Abstract Rationale Identifying the need to define educational goals and standardize an educational track in our fellowship, we sought to form a strong and lasting partnership between the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and our Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship, hereby defined as Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) and Graduate Medical Education (GME). Created in 2023, we have worked to define, standardize, implement, and expand a rigorous Clinical Educator Track in our program. This track allows fellow educators to participate in formal medical student education, focusing on the pre-clerkship years and becoming fully integrated with the UME environment. In this novel track, selected fellow educators serve as leads for the Pulmonary Course in the UMSOM Year II curriculum. Methods Participation in this track creates a coaching relationship between faculty and fellow educators that defines track objectives, facilitates direct observation, and offers targeted feedback to foster their growth as skilled educators. Fellow educational responsibilities focus on serving as lead educator in small group sessions, facilitating group discussion through case-based learning. Additional requirements include attendance at course logistics planning meetings, exam creation, and leading the end of course review session. In addition to the 4 weeks of daily educational commitments during the Pulmonary Course, the fellows return to the UME classroom in the winter and spring, functioning as pulmonary experts for our UME Multisystems Course, and our Transition to Residency Course. Results This track was created in 2023 as a pilot program, to evaluate feasibility of having a fellow educator formally participate in medical student education in the pre-clerkship phase. It was deemed a success on subjective evaluation by the GME and UME teams. Further, medical student feedback was uniformly positive, and considering this reception, the track was expanded to include two fellow educators. Graduates of this track have pursued formal careers in medical education. Conclusions A defined educational track, with equal buy in from GME and UME, offers unique opportunities for fellow educators. Participation in this track may impact future career choices, contribute to teaching portfolio building, and provides formal recognition of track completion at time of fellow graduation. There are well defined educational tracks in other PCCM programs, however here we present a novel pathway in which fellows are fully embedded in and recognized by UME. This abstract is funded by: none
Grier et al. (Fri,) studied this question.