Commitment to teaching

The Department is committed to teaching at all levels of medical education.  The clerkship, residency program, and postgraduate training programs focus on the learner and draw from our teachers’ expertise.  We track teaching performance of our residents and faculty and provide feedback periodically to each in a summary.  We have an Excellence in Teaching recognition program for those teachers who systemically receive high marks from medical students.  Good teachers receive an Excellence in Teaching lapel pin they can wear proudly on their white coats for all to see.  A similar program is used to reward those who perform well in teaching residents.  Brown Medical School has since emulated this program and distributes teaching pins campus wide to departments who recognize quality teachers.  Resident advancement and faculty promotion are tied significantly to teaching performance.  

Performance based assessment is used throughout our teaching programs, marked by student demonstration of their acquired skills at the end of the clerkship, and residents at each of the respective workshops that occur during resident orientation and throughout the residency (e.g., circumcision training for 2^nd year residents, endoscopic training for PG-2 to PG-4 residents, surgical skills lab for PG-3 and –4 residents, and the forceps workshops for PG-2 to PG-4 residents), and evaluation by an attending after each surgical case.  Faculty are handpicked on their teaching skills for the training workshops.