2012 Spring: Promises and Challenges of Virtual Learning Environment

Dr. Sara Kim is the Director of Instructional Design and Technology Unit (IDTU) and Adjunct Associate Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She received her PhD in educational technology from University of Washington where she served as a faculty member in the medical school between 2000 and 2010. Between 2000 and 2006, she was the medical educator faculty in the Department of Family Medicine. From 2006 to 2010, she served as an education specialist at the Institute of Simulation and Interprofessional Studies at the University of Washington Medical Center as well as a medical educator in the Departments of OB/GYN, Surgery, and Pediatric Dentistry. At UCLA, her role involves overseeing educational technology support and research in the medical student curriculum that includes the development and management of a learning management system, online interactive clinical reasoning tools, and educational database systems. Dr. Kim has numerous publications in the application and research of instructional technology in medical education. These publications have appeared in prominent journals including Academic Medicine, Medical Education, and Teaching and Learning in Medicine. She is also an active presenter at the Society of Simulation in Healthcare and AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) Research in Medical Education.

Katherine Wigan is a Senior Computer Programmer at Instructional Design and Technology Unit (IDTU). She received her Bachelor’s degree in Information and Computer Science in 2000 and her Master’s degree in Business Administration in 2009 from the University of California, Irvine. She joined IDTU as a full time Programmer in 2000. Her primary responsibilities include developing and maintaining an enterprise-wide patient log system as well as creating innovative and engaging educational tools. She also serves as a Project Manager to the current Learning Management System (LMS) review process and is responsible for developing a cost-benefit analysis on the LMS options.

Warren Wiechmann currently serves as the Faculty Director of Instructional Technologies at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine and the project leader for the school’s iMedEd Initiative (www.imeded.uci.edu), a comprehensive digital overhaul of the curriculum which uses the iPad as its centerpiece for curricular innovation.

Though relatively new in this position, his IT roots as a graphic designer and web applications developer pre-date his career in medicine. Throughout his medical training, he employed his programming background to enhance different facets of the medical student and resident experience, from the creation of the school’s first student intranet and online scheduling website to a comprehensive patient-tracking and management system for the UC Irvine Department of Emergency Medicine.

His interests include integration of technology to improve clinical workflows and efficiency, instructional technology and information design to enhance education, mobile and asynchronous learning, and the development of a medical student curriculum in informatics and instructional technology.

Dr. Wiechmann is also a practicing board-certified Emergency Medicine physician with the University of California, San Francisco-Fresno residency program and part of their Division of Emergency Ultrasound. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine.

Christof J. Daetwyler, MD, has spent his career since 1994 on the development of technology for medical education. He received the European Academic Software Award twice, and was Joe Henderson’s fellow at Dartmouth’ Interactive Media Lab from 2001 till 2004. In 2004 he joined Drexel University College of Medicine, where he became instrumental in the design and development of the WebOSCE technology and of DocCom, a series of 42 on-line modules for healthcare communication education, among other projects.

Dennis H. Novack, MD, is professor of Medicine and an associate dean at the DUCOM. He is an internist who did a fellowship with George Engel and colleagues. He has devoted his career to improving medical education in physician-patient communication and a bio-psycho-social approach to care.

Peter G. Anderson, D.V.M., Ph.D. is Professor and Director of Pathology Undergraduate Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. Dr. Anderson has a long-standing commitment and dedication to teaching and he has championed many innovations to health sciences education, particularly in the area of technology enhance learning. He has held leadership positions in numerous educational organizations including IAMSE, GRIPE, UMEDS, ASIP, and he is currently on the Board of the NBME and serves on the USMLE Step 1 Committee and is chair of the USMLE Pathology committee. Dr. Anderson has received numerous teaching awards including the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award, the Ellen Gregg Ingalls/UAB National Alumni Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching, the UAB Teaching Scholar Award, the UAB School of Medicine Excellence in Education Scholarship Award, and the UAB President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for the Joint Health Sciences.

Edward C. Klatt MD is Professor of Pathology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Mercer University School of Medicine in Savannah, Georgia, USA. He is the Director of the Biomedical Problems Program and oversees the basic science portion of the preclinical medical curriculum. Dr. Klatt graduated from Loma Linda University medical school and then completed residency and fellowship training in pathology at the University of Southern California, where he received a faculty appointment and served as medical examiner and autopsy director. He moved to the University of Utah in 1991, becoming Professor of Pathology and Pathology Course Director as well as director of the autopsy service. In 2001, as a founding Professor, he participated in design and development of the curriculum for the Florida State University School of Medicine. He moved to the new Savannah campus of Mercer University School of Medicine in 2008. Since 1993, Dr. Klatt has developed computer-aided instructional materials as well as a World Wide Web site and CD-ROM application known as WebPath. Dr. Klatt is an author on 4 of 7 published works in the Robbins & Cotran family of pathology textbooks.

He has received over 15 awards for teaching excellence, including the Distinguished Teacher in the Basic Sciences Award in 1996 from the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

Robby Reynolds, MPA, joined the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in 2002 as Assistant Director of Educational Resources with the primary responsibility of leading the development and promotion of a national curriculum database for the AAMC’s member US and Canadian medical schools. In 2005 Robby took on the new responsibility of Director of Educational Resources and co-founded MedEdPORTAL (www.mededportal.org). Robby has been instrumental in the creation, development, and promotion of MedEdPORTAL which is an internationally available online publication service that promotes the sharing of high quality peer-reviewed medical educational materials. In 2011 Robby’s portfolio expanded drastically when he launched the initiative to build and implement a suite of services and tools called the Medical Academic Performance Services (MedAPS). MedAPS (www.aamc.org/medaps) services and tools will enable AAMC member medical schools to assess their achievement of education and accreditation standards on an annual basis and promote continuous improvement. These new tools include the Curriculum Reports (www.aamc.org/curriculumreports), Accreditation Standards Self-Evaluation Tool (ASSET), Curriculum Inventory (CI), and Medical Academic Performance (MAP) Dashboard. These new tools optimize the use of medical education data, informing education research and supporting continuous improvements in academic program effectiveness.

Terri Cameron, MA, has been leading the development of a revised national curriculum inventory at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) since 2006. Those efforts began with CurrMIT and are now focused on the release of the Curriculum Inventory and the remainder of the new suite of Medical Academic Performance Services (MedAPS) in 2014. She was the CurrMIT Administrator at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine from CurrMIT’s first release in 1999 until her retirement from SIU as the Director of Educational Technology and Resources in 2005. She was trained as a tutor and master tutor for the Problem-Based Learning Initiative at SIU and worked with that group to develop distributed learning resources. She served as member-at-large for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Central Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA) Executive Committee and is past convener and member of the GEA and CGEA Computers in Medical Education Special Interest Group. In 2006, she received the CGEA Golden Laureate Award for her contributions to medical education.