I have been a certified PA for over 20 years, have worked in PA education for nearly 10 years and obtained an EdD in educational technology. I have been fortunate to spend the past 15 years of my career at Stanford University School of Medicine both as a clinician and a faculty member. Associated with this work I have served on a variety of committees through key national organizations including the NCCPA, PAEA and American College of Cardiology with foci on curriculum development for students and trainees, professional standard setting for practice entry, faculty development and research.
If you’re like me, you’re focused on learner outcomes, promoting effective teaching and learning strategies, and student and faculty engagement. As faculty, we are all pressured by constraints on our time, institutional mandates, student expectations, and what can seem like an oversized emphasis on standardized assessments.
Stanford was doing an excellent job addressing these challenges, as are institutions around the country. My work with PAEA brought the needs of faculty and students into focus in a broader way. But so much important and innovative work is happening in silos; we’re wasting a lot of brainpower and resources working towards individually solving our common challenges.
That’s what led me to change. Here, my opportunity is to be a connector. It’s to share expertise and best practices across the country to move us forward more quickly. There is rapid growth in the PA education space, and with that comes significant needs in the realm of faculty development and support, and curricular development and implementation.
Here, my opportunity is to be a connector. It’s to share expertise and best practices across the country to move us forward more quickly.
I want to demonstrate the value and focus that comes with a best-in-class medical education ecosystem like OnlineMedEd. And I’m helping them take a leap forward, specifically with PA challenges.
When I made the decision to work at scale to try to alleviate shared pain points, I evaluated the market before choosing who I wanted to work for. In doing so, I found myself naturally aligned to OnlineMedEd.
Here’s what put me over the top:
The mission
OnlineMedEd was founded to bring quality education to anyone in the world, regardless of economic status. It’s a business and has to monetize, and the org is always looking for ways to add value, but a core tenet is to support people where they are. We offer free video content to elevate and equilibrate professionals, reducing gaps in access and equity.
The quality of the content
It is focused on learning for understanding, not memorization. This has a direct translation to performance in practice, not just on the tests. Tests are important, but patients are paramount and central to the decisions being made in medical education.
The technology platform is built around sound educational methodology
It is a service to the content, meant to enhance it. Every other org I evaluated makes the educators fit the technology. Here there is creative freedom. Since the technology team serves the content, improvements that are prioritized are in the educational experience first.
The existing buy-in
There are literally tens of thousands of PA students already on the platform, loving it, and saying great things. Having the student buy-in facilitates our work as faculty. It’s been a great opportunity already, as it’s easy to get feedback locally or nationally to engage learners on their needs and expectations. Some of the top PA programs in the country have already caught on and use it as a core tool; I want to share their successes.
The Institutional Success team
OnlineMedEd has assembled a team of experienced faculty from medical schools around the country with expertise in faculty development, instructional design, hybrid curriculum implementation, assessment, student success and remediation. This team has tremendous experience and is here to support your program faculty and students every step of the way.
At OnlineMedEd my expectations are heard and amplified. The conversations I want to have are academic; they’re about faculty facilitation and integration. When I was on the other side I didn’t want to talk to sales people; I wanted to talk to peers, understand the value they’re receiving from product x, and why. With me here, now we can all do exactly that.
Let’s work together on making lives better: for our patients, our learners, and ourselves. Click here to start a conversation with me.
