Welcome to ROUNDS!

This weekly e-newsletter goes out to all OU-COM and CORE personnel and students.

 

The ROUNDS archive is here.

 

 

NEWS

Soto wins Minority Scholars Award

Catalina Soto, OMS II, was one of just 12 medical students nationwide to receive a 2009 Minority Scholars Award, including a $10,000 scholarship, from the American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation. The award recognizes her excellence as a medical student and outstanding promise for a future career in medicine.

 

Medical students recognized at 2009 Research Expo

Five OU-COM students were recognized for their scholarship and innovation at the 2009 Student Research and Creative Activity Expo Thursday.

For the medicine category, judges decided to award two second-place awards, one of which went to a group project. Awardees were:

The event—which attracted a record high of more than 600 undergraduate, graduate and medical students as well as postdoctoral fellow participants—showcased Ohio University student research, scholarship and creative activity.

Faculty and staff judges awarded first- and second-place prizes to dozens of individual and group projects in 60 categories organized by discipline.

The Student Research and Creative Activity Expo is sponsored by the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate College, the Office of the President, and the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.

·        For a full list of awardees, go to: www.ohiou.edu/research/students.

 

Chagas project podcasts

A podcast series about the OU-COM Tropical Disease Institute’s Chagas project in Ecuador is now online on the institute’s web site, www.oucom.ohiou.edu/tdi/Podcasts/index.htm.

Project director, Mario Grijalva, Ph.D., is an associate professor of biomedical sciences and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research at Catholic University of Educador in Quito.

The podcasts also have been submitted to the iTunes Store, where they are part of the TDI RSS feed.

 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Commencement logistics

            Graduates take heed: a few more of Carol Blue’s indispensable graduation tips:

For more sage commencement advice, go here: www.oucom.ohiou.edu/Commencement2009/AdditionalInformation.htm.

 

 

CALENDAR

Asian American Heritage Month lecture

Cora Munoz, Ph.D., R.N., professor of nursing at Capital University in Columbus, who also is a Fulbright Scholar, will lecture on “Developing Cultural Competency in the Care of the Asian Client.” Munoz will discuss the relevance and imperatives for cultural competency, identify the various components of a model of cultural competence for health professions and discuss some culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate strategies in the care of the Asian client.

 

Conliffe retirement reception

OU-COM will host a retirement reception for Bobbi Conliffe, MLS, coordinator curriculum resources.

·        Event: Thursday, May 28, 2 to 4 p.m., Grosvenor West 111

 

Commencement 2009

            Join us in celebration of OU-COM’s newest Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine!

·        Event: Saturday, June 6, 10 a.m., Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium

 

 

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Faculty Development Tidbit: Group Work Improves Problem-Solving Abilities

Problem solving in a group forces individuals to be more thoughtful or, as educational psychologists would say, it promotes metacognition. Having to justify decisions to others—especially when there are competing answers and/or skeptical group members—staves off guessing or glossing over details.

Some benefits of group work include:

·        Student-to-student instruction: Students sometimes can help each other understand better than the teacher can. Because they’ve just learned the material, they know the way into that understanding, whereas teachers who’ve used the knowledge for years forget what it looked like when they first confronted it.

·        Co-construction: Students build on each other’s answers, creating a solution collectively. This may involve controversy and critique, but it causes students to think more deeply about the problem.

·        Self-explanation: Ideas can be amorphous, but when articulated, they become more concrete and easier to understand.

Ref: Cooper, M.M.; Cox, Jr., C.T.; Nammouz, M.; and Case, E. “An assessment of the effect of collaborative groups on students’ problem-solving strategies and abilities.”  Journal of Chemical Education, Volume 23, May 2009

Find more “Teaching Tips” at your OU-COM & CORE faculty development Web resources: www.oucom.ohiou.edu/fd/programs.htm or www.ohiocore.org/cf/index.htm. If you have a great strategy that seems to always work, please send it to me, and I’ll include it in a future Faculty Development Tidbit. (Tidbits courtesy of your office of faculty development with Steve Davis, Ph.D.; Robbin Kirkland, Ph.D.; and Olivia Sheehan, Ph.D.)

 

OU-COM staffer co-authors white paper

Kapil Bajaj, programmer/analyst in OU-COM information systems and instructional technology, co-authored a white paper, “Health Information Exchanges: Similarities and Differences," for the HIMSS HIE Best Practices Task Force, March 2009. The paper can be viewed at www.himss.org/content/files/RHIO/HIE_CommonPracticesWhitePaper20090330.pdf.

 

 

Please send your news/announcements to rounds@oucom.ohiou.edu each week by Wednesday, 3 p.m., for consideration in the following week’s ROUNDS. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact Anita Martin, assistant director of communication, at 593.2199 or martina@oucom.ohiou.edu.