There have been substantial changes in the Department of Radiology at UW in the area of education over the past few months. David Kim, MD has been recently appointed as Vice Chair of Education and Melissa Lantta, PhD has been hired as Education Coordinator. Together, they will help to oversee and coordinate the educational efforts of the Department. They were asked to outline their vision for education at UW Radiology in the upcoming years. The following is a summary of their comments.
There are two overarching goals for education in the upcoming years. The first is to build upon the current efforts to optimize the educational environment for the residents—and to accomplish this in a manner that fosters a resident’s internal drive for independent learning. Besides maintaining a comprehensive didactic curriculum, we hope to develop programs to promote independent learning. This concept is at the core of resident professionalism and is a critically important skill for lifelong learning. Various initiatives are in development which will hopefully pursue this objective. As part of this objective, the efforts in timely resident assessment will be continued and adjusted to hopefully allow more pertinent feedback to the resident and the teaching faculty on the state of a resident’s development.
The second goal is to provide a formal structure to facilitate educational research. Besides the obvious by-product of creating an environment of high quality resident education and continued innovation, it would create a defined path for faculty promotion through education. Thus, the extraordinary and skilled teaching that occurs on a day-to-day basis by the faculty could also result in meaningful research. The educational database will be a key component to this endeavor. Again, various initiatives are in progress that should hopefully lead to successful outcomes.
We are very excited to be a part of the educational efforts at the Department. The enthusiasm and expertise of the faculty interested in education are truly awe inspiring. We know that the current and future educational programs will make a major positive impact for our residents and faculty and hopefully create a community of lifelong learners across the Department where residents and faculty can actively engage in opportunities that promote individual and collective growth.
–Dr. David Kim and Melissa Lantta