 economics and business journals from 1956 to 2005 and found no evidence of a citation boost for articles appearing in open access journals. The one significant advantage came from articles available in JSTOR, an online, subscription-based service.

Commentators told InsideHigherEd.com that the study did not distinguish between free online journals and online articles behind pay walls. So, the debate is not settled. Even without the jump in citations, though, it seems good practice to make scholarship as widely available as possible. Particularly for faculty and trainees at underresourced institutions or in developing countries, having access to research is valuable. They may not cite the articles, but they will use the knowledge.

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No Glass Ceiling?

February 9th, 2011 by pcahn

Traditionally, one of the explanations for the relatively low percentage of women in the faculty ranks of math and science departments has been the ongoing presence of discrimination. At every level of training and career, scientists must earn acceptance from peers, whether in admission to graduate programs, job interviews, or grant reviews. Bias, even if unconscious, can creep in to disadvantage female applicants, the theory goes.

A new study by two scholars in Cornell's Department of Human Development argues that discrimination does not play a factor in the underrepresentation of women in scientific fields. In the awarding of fellowships, the review of manuscripts, and the interviewing for jobs, the authors found no evidence for bias against female candidates of comparable preparation to their male counterparts.

The real source of inequality is that women overwhelmingly occupy part-time or teaching-intensive positions, limiting their access to the resources needed to produce sophisticated research. Whether by choice or by societal expectations, women often prioritize what the authors call "fertility/lifestyle" concerns in establishing their careers. These decisions make it less likely for women scientists to develop a track record of success. The good news is that women scientists of similar training and accomplishment can count on fair treatment in the academic workplace.

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Posted in Faculty development | 25 Comments »

MD or DO?

February 8th, 2011 by pcahn

As a patient, I have always seen physicians with the initials "MD" after their names. Once, on an unplanned visit to the university health services, I noticed that the doctor on call had "DO" listed after her name. Some unexamined prejudice made me hesitate, but I was sick and happy to get care. In the end, she gave me exemplary care, and I could not have distinguished her training from another physician's.

There are 26 colleges of osteopathic medicine in the United States. In the current admissions cycle, every single one has registered increases in applications. A total of  13,500 students are seeking to attend an osteopathic medical school. This still does not match the 42,742 applicants applying to an allopathic medical school, but it shows that the future physician work force will comprise both kinds of doctors.

The osteopathic colleges' national organization makes the case that DO graduates are more likely to go into primary care, helping meet the need for internists in the country. The faculty list in the Department of Medicine at BU contains no names with the DO degree, though I have met one DO in another department. It would be helpful to know more about the characteristics of osteopathic college graduates and if recruiting among them could help meet our goals for clinical, scientific, and educational excellence.

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