MCW Innovations in Healthcare Education Research (IHER) Newsletter

Spring Edition | March 2023

Welcome

Welcome to the second issue of the MCW Innovations in Healthcare Education Research (IHER) Conference's quarterly newsletter. Inside, you will discover details about our 10^th annual IHER Conference, which will take place September 19-21, 2023, in a hybrid format. This information can also be found on the 2023 MCW IHER website.

The theme for this year’s conference is Adapting Healthcare Education to Transform Learners and Educators.

To give members of our community the opportunity to attend the conference in a manner that meets their individual preferences, the three-day 2023 IHER Conference will be a combination of in-person, online and hybrid presentations. Some of you may remember our first IHER conference, which took place on June 18, 2014, for a half-day, in-person gathering at the MCW Alumni Center. The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health's Associate Dean for Medical Education, Christine Seibert, MD, delivered our keynote address, which was followed by 12 oral presentations and 18 paper poster presentations. While we may have many new people, subjects and presentation formats over three whole days in 2023, we still have the same remarkable IHER community as we did in 2014!

As always, the exciting 2023 keynote speakers will be brought to you during the luncheon plenary sessions. The MCW Office of Academic Affairs and the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education are sponsoring national speakers this year both in-person and online. Be sure to register for the conference so that you won’t miss these exciting presentations! Registration for the 2023 conference will open on Friday, Sept. 1.

As we look forward to our 10^th annual conference, we should recognize that many of our colleagues have already begun to submit proposals. Those who prefer to lead workshops, facilitate roundtables and preside over panel discussions are encouraged to visit the 2023 IHER website and submit your proposals by April 1. You will have already received our initial request for proposals for conference workshops, roundtables and panel sessions on March 1. The second request for submissions for fireside chats, world cafés, ignite sessions and innovations and research abstracts will be disseminated on April 1. More information regarding proposal submissions can be found in the Moving Forward section of our newsletter.

The recent year has seen a lot of activity in the international headlines related social media. We will continue to use social media tools like Twitter to keep connected with people, disseminate our findings and stay current. Social media channels are ideal for sharing your visual abstracts, many of which you generated for the first time at the IHER Conference last year!

The velocity of international news in the field of advanced technology is mind-boggling! We continue to be astounded by weekly advances in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, virtual and augmented reality and blockchain technology. We recommend giving one of the newest natural language tools, like the open-source Stable Diffusion, a try when making graphics for presentations and visual abstracts. The Tech Corner section of our newsletter provides additional specifics about this topic.

You will be kept up to date on current IHER Conference announcements by extensive communications efforts across numerous media channels, such as email communications, articles shared via MCW's intranet platform (InfoScope) and regular updates to the IHER Conference webpage.

Please share your suggestions and feedback with us via email at IHERConference@mcw.edu.

We look forward to seeing you in-person and online at the 2023 MCW IHER Conference!

Sincerely,

2023 MCW IHER Conference Steering Committee

Spotlight

Presentations

Many of our steering committee members have presented outcomes from the IHER Conference at regional, national and international conferences! That’s right! We presented what we do here at IHER to conferences such as the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE), AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA) and the University of Southern California Innovations in Medical Education (USC IME) meeting. Listed below are three presentations given in the last year.

University of Southern California Innovations in Medical Education (USC IME)

The most recent presentation, entitled, “Outcomes of a Healthcare Education Research Conference Using Innovative Communication Methods,” and authored by Robert Treat PhD, Lisa Bozic MA, Lyniece Rzepka, and Kerrie Quirk M.Ed, was delivered at the 2023 USC IME on February 17.

Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE)

In August 2022, “Deploying Virtual Reality Speed Poster Sessions in a Medical School Healthcare Education Research Online Conference” was presented by Robert Treat PhD, Amy Prunuske PhD, Austin Gerdes MPH, Rachel Kavanaugh, PharmD, BCACP at the 2022 AMEE conference.

AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA)

On March 30, 2022, “Integrating Virtual Reality in an Institutional Healthcare Education Research Online Conference” was presented by Robert Treat PhD, Amy Prunuske PhD, Austin Gerdes MPH, Rachel Kavanaugh, PharmD, BCACP at the 2022 AAMC CGEA spring meeting.

School of Pharmacy

The MCW School of Pharmacy is thrilled to introduce our four newest pharmacy representatives to the Innovations in Healthcare Education Research Committee!

Dr. Carolyn Oxencis, PharmD, BCOP
Pharmacogenomics Clinical Pharmacist, Froedtert Health
Clinical Assistant Professor – MCW School of Pharmacy
Adjunct Assistant Professor – MCW Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Carrie is a champion of case-based instruction and teaching clinical concepts in the context of patient care. She enjoys sharing innovative and creative teaching and learning techniques to help everyone become better at their craft.

She is excited to form shared experiences with scholarship between the MCW School of Medicine and School of Pharmacy as this is critical to collaborative research!

Rachele Harrison, PharmD, MEd
Assistant Professor, Clinical Sciences Department

Rachele is active with student engagement and professional development. She is excited to join a platform that provides educators the opportunity to share innovative educational approaches to enhance learning within healthcare education.

Caitlin Giller
Education Program Coordinator for Professional Labs II

Caitlin works with pharmacy students in various lab activities and is excited to join the IHER Committee since she is relatively new to the realm of medical education and believes this experience can assist in broadening her knowledge in learning about innovative approaches to maximize student educational experiences.

Saba Tahir
Doctor of Pharmacy Candidate, Class of 2024

Saba is thrilled to be the School of Pharmacy student representative of the IHER Committee. She loves new opportunities for research development. The IHER Committee has already introduced her to a variety of renowned professionals in the healthcare field who share her love for innovative discovery.

Behind-the-Scenes

From the Mind of a Machine

An artificial intelligence search engine, which provides OpenAI's Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3.5 (GPT-3.5) transformer called YouChat to generate text based on user input, was asked to write two paragraphs on the future of hybrid conferences, and this is what it provided:

The future of hybrid conferences looks very promising. With the ability to reach a larger audience and reduce costs, hybrid conferences are becoming more and more popular. Additionally, hybrid conferences allow attendees to engage with one another more easily, allowing for more meaningful conversations and collaboration. Furthermore, hybrid conferences can be tailored to the specific needs of the attendees, allowing for more personalization and a more engaging experience. With the right tools and strategies in place, hybrid conferences can provide a unique and powerful experience that will be invaluable to attendees.

Hybrid conferences of the future will also be incorporating more advanced technology, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence, in order to create immersive experiences. Additionally, the use of analytics and data-driven insights will ensure that hybrid conferences are tailored to the interests and needs of their attendees, leading to higher engagement and satisfaction. Finally, the use of hybrid events will allow for the creation of more interactive experiences, allowing attendees to interact with speakers and other attendees in real time. The future of hybrid conferences looks very exciting, and these developments will provide a powerful platform for sharing knowledge and ideas.

Tech Corner

Many new natural language processing technologies have been in the news lately, and it can be challenging to keep up on the new algorithms designed to make our lives better. The new text-to-image models provide us with an opportunity to strategically submit a series of words and phrases called prompts and generate amazing photos in return. While you may have heard of OpenAI DALL·E 2 or Midjourney, one of the more recent models called Stable Diffusion was freely released to the public in August 2022. Stable Diffusion is a specific type of generative neural network called a latent diffusion model. We ask our presenters to consider using a text-to-image model to create artwork for their presentations and visual abstracts. You can download great guides on creating prompts to generate Stable Diffusion images:

Please send your questions about the use of text-to-image software to IHERConference@mcw.edu.

Transformational Ideas Initiative

The Transformational Ideas Initiative (TI2), which focuses on innovating and transforming medical education, is continuing its partnership with IHER!

Please join the 2022-2023 teams in celebrating their journey through iterative design as they present their posters. This is a great opportunity to exchange ideas with each team about their design journey and explore what they have created during their TI2 experience.

New for this year at IHER are Emerging Innovation Roundtables, which will be presented by the 2023-2024 TI2 teams. These groups will have just started their TI2 journey and could benefit from engaging in inquisitive discourse about their projects.

All who are interested in submitting to the 2023-2024 TI2 program are invited to click here to submit an application. We are accepting teams that are interested in experimenting, and that are curious, compassionate change makers who have ideas that can improve the learning environment for students, residents and/or fellows at MCW. To learn more, please visit the Transformational Ideas Initiative website.

Moving Forward

Call-for-Proposals

Submit Now! Workshops | Roundtables | Panel Sessions

For those interested in facilitating a workshop, moderating a roundtable or presiding over a panel session at the IHER Conference, the submission deadline is April 1. Authors will be notified of the review committees’ decisions of their submissions by May 1.

Coming in April! Oral Presentations | Ignite Presentations | Posters

On April 1, we will be opening the remaining call-for-proposals for the ten-minute oral presentations, five-minute ignite presentation, three-minute speed posters, and in-person paper posters. That’s right! After four long years, the paper posters have returned! The last time we had the chance to casually stroll through the paper posters and chat with our colleagues about their innovative ideas and research findings was 2019. The submission deadline for the proposals referenced above and listed below is May 1, and authors will be notified by Jun 10.

5-minute Ignite Session
Innovations in Healthcare Education Abstract | Submit a 10-minute oral presentation, 3-minute speed poster or paper poster
Research in Healthcare Education Abstract | Submit a 10-minute oral presentation, 3-minute speed poster or paper poster
NEW! Fireside Chat | A Fireside Chat is an informal yet structured interview between a moderator and a guest. It's a unique opportunity to uncover the speaker's expertise, personal stories and ideas. The Fireside Chat sessions are intended to be informative yet conversational with an allocated time 30 or 60 minutes.
NEW! World Cafés | A World Café is a structured conversational process for sharing knowledge in which groups of people discuss a topic at several small tables like those in a café. There should be pre-defined questions for the World Café, but outcomes or solutions are not decided beforehand. There should be at least three to five small tables for people to move between, with a facilitator for each table. The World Café moderator can choose to be one of the session facilitators if they choose to do so. You may rotate the facilitators or the participants from table to table depending on whether the World Café is online or in person. The allocated time is 60 minutes.

Website

Check out our 2023 IHER Conference website and come back monthly as we add new information about our 10^th annual conference!

Submit an Idea

If you have an idea for the IHER Conference, no matter how large or small, no matter how wild or calm, please e-mail the committee at IHERConference@mcw.edu, using the subject heading: 2023 IHER Idea. If we accept your idea, you will receive credit on the website, an InfoScope article and in the Conference program.

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