An Approach to Teaching Interdisciplinary Health Care to Preclerkship Medical Students

[摘要] The specialty of pediatrics is exemplary in interdisciplinary medical practice. Hospital pediatricians are often at the heart of such teams, and we are therefore well situated to be educational leaders preparing preclerkship medical students for interdisciplinary work. This essay explores the experience I had preparing and piloting an interdisciplinary session for students in their “Introduction to Clerkship” course. A similar session could be created in other centers with equally positive results.With the growth of academic, hospital-based pediatrics, we have the opportunity to increase our professional presence in preclerkship medical education. The skill set of hospital pediatricians extends beyond the “medical expert” role, with leading competencies in the areas of communication and collaboration. Pediatric teams are among the best in all areas of medicine for being inclusive, multidisciplinary, and patient and family centered. Pediatric hospitalists are therefore, well positioned to teach these skills at the medical school.Two years ago, I became involved in the “Introduction to Clerkship” course at the university affiliated with our pediatric hospital. I was assigned leadership of 1 of the most consistently poorly rated lectures: “Interdisciplinary Medicine in Clerkship.” I immediately thought back to my own medical education, where lectures with this title were uniformly dreaded, bound to be esoteric, and dry in both content and delivery. So, I charged myself with the task of finding a way to present the topic that would be engaging, relevant, and leading to a definable outcome.After all, I am intimately aware of the importance of interdisciplinary work. As a member of our hospital's Complex Care team, I am routinely part of multidisci-plinary team meetings. At these meetings, I learn vast amounts about the patients I …

[学科分类] 儿科学

[关键词] Campylobacter;proljev;dob