Changing Strategies in Interprofessional Rural Health Education

Vikas Gampa, MD

Fellow in Rural Health Leadership at MGH

PGY 4

02/18/2020 

Vikas Gampa, MD using
new skills to conduct
a teaching session in Rosebud
South Dakota

I work as an outpatient provider at an Indian Health Service hospital in rural South Dakota where I have the incredible privilege of working alongside NP/PA/medical students, residents, and colleagues to collectively care for our patients. I attended the CTS workshop to learn skills to structure teaching sessions in a challenging learning environment.

As an outpatient provider, I staff my own patients with students and occasionally help my colleagues with care of complex patients, which sometimes requires teaching. Attending the CTS course has allowed me to think about designing teaching topics that are focused and intended to be beneficial for learners at various stages in their careers in medicine. Ultimately, this requires flexibility to attend to the needs of the learners and to understand the limitations of the environment. In an environment such as ours where learners often experience cognitive overload, I've been more cognizant of the information that I share and have learned to be concise in the material I discuss with other learners.