Growing Together

Ayumi Maeda, MD

Fellow in Obstetric Anesthesiology 

Brigham and Women's Hospital 

PGY 11

02/22/2021

Ayumi Maeda, MD

I’m a very nervous person, to begin with.  I hate public speaking; in fact, speaking up in class was not always a virtue in the culture I grew up.  And what’s worse, English is not my first language.  Giving a lecture in English, therefore, had been nothing but a torture – I would have done anything to be exempt from such an obligation.  Every time I give an assigned lecture to residents, I wish I could have been a better lecturer and didn’t have to waste their precious time.  And I hated being like that.  With this desperate frustration, I signed up for this Clinical Teaching Skills course – as if jumping off the cliff.

This course didn’t improve my public speaking skills nor reduce my accent in English.  However, it did help me shift my focus from myself (being an unskilled teacher) to the audience of my lectures and the receivers of my feedbacks.  

I was reminded by Dr Milligan’s lecture that even the best lecture can be meaningless if the students don’t have the availability to listen (I regret reviewing my 50+ page slides with a resident at 2am; it wasn’t the perfect time for teaching).  The 70/30 rule Dr Baker presented helped me understand why teaching a math to my child is so challenging (I didn’t know I was providing only 30% of the information he needed!).  Dr Ramani surprised me by saying that all the assumptions I had on feedbacks were actually wrong.  For me, the best take-home message from today’s session was from her: I want to live the rest of my life with a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset.

Peer trainees who were in the same small group advised me that my presentation could be more interactive and informative if I started off by asking the audience what they do and do not know.  I’ve realized how much I was worried about me – my slides, my accent, my fluency etc – and how little I was caring about their expectations.

I had an epiphany today that I can become a better teacher by prioritizing how I can help them improve, rather than how good or bad my lectures or feedbacks would sound to them.  By centering them and them alone, and seeking for how best I can help them grow, I can ultimately grow to be a better educator myself.  I really appreciate this career-changing opportunity, and would like to take this time to thank everyone who organized this CTS course in the midst of the pandemic – Drs Milligan, Baker and Ramani, Lisa and Sadie.