Courses for Medical Students
The Department of Medical Education faculty teach the following courses to medical students through the University of Michigan Medical School:
- Fordson Outreach
- Medical Spanish
- Residents as Teachers
- Sociocultural Medicine
- Teaching in the Biomedical Sciences
Fordson Outreach
The goals of this outreach are to:
- Foster interest among high school students of Middle Eastern background in the health sciences as a career choice
- Provide academic enrichment and mentoring to these students
- Serve as positive role models.
Activities include twice-weekly after-school tutoring/mentoring sessions, college preparatory workshops, and M-designed seminars and projects related to medicine and other allied health sciences.
Contact: Martha M. Funnell, M.S., M.H.S.A.
Medical Spanish
This elective is an intensive 160-hour, non-clinical course available to intermediate-advanced bilingual students in their fourth year of medical school. It is offered in four weekly sessions of 40 hours each and has several core objectives:
- To provide students with a comprehensive introduction to Spanish medical terminology and communication skills, focusing on vocabulary building, grammar, comprehension and pronunciation.
- To prepare students to use Spanish in various medical settings, including basic examinations, specialty clinics, emergency room visits, and common procedures.
- To familiarize students with common Latino health challenges and aspects of Latino culture that can affect patients’ health and their healthcare decisions.
- To give students direct experience using medical Spanish in encounters with native speakers, along with practical techniques to manage any cultural challenges that may arise.
Contact: Anna Gonzalez, Ph.D. and Larry D. Gruppen, Ph.D.
Residents as Teachers
This fourth-year elective for medical students uses a wide range of instructional
formats to cover various topics. Instructional formats are chosen to demonstrate
best practices.
Course activities include:
- Writing a description of personal education philosophy (done at the beginning and end of the elective)
- Reflecting on best and worst educational experiences
- Analyzing theories of learning and their implications for medical education
- Attending a workshop on the one-minute preceptor model of clinical teaching
- Training and practicing techniques for facilitating small groups
- Learning the use of technology in education, especially effective use of PowerPoint
- Developing and practicing a five-minute “chalk talk”
- Learning the principles of providing effective education feedback
- Training and practicing (with feedback) techniques for large-group instruction (lecturing skills)
- Preparing and practicing a skills instruction session
- Reviewing the Brief Structured Observation technique of clinical evaluation and instruction
- Discussing methods and principles relevant to patient education
- Designing, developing and presenting specialty relevant educational module for use in residency program teaching role
Contact: Robert M. Anderson, Ed.D.
Sociocultural Medicine
The primary goal of this elective is to provide an opportunity for medical students to become more directly involved in designing, implementing, and evaluating efforts to integrate diversity topics into medical training and to conduct research addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health and healthcare. The types of experiences are multiple and can include but are not limited to the following:
- Conducting medical education research investigations
- Participating in a research study examining cultural and social determinants or health and health behavior
- Conducting a review of the literature on a diversity topic of interest
- Any educational or research activity addressing social, cultural, economic, or diversity-related issues in the context of health care
Contact: Patricia B. Mullan, Ph.D.
Teaching in the Biomedical Sciences
This semester-long course provides Ph.D. graduate students in the biomedical
sciences with a practical and applied introduction to:
- Basic principles of curriculum design
- Student assessment
- Teaching methods
- Educational practice
The course emphasizes hands-on practice in a variety of techniques with formative feedback.
Contact: Larry D. Gruppen, Ph.D.
