171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
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March 2007
Letter From Our Chair
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L. Lyndon Key, MD
Professor and Chairman
Department of Pediatrics |
Dear faculty, Children's Hospital staff and other friends,
Our department has made remarkable progress in the last few years with innovation and accomplishment in both research and clinical activities. The Darby Children's Research Institute has just celebrated its second anniversary. This visionary approach to solving the riddles of children's diseases is now showing major gains. We have new programs, new investigators and new successes. Similarly, we have been working in the clinical arenas to improve our performance and recognition. Our clinicians have worked diligently to provide innovative services and to improve patient satisfaction. This is an ongoing process which is succeeding month by month. Our emergency department was recently recognized as one of the Top 10 in the country by Child magazine. Several faculty members are now asking whether the focus on accomplishment in these two important areas may have, in fact, distracted us from our primary mission in recent years.
It is time now for us to take this visionary spirit of innovation and dedication to success into the educational arena. We are already recognized by our medical students as providing an outstanding experience in pediatrics. Some have recently described it as "the best core rotation they have had". That is heady praise for us and it reflects not only the organization of the rotation, but also the effort and effectiveness of teaching by our faculty and our house staff. We now wish to improve the residency. (Surviving resident recruiting season makes one look closely at our own program, the subject of such detailed questioning and explanation over the last four months.)
We are seeking renewed commitment by faculty to teaching and by trainees to learning. Each group faces many other responsibilities and time commitments, but teaching and learning is why we are all here. I have dedicated personal attention and significant resources from the office of the chair to make this initiative a success. Mike Southgate has agreed to become the new Vice-Chair for Education. He will join me in chairing a new committee charged with oversight of the entire teaching program. We will create a mission statement for education so that we all agree where we are going. We will identify 5 - 10 similarly-sized pediatric programs around the country to who we feel we should compare ourselves who currently are viewed as stronger programs. We will be asking several groups, including current residents, recent graduates, and faculty, for their input as to our strengths and weaknesses. Once we have identified key areas which are ripe for improvement, we will establish subcommittees to get the work done effectively.
Once we know the goals we seek to accomplish, we will make changes. Several will occur before July 1, so that they are in place when the new residents are here. Others, including expanded internet education, more aggressive board review, altered conference formats, etc. are likely over the following few months. As residents are now being judged on their competencies in six crucial areas rather than just spending 33 months on clinical services, our individualized advisor - advisee program will be upgraded.
We will seek outside resources, from within and outside the Medical University, to "teach the teachers". Whether this takes the form of a series of workshops or a major retreat is not yet clear. What is clear is that we want accomplishment in teaching to become a major priority for our educator faculty. We have shown in the clinical and research areas that we can move from good to great. Initiative 2007 is the program to make this happen in education.
In short, I am putting the weight of the office of the chair behind this innovative effort. I challenge each faculty member to become even better at their teaching and each trainee to become better at learning (for a lifetime). As we are being pushed by the dean to "hardwire excellence" at MUSC, we will push him for support of our educational mission.
Join us in this ride to the top. It won't be easy but it will be rewarding and extremely important for the future of our department. We'll let you know about our progress as we move along.
Sincerely,
L. Lyndon Key, MD
Chair, Department of Pediatrics
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