Updated website,Harvard Macy Institute and SMU

[GoodDoc]

Twenty-five health science educators from the United States and Grand Cayman gathered at the St. Matthew’s University (SMU) School of Medicine for a six-day professional development program.

The course, held in December, was customized using elements developed for the Harvard Macy Institute. Elizabeth Armstrong, PhD, head of the Institute and director of education programs at HMI, co-directed the course along with K**** M***, PhD, professor of medicine and director of the Division of Medical Education at Dalhousie University. A** S****, PhD, Medical Educator at SMU, and G**** G****, MD, who is executive dean and chairman of the Department of Pre-Clinical Medicine at SMU, also served on the program’s faculty. Mr. B*** C****, chief executive officer of Grid, a management training organization, was on hand to lead a session on team behaviors.
http://www.hmiworld.org/hmi/issues/Mar_April_2006/images/macy_cayman_grad.jpgE***** A***** speaking at graduation ceremonies for SMU students last year.
“This course was designed with three major objectives in mind: to help the participants examine approaches to teaching, to enable SMU to improve as an institution, and to help foster a community of scholars focused on improving medical education among universities in the Caribbean,” said A******.

G****, an alumnus of the Institute’s Boston-based programs, said that the course succeeded in providing the foundation for a network of like-minded educators addressing similar challenges in education.

The course resulted in the design of five institutional projects, including a curriculum design program aimed at integrating the basic science and clinical curricula throughout the four years of medical school. Another project has the goal of standardizing the education component of the third-year clinical rotations at SMU. Other projects included an effort to create online teaching tools for students in the clinical years, and a collaboration, developed by a group from one of SMU’s clinical sites in the U.S., focused on increasing scholarly activities among their faculty.

“Each of these projects generated a significant amount of enthusiasm among the program’s participants,” said A****. “Ultimately, the best measure of their success will be their implementation and full integration into the curricular planning of the institution.”

A follow-up workshop will be held at the end of the April to review the progress of each of the projects and continue the work of buliding communication links among the faculty and participants.

http://www.hmiworld.org/hmi/issues/Mar_April_2006/macy.html

[fatask]

Sounds good!

[GoodDoc]

Program for Caribbean Educators in the Health Sciences
Sponsor:St. Matthew's University School of Medicine (http://www.stmatthews.edu/)Objective:To enhance the professional development of health professions faculty in the Caribbean and Latin American regions as educators and facilitators of reformDates:December 11-15, 2005Location:Grand Cayman Island, British West Indies Selected Topics:Learning & Teaching
Curriculum Development
Evaluation & Assessment
Faculty DevelopmentSelected Faculty:Course directors: E***** A*****, PhD; T** A***, MDAudience:Faculty educators in the Caribbean and Latin American regions

http://hmi.harvard.edu/cc/courses/fd_caribbean_2005.php

[Banker794]

What does all this mean? In other words why did they choose cayman and SMU?

[GoodDoc]

anything new about this HMI with SMU?

[stephew]

this is old news and let me be clear about this.
SMU does NOT have a relationship with Harvard in ANY WAY that will effect/benfit students from a practical standpoint. Do NOT get yourself excited over this. The reason Im making an issue of this is that a few months ago everal users went on about this and trumpeting the "harvard relationship". SMU did nothing to correct the misimpression some of these students innocently had.

HMI is a harvard group that helps to develop foreign programs in underdeveloped regions of the world and ALSO there is a "teach the teachers" program. Its this latter thing that SMU is involved with. While its a nice thing, this is merely an issue of SMU profs being able to attend this program to learn about theories in teaching (harvard is big on that and might I add that as a harvard instructor myself, Im less than impressed with harvard's curriculum but that's another issue.)

Please let me be clear. From what I know of SMU it has a lot of strengths, the students are happy and its a fine offshore option. but unfortunately students get excited about connections that will not benefit them in any pragmatic way at all (if their profs learn to teach with a more effective curriculum, more power to them). There is NO harvard affiliation. In the past innocence has misled some students and worse, a few cynically relied on others misunderstanding the relationship.

[Knight007]

this is old news and let me be clear about this.
SMU does NOT have a relationship with Harvard in ANY WAY that will effect/benfit students from a practical standpoint. Do NOT get yourself excited over this. The reason Im making an issue of this is that a few months ago everal users went on about this and trumpeting the "harvard relationship". SMU did nothing to correct the misimpression some of these students innocently had.

HMI is a harvard group that helps to develop foreign programs in underdeveloped regions of the world and ALSO there is a "teach the teachers" program. Its this latter thing that SMU is involved with. While its a nice thing, this is merely an issue of SMU profs being able to attend this program to learn about theories in teaching (harvard is big on that and might I add that as a harvard instructor myself, Im less than impressed with harvard's curriculum but that's another issue.)

Please let me be clear. From what I know of SMU it has a lot of strengths, the students are happy and its a fine offshore option. but unfortunately students get excited about connections that will not benefit them in any pragmatic way at all (if their profs learn to teach with a more effective curriculum, more power to them). There is NO harvard affiliation. In the past innocence has misled some students and worse, a few cynically relied on others misunderstanding the relationship.

Steph is right....... again...

Harvard MAcy designs Curriculum for SMU and does have a teaching program
for SMU professors which in my humble opinion has significantly
improved the professionalism and quality of teaching at SMU.

I see lots of changes... and so far they have been all positive...
regarding academia.

[AmericanIMG]

how is the teachers being in a prog that helps them become better students not "effect/benefit students in a practical way?"

i think anytime that a teacher improves him/herself all the students are better for it.

also, there is research (hyperparic stuff) going on w/ SMU and Harvard. i will see if i can find the pertinent info.

[dapimp36]

Good news. This definitely gives SMU some respect.

[stephew]

how is the teachers being in a prog that helps them become better students not "effect/benefit students in a practical way?"

i think anytime that a teacher improves him/herself all the students are better for it.

also, there is research (hyperparic stuff) going on w/ SMU and Harvard. i will see if i can find the pertinent info.yep i knew it was a matter of time only before someone said "doesnt better teaching mean a practical difference." to which i say, you probably know what I meant, and to assure at least most of you do, I qualified my prior post by heaping on praise for the concept of those interested in improving teaching.

Yet I really think you know what I meant by my original post. Most students are enraptured with this HMI relationship (and post it on vmd btw) not because they understand the relathipship and just like that their profs are self-improving with this relationship. They get nuts because they think this "connection" (and this includes the hyperbaric thing too) is somehow going to make smu more prestigous, give them new and better opportunities and they can boast of the harvard connection. My point is, not so much. Its a nice thing but its not what may innocently hope it is, and certainly not what some less scruplous types would let you believe it is. its akin to users who will remain nameless who harp about their schools "yale connection". They dont bother to exlpain to the naive that these "yale" rotations are not at yale proper. They are community hosptials affiliated with yale and to say you did a rotation at yale would be as blatant a lie as if an smu student said they got their degree from harvard. Now these yale affiliates may be quite good. But a naive student is overly impressed and the less scruplous person willfully misleads the naive into thinking they somehow are going to yale or getting residencies at yale because of this connection. They rely on your not understanding the relationship and what it means.

So at this point if one doesnt understand the reason I posted to clarify HMI and the SMU relationship, I offer than they just dont want to. Which is fine as I except those who want to understand what these things mean do.

[stephew]

Steph is right....... again...

Harvard MAcy designs Curriculum for SMU and does have a teaching program
for SMU professors which in my humble opinion has significantly
improved the professionalism and quality of teaching at SMU.

I see lots of changes... and so far they have been all positive...
regarding academia.see this is perfectly reasonable. If there is a tangible change and improvement, lets congratulate everyone for the interest and the change. Its just seeing the thing for what it is and taking it for what its worth, not pretending the relationship is more than it is. Having said that it would be nice if Harvard could do what it apparently can teach but that's another story.

[GoodDoc]

Do you think there is a difference between these two cases; 1. Your website shows president Bush’s picture and recent his activities. 2. George Bush's website talks about yours. I guess it is.

HMI website shows SMU and covering an entire page in their website. I don't see any other school in this website like they did for SMU.

So this is significant? I think it is. Can we say this is direct Harvard medical school connection? No, but we can say this is indirect Harvard connection through the HMI.

[AmericanIMG]

the students at SMU were given the detailed info on the rel w/ Harvard. sorry steph, i didnt think students didnt know the deal.

now your post makes more sense to me.

[stephew]

the students at SMU were given the detailed info on the rel w/ Harvard. sorry steph, i didnt think students didnt know the deal.

now your post makes more sense to me.
dont get me wrong. I hope that they do and that it truely benefits them with improved teaching. My caveat is merely with regard to those who are still naive or prone to those who would deliberately mislead. And unfortauntely im not speculating about the possibility- vmd several months ago saw this happen while those in the know let folks be mislead. Its also happened in other ways (the "yale" debauchal I referenced). Folks who've been on vmd for a while know what i'm refering to. So again dont get me wrong; its nice for smu and if it eventually over time grows into something substantial for the students in a way gooddoc envisions it, that's great. But it is vital that susceptible students and premeds dont let their hopes mislead them. this has been one dimension that has been prone in the past to lend itself to this kind of wishful thinking. That doesnt mean however it should stop you from being pleased for what it is.

[AmericanIMG]

also, we had harvard profs teach Path while i was doing Basics. in fact, it was the couple who taught path at Harvard, in Cayman for the summer semester of 05. great pair of teachers.

[you_make_me_sick]

also, we had harvard profs teach Path while i was doing Basics. in fact, it was the couple who taught path at Harvard, in Cayman for the summer semester of 05. great pair of teachers.a simple connection means you have a connection. its the pretending to be something that youre not that would make me scoff at the exaggerated relationship. smu has a connection to hmi and harvard. most caribbean schools do not. does smu claim to be harvard or even the harvard of the caribbean? no. nope. no way. smu claims to be a young school trying to continually get better. if the standard in medical curriculum is harvard, then this is the curriculum to try to implement. teach the faculty how its done and ideally the curriculum will improve. if harvards curriculum is not the best according to some, so be it. its all the politics of ivy league that creates a band wagon of followers who use a name to declare something like a curriculum to be the best. smu is not harvard. but undeniably smu does have a connection to hmi and harvard. most caribbean medical schools do not. take it for what its worth.

[AUCMD2006]

here we go again. yes it is a connection to HMI but it is a paid connection that anyschool could have. for some reason SMU saw that it's curriculum needed revamping, some of the residents I spoke with that were there 3 years ago said it needed it. it is a good thing for the students, the school cares about its curricula. this in no way implies a direct relationship.so the "indirect" in the statement above should be replaced with "paid". as for the profs teaching a semester...who in their right mind wouldn't want to? it is a 3 month PAID vacation! 3 hours a day )1 inclass, 1 office hour, 1 travel to and from school with the rest in a caribbean paradise while getting paid...

[GoodDoc]

here we go again. yes it is a connection to HMI but it is a paid connection that anyschool could have. for some reason SMU saw that it's curriculum needed revamping, some of the residents I spoke with that were there 3 years ago said it needed it. it is a good thing for the students, the school cares about its curricula. this in no way implies a direct relationship.so the "indirect" in the statement above should be replaced with "paid". as for the profs teaching a semester...who in their right mind wouldn't want to? it is a 3 month PAID vacation! 3 hours a day )1 inclass, 1 office hour, 1 travel to and from school with the rest in a caribbean paradise while getting paid...

So harvard professors go to AUC for the teachings and vacations?

[AmericanIMG]

are there any other carib med schools that have US med school profs teach them any classes, let alone ivy profs?