BUMC Celebrates 14th Annual John McCahan Medical Campus Education Day

More than 100 enthusiastic faculty, staff, trainees and students from MED, SPH, GMS, GSDM and BMC attended the 14th Annual John McCahan Medical Campus Education Day on May 29 in Hiebert Lounge.

Karen Antman, MD, BU Medical Campus Provost and School of Medicine Dean, opened the event, emphasizing the important roles educators play in education and research institutions such as ours. Drs. Bruce Birren and Aza Allsop led the keynote lecture, “Implicit Bias & Microaggressions: How our brain takes short cuts,” which explored the neuroscience underlying implicit biases, microaggressions and other well-intended human behaviors that result in negative or even hurtful impacts on others. As examples of microaggressions were presented, attendees actively shared and exchanged their marginalized experiences and what microaggressions looked like in their surroundings, but more importantly, also offered ways to minimize unintended microaggressions by being more cognizant of our own behaviors.

The keynote lecture was followed by four workshops to inform educators about exam resources available at the BU Medical Library, how to design instruction to optimize cognitive load and retention, the clinical reasoning process for diagnosing patients, and how faculty can improve trainee feedback.

McCahan Day also featured the Dean’s Panel, which highlighted educational innovations being implemented in each school on the Medical Campus, with Drs. Fadie Coleman (GMS), Yvette Cozier (SPH), Yoshiyuki Mochida (GSDM) and Ann Zumwalt (MED) representing their respective schools. Each school also recognized outstanding faculty educators. This year, MED presented the BUSM Educator of the Year in Clinical Sciences (to Leon Castaneda, MD, MDiv) at Kaiser Permanente via Zoom in real time, marking the first year to incorporate teleconferencing technology.

The event ended with three oral presentations that were selected as Best Abstracts in the categories of Faculty, Student and Resident/Fellow as well as a stimulating poster session. All abstracts presented at the event, along with a list of additional resources on microaggressions, can be found online at https://www.bumc.bu.edu/jmedday/.

See photos from the day on Facebook.