Podcast | Practice of Medicine | June 14, 2021

A Novel Transitions of Care Elective: Value-Added Medical Education Innovations During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

During the COVID-19 pandemic, clinical care of patients and undergraduate medical education faced substantive challenges.  Many traditional patient-physician and family-physician interactions were no longer possible, and alternative, often virtual, methods of communications were required to be devised.  The existing challenges of transition of care from inpatient to outpatient treatment for many patients were exacerbated with the physical and communication restraints. The authors of this article analyzed this vital “transition of care” and identified an opportunity to improve medical student education with a special elective that addressed enhanced methods for improving the transition of care of patients within the restrictions of the pandemic.  A joint clinical faculty/medical student team developed a student elective wherein the students actively participated in its design and implementation, thus filling an identified gap in the undergraduate curriculum, which adds value to the educational effort through an innovative process in an on-going manner.  The authors describe their elective in this podcast.  The targeted audiences include medical students, resident physicians, academic faculty, clinical faculty, and institutional medical educators.

Earn CME Credit

References & Resources

  1. Salib S, Amadin A, Brode WM, et al. Developing a Transitions of Care Elective for Medical Students – During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond. South Med J. 2021; In Press.
  2. Hesselink G, Schoonhoven L, Barach P, et al. Improving Patient Handovers from Hospital to Primary Care: A Systematic Review. Ann Intern Med. 2012 Sep 18;157(6):417-428.
  3. Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare Releases Targeted Solutions Tool for Hand-Off Communications file:///C:/Users/ss75885/Downloads/Transitions%20of%20care%20safety%20concerns%20-%20Joint%20Commission_2012.pdf
  4. Gonzalo JD, Dekhtyar M, Starr SR, et al. Health Systems Science Curricula in Undergraduate Medical Education: Identifying and Defining a Potential Curricular Framework. Acad Med. 2017 Jan;92(1):123-131.
  5. McBryde M, Vandiver JW, Onysko M. Transitions of Care in Medical Education: A Compilation of Effective Teaching Methods. Fam Med. 2016 Apr;48(4):265-272.

Sherine Salib
Dr. Sherine Salib is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at Dell Medical School at UT Austin (DMS). She works both in the inpatient and outpatient settings, supervising and teaching interns, residents, and medical students. She also actively serves on several of the educational committees at all levels, including the undergraduate medical education (UME), graduate medical education (GME) and continuing medical education levels. Additionally, mentorship and coaching are important aspects of Dr. Salib’s work, including mentorship of medical students, residents, and faculty members. Furthermore, Dr. Salib serves as the Chair of the DMS Healthcare Delivery Subcommittee, which oversees all of the students’ clinical experiences throughout the four years of medical school, across all specialties. Through this leadership role, she worked closely with the DMS leadership at a school-wide level to develop many of the policies and strategies which would become an important part of the foundational aspects of the new medical school. In addition, Dr. Salib serves as the Internal Medicine (IM) Undergraduate Medical Education Director at Dell Medical School, as well as the Clerkship Director. She led the development of the department’s undergraduate medical education curricula, incorporating several innovative methodologies into the clinical education setting.

Dr. Salib has received many educational awards and nominations, including induction into the Dell Med Academy of Distinguished Educators. She is the recipient of the inaugural Internal Medicine Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, the Choosing Wisely Physician Excellence Award (2020), the DMS Clinical Learning Environment Teaching Award, the Patient Safety Education Champion Award, the regional UTMB “Top Doc” regional award (2016), as well as selection as the 2016 Distinguished Educator of the Year by the UTMB-Austin student body.

Dr. Salib has had several recent publications in medical journals, as well as published interviews. Her publications have focused on medical education, as well as the medical humanities. Examples include publications on innovative UME curricula, such as embedding systems-ready competencies in the clerkship setting, as well as graduate medical education endeavors such as teaching the business side of medicine to residents. In addition to the publications in medical education, several published interviews explored her work in this area. Furthermore, Dr. Salib has published several Medical Humanities articles in journals such as BMJ and Academic Medicine. Moreover, Dr. Salib has served on educational committees at a national level including the “AAIM-CDIM USMLE Scenario” Workgroup, as well as the AAIM-CDIM Program Planning Committee. Her work in career counseling for medical residents has led to her being invited as a featured expert for the NEJM Group Open Forum in April 2016, “Negotiating your First Employment Contract.”, as well as the keynote speaker at the Texas American College of Physicians (ACP) conference in May 2016, in addition to several other ACP presentations. In 2020, she contributed as a content expert in this area, as part of the ACP IMPower project– ACP’s national Resident Communication and Resources Initiative. 

Michael Brode
Dr. Michael Brode earned his medical degree from Loyola University Chicago, where he graduated with honors in global health. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington and served as the chief resident of global health through the University of Washington in partnership with the University of Nairobi in Naivasha, Kenya.

Dr. Brode is a clinician educator who emphasizes knowing the patient as a person first, evidence-based diagnosis, and comprehensive care for patients who are most vulnerable. At Dell Medical School, he leads an inter-professional committee that develops treatment guidelines for COVID-19 care and is the medical director of the post-COVID-19 program at UT Health Austin. He is also working to improve how the medical system identifies patients’ health-related social needs and connects them to resources through the integration of community health workers into medical treatment. He works with medical students and residents to deliver compassionate, person-centered care for all patients.

Clarissa Johnston
Dr. Clarissa Johnston is an associate professor of medicine at Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin. She splits her clinical time between hospital medicine and inpatient palliative care. She is involved in medical education at the undergraduate and graduate medical education level. Her areas of interest include teaching serious illness communication skills, treatment of substance use in the hospital and palliative care setting and the intersection between hospital medicine and palliative care. She completed medical school and residency training at University of California San Francisco.

Abi Amadin
Abi Amadin grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and  Houston, TX. She received her undergraduate degree at Duke University in 2017 where she studied Evolutionary Anthropology in addition to her pre-med studies. She attended Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin and will be graduating with an MD, MPH degree in May 2021. She will be attending Vanderbilt University Medical Center for her Internal Medicine Residency program in July  2021. She is interested in general internal medicine, endocrinology, medical education, and is passionate about health equity and minimizing health disparities.