Transformational Times
Words of Hope, Character & Resilience from our Virtual Community
Friday, March 19, 2021
The news from Atlanta this week is horrifying.
A gunman took the lives of 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women. This has been one among many recent hateful crimes that have terrorized the Asian American community. Every one of us at The Kern Institute expresses our unconditional support for this community, and we want to express our love and concern for MCW’s Asian students, trainees, faculty and staff during this acutely difficult time. We continue to invite dialogue about racism, discrimination, character, caring, compassion and medical education because we understand that it is only in bringing these discussions into the light that we might learn from one another and be a part of changing our profession and our world for the better. 
 
We share the following resources to help us support each other. We encourage those who want to talk about these issues to reach out to us or other trusted sources. 
In this Special Match Day Issue:

Director's Corner
  • Adina Kalet, MD, MPH: Work and Career in that Order: Residency is Just the Next Step in the Life of a Physician

Perspectives/Opinions
  • Chad Carlson, MD: Neurology Residency Virtual Interviews - Lessons Learned
  • Camille Garrison, MD: Recruitment Season 2021: It'll all be Worth it!
  • Matthew Goldblatt, MD: Zoom Interviewing
  • Mara Pheister, MD: Virtual Recruitment - A Good Different
  • Steve Malcom, MD; Heather Toth, MD; Ben Lipanot, MD; and Stephanie Hetland, MA: Reflections on a Virtual Recruitment Season
  • David Campbell, MD: Interviewing for Fellowships - My 2020 Experience
  • Jessica Kraker: Interviewing for Residency - My 2020 Experience
  • Jenna Wettstein: Interviewing for Medical School - My 2020 Experience

Poetry Corner
  • Elizabeth Moore: Hold My Hand

Your Turn
  • Respond to this week's prompt: What are you most looking forward to doing outside this Spring?
  • Respond to this week's character question: What are you hopeful for today?
  • Respond to the Pandemic Word Cloud Project: What is one single word that describes your current emotions, thoughts, worries, etc., given the current state of the pandemic?

Announcements & Resources
  • Apply to the Kern Institute's KINETIC3 Teaching Academy
  • Register for Upcoming Virtual Events
  • Kern National Network News & Events
Director's Corner
Work and Career in that Order: Residency is Just the Next Step in the Life of a Physician


by Adina Kalet, MD, MPH

Dr.Kalet celebrates Match Day 2021 by exploring how residency, as difficult as it can be, offers opportunities for growth and a path to a rewarding career…

Later today, more than 48,000 medical students will find out where they will begin residency training in July.
 
While the numbers vary, about half of students matched to their top choice, and about two-thirds to one of their top three. About 5% of all applicants did not match and have spent the week working with deans and faculty to “scramble” into open slots. There will be disappointments and not everyone will be thrilled.
 
In normal times, MCW-Milwaukee would be hosting our 200 students, their families, and their friends in an Alumni Center celebration with balloons, short speeches, finger food, intense excitement, and identical “I MATCHED!!!” t-shirts. Even still, today’s celebration and energy will be shared on social media and over the internet when, at 12:00 noon EDT, students open the e-equivalent of an “envelope” and learn for the first time to which program they have matched.
 
Today is one of the most significant watershed moments in each of their lives. They will, finally, be able to glimpse more clearly the outlines of their future selves.
Perspective/Opinion
Neurology Residency Virtual Interviews - Lessons Learned

by Chad Carlson, MD

Dr. Carlson describes his new approach to recruitment and wonders if virtual recruitment should be (or is) here to stay... 

As Program Director for the Neurology Residency, the Match season is always an exciting time of year. It is an opportunity to host prospective residents from around the country and the world here on our campus. I get to meet the future of Neurology and hear what drives them to pursue Neurology! I get to share my enthusiasm for living in Wisconsin and the many advantages to training at MCW. All of that gets packed into our interview day along with a tour, dinner, Grand Rounds, a light breakfast, and lunch. Under the expert guidance of our Program Coordinator, this process has been refined to make the most of every minute.
Perspective/Opinion
Recruitment Season 2021: It'll all be Worth it!

by Camille Garrison, MD

Dr. Garrison describes how the Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Family Medicine residency program adapted to the need for virtual interviews as they recruited their next cohort of residents, relying on social media, entertaining videos, and human interaction…

I had all the right people in place. From the perfect faculty leading the recruitment committee, the most enthusiastic residents set to attend our much-anticipated summer and fall recruitment fairs, the administrative team set with our new interview schedule, and an opportunity to pilot our new ranking system. I remember the heavy feeling of desperation that came over us when we heard that recruitment season and interviews would be transitioning to all things virtual. But once we got over the initial shock of what this would mean for our program, our team became energized and got to work.
Perspective/Opinion
Zoom Interviewing

by Matthew Goldblatt, MD

Dr. Goldblatt, the residency program director in Surgery, tells us how Zoom cannot replicate in person interaction. However, Zoom does offer the opportunity to recruit residents from further away than usual...

Shortly after the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic sank in, it became apparent that in-person interviews for the residency Match were not going to be possible. Thankfully, all programs were faced with the same reality, and this leveled the playing field and didn’t allow anyone to have the advantage of in-person interviews. The General Surgery program typically interviews around sixty-five applicants, but given the uncertainty of this year, we increased that number to eighty. At the time of writing this, the Match has not happened, so we won’t know if increasing the applicant pool was necessary.
Perspective/Opinion
Virtual Recruitment - A Good Different

by Mara Pheister, MD

Dr. Pheister describes the unexpected upsides of virtual recruitment such as Instagram and interviewing applicants to the MCW Psychiatry residency program that might not have been able to travel to Milwaukee…

This was my twelfth year recruiting residents to our psychiatry residency. This year was different. A good way different. 

As a program, we grappled with the same issues affecting our country and world: COVID-19 and Racial Injustice. The move to virtual recruitment affected programs differently, and being a somewhat known program affiliated with a medical school in a large city gave us some advantage. That said, in years past, applicants have always cited the warmth and enthusiasm of our residents and faculty as being the primary draw to our program. But how would we convey this through Zoom? How would we show off our program? 
Perspective/Opinion
Reflections on a Virtual Recruitment Season
by Steve Malcom, MD; Heather Toth, MD; Ben Lipanot, MD; and Stephanie Hetland, MA

The Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds) Residency Program leadership writes about how the challenges of planning a new recruitment format allowed for a much needed creative outlet during the pandemic…

With the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, residency training programs nationwide recalibrated practices and protocols to meet patient care needs and the requirements of social distancing. Heightened awareness of personal protective equipment, clinical redeployment of residents and attending physicians, changes to medical students' schedules, conversion to virtual visits for clinic patients and digitalization of educational conferences were tasks quickly handled. To say that educational norms were “up for grabs” might be a bit too desperate in comparison to the uncertainty experienced in clinical settings, but the day-to-day routine of residents and program leadership was disrupted. In contrast, preparation for the 2020-21 residency recruitment season allowed the opportunity to take a breath, think creatively and plan rather than react. We also felt the strain of designing a one-day virtual streamlined process with multiple goals – ensuring applicants’, residents’ and faculty safety while acquainting ourselves with numerous highly qualified applicants and conveying the proper balance of baseline programmatic information while capturing all the program intangibles in which we take so much pride -- our residents -- via a virtual platform. In retrospect, maybe six months was not long enough.
Perspective/Opinion
Interviewing for Fellowships - My 2020 Experience

by David Campbell, MD

Dr. Campbell, who will complete his otolaryngology residency in June 2021, talks about some of the plusses and minuses of interviewing for fellowships during the COVID-19 pandemic…

“Please tell me you’re not in Atlanta yet!”
 
It was March 12, 2020, the day before my first fellowship interview. In the days preceding, interviews dropped off the calendar one by one as travel restrictions tightened and hospital campuses closed their doors to non-essential workers. Some programs switched directly to virtual interviews, while others were hopeful they could have applicants in person by May or June (a wildly optimistic prospect, in hindsight). The Atlanta program finally shut their campus down and the coordinator was frantically trying to stop applicants from getting on flights. After being through medical school and residency interviews, I knew this would be very different. However, as I worked through nineteen virtual interviews spanning five months, I did find some surprises along the way. 
Perspective/Opinion
Interviewing for Residency - My 2020 Experience

by Jessica Kraker

Ms. Kraker talks about her experience going through the “Early Match” process, an experience that gave her a sneak peek of what the rest of her class will experience today…

On the first day of orientation of medical school, everyone brings up “The Match.” In preclinical years, your professors tell you how important this biochemical pathway is in order to accurately diagnose your patients, leading to a good Match. During your OSCEs, you are incentivized to be extremely empathetic to your patients, so your standardized patient gives you positive feedback. You need to pass these in order to Match. In your clinical years, you agonize over the correct way to present a patient in order to impress your attending, who will have a say in your Dean’s Letter, which is crucial for Match. You will open doors, fetch warm blankets, carry bags full of wound care supplies, update the white board, write discharge summaries, and offer to verify documentation of minutiae in the electronic medical record so that your residents like you – their opinion is crucial to The Match.
Perspective/Opinion
Interviewing for Medical School - My 2020 Experience

by Jenna Wettstein

Ms. Wettstein shares her observations on navigating the medical school admissions process this year…

One year ago this month, the COVID-19 pandemic began and a new normal arose. With it came Zoom calls, Webex meetings, and more Facetiming our families and friends. The pandemic also created a challenge for medical schools. When the AMCAS application opened at the end of May, there seemed to be no end in sight to COVID. Medical schools were forced to find new ways to approach a necessary part of the application process: the interview.
Over the next few weeks, we will be partnering with Auscult to promote, Ausuclt 2020. Auscult is a literary and arts journal that has been published periodically at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) since the early 1990s. A completely student-edited journal, it showcases the creativity, compassion and artistic talents of our community. The journal includes poetry, fiction, non-fiction and visual arts, all created by MCW students, staff, faculty and hospital affiliate employees. If you would like to submit to Auscult for future journals, please submit using the following link.

This week, is a poem by Elizabeth Moore, current 3rd year medical student, titled, Hold My Hand.



Hold My Hand
by Elizabeth Moore


Ethel Ann, withered and small
Wise with years beyond us all
Wrinkles framed a crooked smile
Gray but gentle inner child
 
She couldn’t walk, she couldn’t see
Nausea and pain, she turns to me
I want to help, and I want to heal
Medicine? Surgery? How do you feel?
 
Her I.V. drips, her monitors beep
Her gown is thin, her blankets heap
There in her gurney, tired and weak
She turns to me and starts to speak
 
Doctor, will you hold my hand?
Maybe you won’t understand
I’ve lived long and I’ve lived well
But now I feel like an empty shell
Let me go, and don’t you cry
It’s not giving up, when we say goodbye
 
Let’s start some morphine? Let’s run some tests?
She shakes her head, “I just want to rest”
My family has worried, my friends have passed
I’m ready to join them again at last
 
I have memories, let’s not forget
I used to read, I played clarinet
I walked miles on beaches, I even ran
I had children who loved to play in the sand
 
So doctor, will you hold my hand?
Maybe you can understand
I’ve lived long and I’ve lived well
But now I feel like an empty shell
Let me go, and don’t you cry
It’s not giving up, when we say goodbye
 
Blinking my tears, what do I say?
No board exam prepared me in this way
Sometimes medicine is a bottle of pills
Sometimes it’s silence, just sitting still
 
I’ve watched patients grow and I’ve watched them fall
But this tiny woman was the strongest of all
What can I offer, when we’ve come to the end
If I can be your doctor, I can be your friend
 
Ethel I will hold your hand
I will try to understand
You’ve lived long and you’ve lived well
But now you feel like an empty shell
Forgive me when I start to cry
It’s not giving up, when we say goodbye

Respond to next week's reflection prompt:


What are you most looking forward to doing outside this Spring?
Participate in the Pandemic Word Cloud Project!

Fourth-year MCW medical students Jacqueline Schaefer and Megan LaCroix invite your participation in sharing just one word for the creation of a word cloud project regarding the pandemic. 

Last March, Jacqueline and Megan began this project with the help and guidance of Dr. Himanshu Agrawal, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, aimed to create a word cloud that represented the current status of the MCW community and create a space to initiate discussion.

Now one year later, it is time again to reach out for thoughts and words in order to generate more discussions and see the growth that has occurred.

Thank you to everyone in the MCW community who are willing to share, and please be on the lookout for the results soon!
Apply to the Kern Institute's 2021-22 KINETIC3 Teaching Academy

Applications are open to all
·     MCW Faculty
·     Senior Residents & Fellows
·     Graduate Students
·     Advanced Practice Providers
 
Applicants will be notified of acceptance by May 2021.
Orientation begins in July 2021.

This year's KINETIC3 program will offer two distinct tracks: Excellence in Teaching and Medical Educator. Both tracks will present a curriculum featuring evidence-based, learner-centric teaching strategies, and promoting active learning.
Kern Institute Connection Cafe
Medical School Curriculum Innovations: Impact on MCW's Curriculum Plans

Please plan to join us for a Connection Cafe discussion with William Hueston, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education, and Associate Provost for Education at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

In this session, Dr. Hueston will review innovations in medical school curricula at several other U.S. medical schools and how those changes align with improvement in adult learning. Dr. Hueston will then review how these innovations were studied by the MCW Curriculum Exploration Committee, formulated into core principles for a new curriculum, and then used to build a new curriculum framework for MCW's School of Medicine.
March 25, 2021
Live Virtual Event
4:00 - 5:00 pm CT
Knowledge Now Series
The State of Medical Education

Please plan to join this Knowledge Now Series program with Joseph E. Kerschner, MD, Dean of MCW School of Medicine, Provost and Executive Vice President at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

In this session, Dr. Kerschner will be providing a update on the state of medical education, including learner well-being, student debt, student diversity, milestone-based education, future curriculum change & assessment, his milestones for excellence, and more!
March 30, 2021
Live Virtual Event
12:00 - 1:00 pm CT
A Night of Wonderful Stories
MedMoth Returns!


Join us for a night of wonderful stories by MCW Students, Residents, Fellows, Faculty and Staff.

We will be holding two preparatory workshops on Wednesday, March 17th and Wednesday, March 31st, hosted by the fabulous ExFabula. Sign up for the workshops here.

Everyone has personal stories worth sharing! Ex Fabula and the MCW MedMoth invite you to discover, shape, and share personal stories about your experiences in the world of medicine.
April 8, 2021
Live Virtual Event
7:00 pm CT
Kern Institute Connection Cafe
"Can I Tell You Something?"


Please plan to join us for reflections presented by a group of our 4th-year medical students.
April 22, 2021
Live Virtual Event
4:00 - 5:00 pm CT
KNN Discussion Series
Seeking Strength in Times of Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed personal and professional challenges for everyone, but particularly for those in the medical field. Under such circumstances, what does and can human flourishing look like? To what extent is it possible and equitable in times of crisis—now and otherwise?
 
In this session, three exceptional speakers will share perspectives from pastoral care, critical care and work with underserved populations to provide insight on navigating crises and lessons for cultivating resilience. A Q&A moderated by Chris Stawski, PhD, senior fellow for the Kern Family Foundation, will follow the speakers' presentations.
 
Featured Speakers:
  • Krista Gregory, MDiv, BCC, founder of the Center for Resiliency at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas
  • Daniela Lamas, MD, pulmonary and critical care doctor for Brigham and Women’s Hospital and author of the book "You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor’s Stories of Life, Death, and in Between"
  • John Tarpley, MD, professor emeritus of surgery and anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
April 27, 2021
Live Virtual Event
4:00 - 5:00 pm CT
MCW Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine
4th Biennial Suicide Symposium

Addressing the role of clinical intervention and the experience of patient loss to suicide.
Register via Ethos: http://ocpe.mcw.edu/
Specialties - Behavioral Health - Suicide Symposium

For more information, please contact Kiara Bond
(414) 955-7250
April 28, 2021
Live Virtual Event
8:30 am - 12:15 pm CT
Kern Institute Grand Rounds
Advocacy on the Frontlines: Supporting LGBTQ Patients in Combat and Beyond

Please plan to join us for a Grand Rounds presentation with Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, Director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin (AHW) Endowment and Senior Associate Dean and Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin School of Medicine.

Dr. Ehrenfeld will discuss how advocacy can transform health care, health outcomes, and health equity in combat and beyond for LGBTQ+ patients and all marginalized populations.
April 29, 2021
Live Virtual Event
9:00 - 10:00 am CT
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