2022 Innovations in Healthcare Education Research (IHER) Conference Platform Highlights

Critical Pedagogies and Paulo Freire

Advocated by Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freire, ‘critical pedagogy’ is a means of empowering people to effect social change by questioning structures of power and oppression. Within health care, such a pedagogical framework can be vital in inculcating a deeper understanding of the structural causes of illness and injury. This panel discussion will offer practice-based resources and strategies to support audience member inquiry into to support colleagues and help faculty navigate and implement curricula that develop learners’ structural competence.

Some recent literature is available at the links below:

• Problems of Problem-based Learning: Towards Transformative Critical Pedagogy in Medical Education
• The Contested Terrain of Critical Pedagogy and Teaching Informal Education in Higher Education
• Paulo Freire and the Value of Equality in Education

American Medical Association (AMA)
Director, AMA and Managing Editor, AMA Journal of Ethics

Meet Dr. Rentmeester (Audio)

Dr. Christy Rentmeester is managing editor of the AMA Journal of Ethics. She directs a team of stellar colleagues who work daily with students and clinicians to generate journal-based and multimedia content about cross-disciplinary, ethically complex clinical and health policy questions. A philosopher by background, Dr Rentmeester’s fellowship training is in clinical ethics and health humanities. She has served on numerous ethics consultation call teams, ethics committees, human subject review boards, health professional licensure boards, and is an adjunct faculty member in the Neiswanger Institute at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Prior to her move to Chicago, she spent several years as a tenured professor teaching medical students and graduate students health policy and ethics.

The Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine, The University of Vermont
Director, The Teaching Academy
Robert Larner, M.D. ’42 Professor of Medical Education
Assistant Dean for Medical Education

Meet Dr. Huggett (Audio)

Dr. Katie Huggett is the Director of the Teaching Academy, Assistant Dean for Medical Education, and Robert Larner, MD Professor in Medical Education at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dr. Huggett leads faculty development for teaching, assessment, and educational scholarship. In addition, she leads the team responsible for curricular evaluation and serves as the co-chair of the medical school’s Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) committee. Her research and publications address academic program quality; mentoring and faculty recognition; curricular innovation; and interprofessional education (IPE). Dr Huggett is a past president of the Society of Directors of Research in Medical Education. Dr. Huggett is lead editor of the book, An Introduction to Medical Teaching: The Foundations of Curriculum Design, Delivery, and Assessment published by Springer. The third edition was published in March 2022.

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Associate Director, Center for Health Professions Education (CHPE)
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine

Meet Dr. Wyatt (Audio)

Tasha R. Wyatt, PhD is an associate professor and Associate Director at Uniformed Services University's Center for Health Professions Education. As a trained educational psychologist, her research interests include issues related to acts of professional resistance, racism in medical education, professional identity formation in racially minoritized physicians, and decolonial research methodologies.

MedStar-Georgetown Washington Hospital Center
PGY-1, Internal Medicine

Meet Dr. Jain (Audio)

Vinayak Jain is a resident physician in the Department of Internal Medicine at Washington Hospital Center, Washington DC. His scholarly interests lie at the intersection of diagnostic reasoning, critical thinking and equity in medical education. Currently, he serves as an Editorial Fellow at the AMA Journal of Ethics where his theme issue focusses upon Critical Pedagogies in Health Professions Education. He is also a member of the Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) Teaching Academy where he is pursuing his research interests on assessment in the Graduate Medical Education (GME) space. As an aspiring MedEd scholar, he hopes his experiences as a trainee inform his scholarly pursuits to create a learning experience that is less standardized and more adaptive.

The Generalists in Medical Education (TGME) are educators who teach, conduct research, and provide support services in all areas of predoctoral, postdoctoral and continuing medical education and health professions education. Specific areas of interest include curriculum and faculty development, testing and evaluation, and student services. Each TGME annual, national conference offers opportunities for participants to develop understandings of the latest initiatives and innovations in medical education and to explore solutions to educational problems. The 2022 TGME conference is in Nashville, Tennessee on November 10-11, immediately before the 2022 AAMC Learn Serve Lead conference and in a nearby location.

The 2022 TGME steering committee is guided by a three-person chair system including the chair, chair-elect, and past chair who will be facilitating a roundtable at the 2022 MCW IHER conference. The Wednesday afternoon roundtable will help participants learn more about the TGME conference and understand the expectations of abstract submissions getting accepted at a national medical education conference.

• The 2022 TGME conference chairperson is Komal Kochhar, MBBS, MHA. Dr. Kochhar is the Director for Research in Medical Education and Director for Educational Affairs Data Analytics in the Dean’s Office of Educational Affairs, and an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
• The TGME chair-elect is Stephanie Corliss, PhD, who is the Director for Education Evaluation and Research and Assistant Professor at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.
• The TGME past chair is Robert Treat, PhD, who is an Associate Professor and Director of Measurement and Evaluation in the Office of Academic Affairs at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Indiana University School of Medicine
Director, Research in Medical Education, Dean's Office of Educational Affairs
Director, Educational Affairs Data Analytic, Dean’s Office of Educational Affairs
Assistant Research Professor, Department of Family Medicine

Meet Dr. Kochhar (Audio)

Dr. Komal Kochhar is the Director for Research in Medical Education and Director for Educational Affairs Data Analytics in the Dean’s Office of Educational Affairs, an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She received her MBBS (MD) degree from Maulana Azad Medical College, University of Delhi, India in 1994. Upon completion of medical school, Dr. Kochhar served as a House Surgeon in Delhi until 1999. She obtained her master’s degree in Health Administration (MHA) from Indiana University in 2003.

Dr. Kochhar has 20 years of experience successfully managing and directing projects in collaboration with clinical and basic science departments within the Indiana University School of Medicine, as well as the Indiana State Department of Health. Her areas of expertise include educational research related to both UME and GME, physician workforce studies, health services research, and faculty development in medical education research.

Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin
Director, Education Evaluation and Research
Assistant Professor

Meet Dr. Corliss (Audio)

Stephanie Corliss, PhD is the Director for Education Evaluation and Research and Assistant Professor at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. She consults with faculty, staff, and administration and performs research and evaluation work related to teaching and learning to provide feedback to departments and the school. Stephanie has been researching the use of instructional practices to enhance the teaching and learning experience for over eighteen years. Additionally, Dr. Corliss has taught educational psychology and instructional technology courses at the undergraduate and graduate level and currently directs a faculty fellowship in medical education and a medical education teaching practicum course for medical students obtaining an MA in educational psychology. She has a PhD in educational psychology focused on learning, cognition, and instruction and an MA in program evaluation from the University of Texas at Austin.

Stephanie’s areas of expertise include research design, survey research, program evaluation, assessment of learning and teaching, and instructional design.

Medical College of Wisconsin
Associate Professor and Director of Measurement and Evaluation, Office of Academic Affairs

Meet Dr. Treat (Audio)

Robert Treat, PhD is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and the Director of the Office of Measurement and Evaluation at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) where he has worked since 1999. Dr. Treat provides consultation to MCW faculty, residents, students, and staff in addressing key evaluation/measurement related questions and is responsible for the analysis and evaluation of educational outcomes data for residents and medical students.

Dr. Treat is the Deputy Editor of the Wisconsin Medical Journal (WMJ) and the international journal of Teaching and Learning in Medicine (TLM). Dr. Treat served as the chair for the 2021 Generalists in Medical Education (TGME) annual conference, has served as co-chair for the MCW Innovations in Healthcare Education Research (IHER) annual conference since 2019, and is on the AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA) annual meeting executive committee.

Dr. Treat has co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications and over 270 peer-reviewed conference presentations.