Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn.

Yun-Han (Hannah) Huang, MD. 

Resident in Internal Medicine

Brigham and Women's Hospital 

PGY 1

11/13/2020 

Yun-Han (Hannah) Huang, MD

In May, as medical schools in NYC prepared to restart clinical rotations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I was recruited to help organize a course on COVID-19. Newly graduated, I found it an exciting but challenging experience—one that increased my appreciation of the dedicated medical educators with whom I worked. Motivated to learn more, I applied to the COE Clinical Teaching Skills Course this fall.

 The most surprising part of the course, however, was that the concepts that we learned were applicable beyond clinical teaching. We learned, for example, about a 70/30 rule of information transfer. The concept is that experts, when explaining a procedure, only transmit 30% of the information necessary to replicate that procedure. Only 30%! Imagine the variety of scenarios where this could apply beyond clinical teaching:

-          Clinical and scientific presentations

-          Interactions with patients

-          Hand-offs between clinical team members

 Returning to my next clinical rotation, I found that this framework changed the way I asked and answered questions. After all, 30% information transfer means that the remaining 70% needs to be solicited. This concept (and others presented in the course) improved my interactions with colleagues and patients, and it made me not only a better teacher but also a better learner.