Learning how to continue to learn at the Clinical Teaching Skills course.

Nupur Dandawate, MD

Resident in Internal Medicine

North Shore Medical Center/Salem Hospital 

PGY 2

Nupur Dandawate, MD

Getting into an internal medicine residency was a dream come true for me. After having the opportunity to build on my medical knowledge and clinical judgement while I train, it only seems natural for me to want to help guide those who train after me. I have had the pleasure of having so many great teachers and I wanted to help grow my skill set to be able to impart what I have learned to others. 

The clinical teaching skills course allowed me to really understand what I knew about teaching, what my preconceived notions about it were and it helped guide me to a place of growth and understanding in this area. 

I always imagined myself in some form of a teaching role later in my career, the clinical teaching skills course strengthened this belief as I now feel more confident in my ability to incorporate pockets of teaching within a busy day, give feedback in an effective way and how to, hopefully, drive those I am training to grow themselves. 

 Amongst the vast majority of expectations from clinicians such as continuously building our clinical knowledge, interpersonal skills with colleagues and patients, academic duties, we often may not have the bandwidth to acquire the skills required to be an effective teacher. Hence, with the clinical teaching skills course I was able to pause and reflect on this. As clinicians we will continue to learn throughout our careers, that being said, being aware of areas we need to work on and taking control is always beneficial and will only help us improve. 

 From this course, I hope to incorporate what I learned about the psychosocial aspect of giving and receiving Feedback. I really enjoyed our discussions around this topic with Dr Shubha Ramani who was amazing and I would love to spend more time with. I believe that as I hopefully progress in my career, I continue to reflect on what I learnt at the course which is to pause and look at the meaning behind why we incorporate different types of teaching techniques and our skills in giving feedback. I hope to understand my learners better as well as myself as a learner too. There will always be someone superior to us and vice versa, by understanding ourselves first and where our learners and superiors are coming from, we can improve our abilities of creating a harmonious learning environment.