A Common Trajectory Toward a Professional Identity as a Faculty Developer.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Professional identity formation is a complex construct that continually evolves in relation to an individual's experiences. The literature on educators identifying as faculty developers is limited and incompletely addresses how that identify affects other identities, careers, and influences on teaching. Twenty-six health professionals were trained to serve as faculty developers within our educational system. We sought to examine the factors that influence the professional identity of these faculty developers and to determine whether a common trajectory existed. METHODS: We employed a constructivist thematic analysis methodology using an inductive approach to understand the experiences of faculty developers. We conducted semistructured recorded interviews. Coding and thematic analysis were completed iteratively. RESULTS: We identified eight primary themes: (1) initial invitation, (2) discovery of faculty development as a professional activity, (3) discovery of educational theory, skills, and need for more education, (4) process of time and experience, (5) fostering relationships and community, (6) transfer of skills to professional and personal roles, (7) experiences that lead to credibility, and (8) sense of greater impact. CONCLUSIONS: An individual's journey to a faculty developer identity is variable, with several shared pivotal experiences that help foster the emergence of this identity. Consideration of specific programmatic elements to support the themes identified might allow for a strategic approach to faculty development efforts in health professions education.

Making allyship visible: evaluation of a faculty development DEI curriculum.

Undergraduate medical learners from historically marginalized groups face significant barriers, which was made concrete at our institution when a student presented her research indicating that Black students felt unsure about which faculty members to approach. To better support our students, we used Kern's model for curriculum development and a critical pedagogy approach to create a Faculty Allyship Curriculum (FAC). A total of 790 individuals attended 90 workshops across 16 months and 20 individuals have completed the FAC. A majority of participants reported they felt at least moderately confident in their ability to teach learners who are underrepresented in medicine, mentor learners who are different than they are, and teach allyship topics. An informal content analysis of open-ended responses indicated changes in awareness, attitude, insight, and use of language and being more likely to display advocacy. For others considering creating a similar program, partnering with an existing program allows for rapid implementation and reach to a wide audience. We also recommend: beginning with a coalition of willing learners to quickly build community and culture change; ensuring that the curriculum supports ongoing personal commitment and change for the learners; and supporting facilitators in modeling imperfection and upstanding, 'calling in' rather than 'calling out' learners.

Well-being at a Military Medical School and Implications for Military Retention.

INTRODUCTION: Physical and psychological well-being play a critical role in the academic and professional development of medical students and can alter the trajectory of a student's quality of personal and professional life. Military medical students, given their dual role as officer and student, experience unique stressors and issues that may play a role in their future intentions to continue military service, as well as practice medicine. As such, this study explores well-being across the 4 years of medical school at Uniformed Services University (USU) and how well-being relates to a student's likelihood to continue serving in the military and practicing medicine. METHODS: In September 2019, 678 USU medical students were invited to complete a survey consisting of three sections-the Medical Student Well-being Index (MSWBI), a single-item burnout measure, and six questions regarding their likelihood of staying in the military and medical practice. Survey responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and contingency table analysis. Additionally, thematic analysis was conducted on open-ended responses included as part of the likelihood questions. RESULTS: Our MSWBI and burnout scores suggest that the overall state of well-being among medical students at USU is comparable to other studies of the medical student population. ANOVA revealed class differences among the four cohorts, highlighted by improved well-being scores as students transitioned from clerkships to their fourth-year curriculum. Fewer clinical students (MS3s and MS4s), compared to pre-clerkship students, indicated a desire to stay in the military. In contrast, a higher percentage of clinical students seemed to "reconsider" their medical career choice compared to their pre-clerkship student counterparts. "Medicine-oriented" likelihood questions were associated with four unique MSWBI items, whereas "military-oriented" likelihood questions were associated with one unique MSWBI item. CONCLUSION: The present study found that the overall state of well-being in USU medical students is satisfactory, but opportunities for improvement exist. Medical student well-being seemed to have a stronger association with medicine-oriented likelihood items than with military-oriented likelihood items. To obtain and refine best practices for strengthening engagement and commitment, future research should examine if and how military and medical contexts converge and diverge throughout training. This may enhance the medical school and training experience and, ultimately, reinforce, or strengthen, the desire and commitment to practice and serve in military medicine.

Outcomes Associated With Intensive Care and Organ Support Among Patients With COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Accurate accounting of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) critical care outcomes has important implications for health care delivery. RESEARCH QUESTION: We aimed to determine critical care and organ support outcomes of intensive care unit (ICU) COVID-19 patients and whether they varied depending on the completeness of study follow-up or admission time period. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of reports describing ICU, mechanical ventilation (MV), renal replacement therapy (RRT), and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) mortality. A search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases.We included English language observational studies of COVID-19 patients, reporting ICU admission, MV, and ICU case fatality, published from December 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020. We excluded reports of less than 5 ICU patients and pediatric populations. Study characteristics, patient demographics, and outcomes were extracted from each article. Subgroup meta-analyses were performed based on the admission end date and the completeness of data. RESULTS: Of 6,778 generated articles, 145 were retained for inclusion (n = 60,357 patients). Case fatality rates across all studies were 34.0% (95% CI = 30.7%, 37.5%, P < 0.001) for ICU deaths, 47.9% (95% CI = 41.6%, 54.2%, P < 0.001) for MV deaths, 58.7% (95% CI = 50.0%, 67.2%, P < 0.001) for RRT deaths, and 43.3% (95% CI = 31.4%, 55.4%, P < 0.001) for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation deaths. There was no statistically significant difference in ICU and organ support outcomes between studies with complete follow-up versus studies without complete follow-up. Case fatality rates for ICU, MV, and RRT deaths were significantly higher in studies with patients admitted before April 31st 2020. INTERPRETATION: Coronavirus disease 2019 critical care outcomes have significantly improved since the start of the pandemic. Intensive care unit outcomes should be evaluated contextually (study quality, data completeness, and time) for the most accurate reporting and to effectively guide mortality predictions.

Meeting the needs of clinician-educators: An innovative faculty development community of practice.

BACKGROUND: Requirements for faculty development for clinician-educators continue to increase. The number of faculty with experience delivering faculty development, however, remains limited. To overcome our deficit of faculty developers, we created a train-the-trainer programme. We recognised, however, that our plan would not meet the ultimate goal for our programme: Creating faculty developers to meet the faculty development needs of a large, dispersed system. We report on the creation and nurturing of faculty development community of practice (CoP), which we believe could be a solution for many academic systems struggling to engage busy clinicians, mature the teaching abilities of clinician educators, and meet the needs of their accrediting institutions. APPROACH: We developed a faculty development CoP with a mission of promoting educational expertise and excellence and ensuring continuous growth of the members of our COP and broader faculty. EVALUATION: A programme evaluation was performed consisting of two elements: The impact on the organisation (workshop and learner related metrics) and the impact on the CoP members (survey). We observed notable outcomes: Delivery of high quality workshops to faculty, attainment of leadership positions, and increases in motivation, networking, skills, confidence, and opportunities available to members. IMPLICATIONS: Innovations to create and sustain structured faculty development programmes for clinician-educators are needed. The development and nurturing of a CoP of faculty developers resulted in benefits both for the organisation and CoP members and may be a solution for large academic systems struggling to meet their faculty development demands.

Harnessing Followership to Empower Graduate Medical Education Trainees.

Followership is the leadership practiced by individuals who are in positions of responsibility without authority, whereby they exert their influence to help execute the vision of their leaders. The central principle of followership is a commitment to actively support leaders and organizations. Without effective followers, organizations flounder, decision-making lies only at the top echelons, and plans are either incompletely executed or not executed at all. In this perspective, we introduce the concept of followership as an important part of leadership development. We explore pedagogical methods for teaching graduate medical education (GME) trainees the followership tenets of service, assuming responsibility, and challenging leadership as necessary skills to achieve partnership with their leaders. We argue that developing followership skills, specifically partnering skills, can help trainees excel as leaders and attendings. GME trainees who practice effective followership take initiative by co-managing their patients with their attendings. By displaying both willingness to serve and challenge their leaders, they add to the success of the whole unit. Followership is a skill that can be learned. Learners should reflect on their own followership style and identify areas for flexibility and growth. Those seeking to become partners should solicit explicit feedback, observe their role models, and seek opportunities to role play situations that highlight the difficulties of followership. Partnership allows for development of a space between leaders and followers to experience empathy, reward ownership, and grow leaders.

Building Individual and Organizational Wellness Through Effective Followership.

Burnout is widespread across the healthcare industry. Physician burnout has been linked to significant decrements in personal wellness, patient satisfaction, patient outcomes, and organizational financial losses. Appropriately, burnout has been identified as an important issue for leaders in the field as it can lead to physician turnover and loss of talent. In this article, we address how burnout is related to followership. We assert that physicians can utilize effective followership to increase wellness not only for themselves, but also for their leaders and organizations.

Increasing Faculty Participation and Mentorship in Quality Improvement with an Experiential Four-Hour Workshop.

BACKGROUND: Graduate medical education programs lack enough faculty trained in quality improvement (QI). A major barrier to increasing the number of faculty competent in QI is insufficient time to engage in training. Research is missing on the effectiveness of short faculty development workshops to teach academic faculty QI principles and promote participation and mentorship in QI projects. OBJECTIVE: The authors assessed the ability of a four-hour experiential QI workshop to increase faculty proficiency in QI principles, enhance faculty involvement in QI, and improve resident mentorship in QI. METHODS: From 2016 to 2017, the authors conducted seven QI faculty development workshops at a large academic medical center with 12 ACGME training programs. We evaluated the workshop using pre- and post-workshop surveys, as well as six- and twelve-month follow up surveys. RESULTS: Sixty-five faculty participated in seven workshops over 13 months. All participants completed pre- and post-workshop surveys, while 38% (n = 25) responded to the six- and twelve-month follow up surveys. Overall, the workshop significantly increased confidence to lead and mentor residents on a QI project (25% pre vs. 72% post, p < .001), increased ability to teach QI (8% pre vs. 36% post, p < .001), increased participation in planning and decision making on a QI team (32% pre vs. 50% post, p = .002), and increased the mean number of QI projects implemented (.45 pre vs. 1.24 post; p < .05). CONCLUSION: A four-hour QI workshop is a quick and effective training method to develop academic faculty to teach and mentor residents in QI. The principles taught increased perceived knowledge, confidence in mentorship, and participation in QI.

Ten Leadership Principles from the Military Applied to Critical Care.

Core military leadership principles associated with success during wartime have previously translated to success in the civilian business and healthcare sectors. A review of these principles may be particularly valuable during times of increased and sustained stress in the intensive care unit. In this perspective paper, we provide an overview of 10 of these principles categorized under the following three essential truths: 1) planning is crucial, but adaptability wins the day; 2) take care of your people, and your people will take care of everything else; and 3) communication is the key to success. We reflect on these three truths and the 10 key principles that fall under them. As critical care physicians who have served in the military health system across two decades of war, we believe that internalizing these key leadership principles will result in optimized performance at multiple levels when crisis condition are encountered.

The burden they bear: A scoping review of physician empathy in the intensive care unit.

PURPOSE: Research shows that physician empathy can improve patients' reporting of symptoms, participation in care, compliance, and satisfaction; however, success in harnessing these advantages in the ICU hinges on a myriad of contextual factors. This study describes the current state of knowledge about intensivists' empathy. METHODS: A scoping review was conducted across six databases and grey literature to clarify intensivists' experiences of empathy and identify directions of future inquiries. The search had no date limits and was specific to empathy, intensivists, and ICU environments. Results were blindly and independently reviewed by authors. RESULTS: The search yielded 628 manuscripts; 45 met inclusion criteria. Three overarching themes connected the manuscripts: (1) the risks and benefits of empathy, (2) the spectrum of connection and distance of intensivists from patients/families, and (3) the facilitators and barriers to empathy's development. CONCLUSION: Empathy among intensivists is not a dichotomous phenomenon. It instead exists on continua. Four steps are recommended for optimizing empathy in the ICU: clearly defining empathy, addressing risks and benefits transparently, providing education regarding reflective practice, and developing supportive environments. Overall, this review revealed that the state of knowledge about empathy as experienced by intensivists still has room to grow and be further explored.

Treatment for Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 With the Seraph-100 Microbind Affinity Blood Filter.

To determine whether Seraph-100 (Exthera Medical Corporation, Martinez, CA) treatment provides clinical benefit for severe coronavirus disease 2019 cases that require mechanical ventilation and vasopressor support. DATA SOURCES: The first two patients in the United States treated with the novel Seraph-100 device. These cases were reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration prior to granting an emergency use authorization for treatment of coronavirus disease 2019. STUDY SELECTION: Case series. DATA EXTRACTION: Vasopressor dose, mean arterial pressure, temperature, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and other biomarker levels were documented both before and after Seraph-100 treatments. DATA SYNTHESIS: Vasopressor dose, temperature, interleukin-6, and C-reactive protein levels declined after Seraph-100 treatments. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 viremia was confirmed in the one patient tested and cleared by the completion of treatments. CONCLUSIONS: Seraph-100 use may improve hemodynamic stability in coronavirus disease 2019 cases requiring mechanical ventilation and vasopressor support. These findings warrant future study of a larger cohort with the addition of mortality and total hospital day outcomes.

Could application of leader-member exchange theory have saved a residency mentorship program?

Mentorship may offer protégés numerous benefits including improved self-esteem, increased interest in research, and/or enhanced productivity. Without proper planning, reflection, and evaluation, however, mentorship programs may result in undesirable consequences. In this paper we describe a mentorship program designed to improve psychosocial support and professional development for residents, that while initially successful, was terminated due to perceptions of inequity that led to strife among residents and ultimately created a toxic learning climate. Leader-member exchange theory provides a lens through which to view our program's failure and to offer some potential solutions to mitigate such challenges for other programs. Leader-member exchange theory focuses on the importance of relationships, communication, and awareness of biases to optimize interactions between dyads such as a mentor and a protégé. We highlight opportunities during the stranger, acquaintance, and mature partnership phases that could have helped to save a residency mentorship program.

The Ripple Effect: A Train-the-Trainer Model to Exponentially Increase Organizational Faculty Development.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. INTRODUCTION: Faculty development is a key component of undergraduate and graduate medical education and is required for accreditation. Many institutions face the challenges of training large numbers of faculty at multiple locations on a recurring basis. In order to meet the faculty development demands of our organization, we implemented a train-the trainer model of faculty development. METHODS: A train-the-trainer program was created using deliberate practice as the theoretical framework. The primary goals of the program were to enhance content knowledge and develop facilitation skills of the participants (called faculty trainers). Two separate cohorts received 40 hours of in-person training consisting of attending the faculty development workshops as a learner, providing feedback to course faculty, facilitating and participating in journal club sessions on relevant content, and practicing facilitation and receiving feedback on the workshops. Cohorts 1 and 2 were trained on how to deliver 6 and 7 workshops, respectively. An additional 16 hours of training and further feedback occurred when faculty trainers delivered the workshops at outside institutions. RESULTS: Twenty-nine faculty trainers from 15 specialties and subspecialties were trained, including 18 in the first cohort (January 2018) and 14 in the second cohort (February 2019) with 3 who participated in both cohorts. From January 2018 to January 2020, faculty trainers delivered 298 workshops to 3742 attendees at 25 locations. For the faculty trainers, 1477 evaluations were completed with 1031 (88.1%) rated as excellent, 141 (9.5%) rated as good, and 8 (0.5%) as average. There were no fair or poor ratings. DISCUSSION: Our train-the-trainer program effectively developed a community of national faculty developers. Faculty trainer output was substantial and early evaluations of performance were positive. The model outlined in this paper serves as a potential sustainable model for other institutions desiring to train a cadre of faculty developers for their organization.

Finding the Dieulafoy's Lesion: A Case of Recurrent Rectal Bleeding in an Immunosuppressed Patient.

A Dieulafoy's lesion (DL) is rare cause of acute gastrointestinal bleeding defined as a vascular abnormality of the submucosa. With a high prevalence for the stomach and upper gastrointestinal tract, it is rarely observed in the lower gastrointestinal tract. Its prevalence is rare accounting for less than 2% of all cases of acute gastrointestinal bleeding. The etiology of DL is unknown. Common comorbidities include cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, alcohol abuse, liver disease, and chronic NSAID use. Few cases involving chronic steroid use and immunosuppressive treatment have been reported. The most common diagnostic and treatment modality is endoscopy with refractory cases treated with arterial embolization by angiography. We present a case involving a patient with significant comorbidities on chronic immunosuppression with a life-threatening, massive lower gastrointestinal bleed from a DL in the rectum.

Recurrent Torsades with Refractory QT Prolongation in a 54-Year-Old Man.

BACKGROUND QT prolongation is a common, easily overlooked clinical problem with potentially dire consequences. Drug-induced and congenital forms are not mutually exclusive, but are treated differently. Here, we present a case of cryptogenic underlying congenital long QT syndrome (cLQTS) successfully treated with isoproterenol, a drug contraindicated in most congenital forms of this condition. CASE REPORT We present the case of a 54-year-old man who experienced severe QT prolongation after drug administration followed by recurrent episodes of torsade de pointes (TdP) with subsequent ventricular fibrillation (VF) arrest unresponsive to typical therapy. After failing electrolyte repletion, magnesium, amiodarone, and lidocaine, the patient was started on an isoproterenol drip to achieve a heart rate of at least 90 beats per minute (bpm). Isoproterenol resulted in an immediate near-normalization of his QT interval and cessation of his recurrent TdP. The patient was subsequently found to have a mutation of undetermined significance in the KCNQ1 gene, which is implicated in long QT syndrome type 1 (LQT1). Although isoproterenol is contraindicated in LQT1, our patient had an astonishingly therapeutic benefit. CONCLUSIONS After reviewing the electrophysiology of the delayed rectifier potassium current as it relates to long QT syndrome, we propose a mechanism by which our patient's specific mutation may have allowed him to derive benefit from isoproterenol treatment. We believe that there are patients with variants of LQT1 who can be safely treated with isoproterenol.