COE CTS: Learning to Teach

Qinglan Huang, MD

Resident in Anesthesiology 

Massachusetts General Hospital 

PGY 2

10/31/2020

Qinglan Huang, M.D. 

As physicians, we're given to understand that in academic medicine, we must all become outstanding teachers - but never in medical school did we learn exactly how to teach. Throughout my schooling, I have been exposed to many different styles of teaching and I was told that I should find the studying method that is most effective for me personally. However, as I have learned throughout the CTS course, there are evidence-based methods to learning and teaching - methods that may have helped significantly had we applied them throughout our education process and will help significantly if we apply them in our role as both learners and teachers from now onwards.

Understanding the steps to delivering impactful feedback and the importance of context-dependent memory will help guide the way I plan to teach in the future. If we are to apply our learning directly in the operating room, then teaching critical skills in the OR setting makes much more sense than teaching those same steps in a classroom setting, even if the same equipment is present in both settings. This COE CTS course has made me think deeper into the standardized tests that currently act as the certification and confirmation of our learning the proper material - and what potential other, better markers may exist to ensure learning.

We are oftentimes too caught up in our day-to-day schedules that we don't think deeper into how we can do and teach more efficiently, in a way that is more engaging and allows our learners to retain more of that information. It was refreshing to hear that same sentiment be echoed by so many of my peers, and to learn to tackle that problem together.