Transformational Times
Words of Hope, Character & Resilience from our Virtual Community
Friday, June 4, 2021
In This Issue:

Director's Corner


Perspectives/Opinions

Getting To Know You

Poetry Corner
  • Orion Rosemary: A Vision of My Future

Your Turn


Announcements & Resources
  • Register for Upcoming Virtual Events
  • Kern National Network News & Events

Director's Corner
Welcoming the Kern Institute’s Inaugural Medical Education Transformation Collaboratories! 



by Adina Kalet, MD, MPH

The word “collaboratory,” a mash-up between “collaboration” and “laboratory,” was originally coined in the 1980’s with the ascendence of the internet and emergence of collaboration software (think Google docs). Cogburn (2003) who states that “a collaboratory … is a new networked organizational form that also includes social processes; collaboration techniques; formal and informal communication; and agreement on norms, principles, values, and rules.” It has come to describe an open space, creative process where a group of people work together - in real-time, often virtually - to generate solutions to complex problems. And there is no doubt that transforming medical education is one such “thorny problem” deserving this kind of focused attention …


The Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education at the Medical College of Wisconsin is proud to announce our first cohort of Medical Education Transformation Collaboratories. These seven groups listed below represent cross-institutional, multi- and inter-disciplinary, multiple stakeholder communities of practice that will work together in a sustained effort around a shared project to transform medical education by engaging in both innovation and scholarship.

Perspective/Opinion
"Proceduralists" Do Care!


by Harvey Woehlck, MD


Dr. Woehlck reminds us that doctors whose main task is to perform procedures can break from their molds and have fulfilling roles as caring physicians as well …

What does a caring academic proceduralist look like in today’s modern medical environment? 

We can imagine that the modern proceduralist descended from the surgeon of ancient times. In the second century, the expression of “laudable pus” was a common procedure which, of course, required incision. [Excuse the digression, but laudable pus was staph-related and often survivable with incision and drainage as the only treatment, as opposed to what we now call necrotizing fasciitis, which was uniformly fatal at the time.] Amputations were described a century earlier, where lack of anesthetics required the proceduralist to be as fast as possible.

In that era, caring may not have been a meaningful virtue; completing the amputation – and allowing the patient to survive – was meaningful. Unfortunately, this may have selected for what we could today call a psychopathic trait in proceduralists of the preanesthetic era. Just how could you have empathy when the goal was to amputate as quickly as possible? 

Perspective/Opinion
The Healer's Art Course: Preparing M1 Students for What Lies Ahead

by Julie Owen, MD



Dr. Owen, who co-directs MCW’s M1 Healer’s Art Course, describes the value of having students address wholeness, grief and loss, awe and mystery, and service as a way of life early in their medical school careers. She also talks about how important it was when an empathetic physician “bore witness” to grief and uncertainty in her own life …


“The core tasks… are helping the patient acknowledge, bear, and put into perspective feelings and painful life experiences.”
 
-   Glen Gabbard, MD (Gabbard’s Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders, 2007) speaking about Elvin Semrad, MD, renowned psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston from 1956-1976, one of the nation’s oldest psychiatric hospitals
 
 By the time I entered medical school, I had built an almost decade-long career as a professional actor, performing in regional musical theatre productions around the country after completing my undergraduate degrees. By the time I entered medical school, my professional identity had been firmly established as an “artist,” and transitioning to medicine precipitated a bit of an identity crisis. I happily discovered and immersed myself in the invaluable MCW Medical Humanities Program, recently described by Art Derse, MD, JD, in the Kern Institute’s Transformational Times. A prominent component of this program is the Healer’s Art elective course, introduced to MCW in 2007 by Dr. Derse and Julia Uihlein, MA.

Perspective/Opinion
Post-Acute Sequelae of Covid-19 (PASC): The Latest Permutation of Covid-19 Disease


by Julie A. Biller, MD


Dr. Biller, a Professor of Pulmonary Medicine at MCW, shares her experience in understanding the evolving story of Covid-related syndromes, and efforts to support patients in a new Post-Covid clinic on campus...


Recognizing the many faces of Covid-19 infection
 
In late 2019, when the world was notified of a novel coronavirus now named SARS-CoV-2, it was thought it caused acute infection only. The range of illness varied from flu-like symptoms to severe respiratory distress requiring high level critical care services. With the introduction of improved testing capability, it was understood people could have asymptomatic disease. Over time – really a very short period of time – we have recognized many faces of Covid-19, the disease syndromes caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Opinion from the New York Times
My Patients Will Not Be the Same. None of Us Will.

By Daniela J. Lamas


As soon as I see the name on my phone, it all comes back to me.

I remember the nights we spent outside his hospital room, adjusting his ventilator settings. I remember the anxious call to his family when he started to bleed into his lungs, and we did not know if he would make it. I can still picture the guide to Islamic end-of-life rituals that his nurses passed from shift to shift, the way it grew dog-eared and tattered.

Getting to Know You
Getting to Know You With Erin Weileder


 Dr. Wendy Peltier, member of the Transformational Times editorial board, shares a candid interview with Erin as an introduction to our Kern community ...


Erin answers the following questions:

  • What will be your role within the MCW Kern Institute?
  • What skills, interests, and/or experiences will guide your work here?
  • What do you do for fun?

I have a vision of my future
one I’m not sure could ever come true
A vision where the world won’t  judge
the love I share with you

A vision of my future
where I could have the guts
To hold your hand in public
Hold each other on the bus

I wish that I could find a place
where I will not be shamed
For gazing in your pretty eyes
that lack in any pain

I wish we could get married
without hearing a complaint
And no one thought twice of our lives and we were normal, plain

But as we walk the sidewalk
most people stare and gawk 
As though we are a freak show
or evil they must stop

I only want to love you
Without living in fear
I wish that I could say “I do” 
and keep my lovers near
sunset-bike-silhouette.jpg




For me, there's no better way to spend a summer afternoon than a long bike ride with friends that ends at the Landing beer garden in Wauwatosa!
- Julia Schmitt, staff
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Reading and napping in my hammock!
- Sarah Leineweber, staff


I enjoy sitting out in the backyard on my patio, enjoying the sun, watching the kids play, listening to music on my outdoor speakers with a glass of champagne in hand.
- Camille Garrison, Faculty

Respond to next week's reflection prompt:


What food or meal makes you think of summer?
  
thinking_girl_idea.jpg

Residents and Fellows:

What are you looking forward to in the next academic year?  
Shape the Movement Toward Human Flourishing

KNN Conversations


The KNN is holding small-group conversations to obtain feedback on its integrated framework and inform future activities. 

Help shape the direction of the KNN by sharing how you think the work of caring and character within the medical profession is supporting—and can better support—human flourishing.
KNN Student Session
June 15, 2021
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. CT
KNN Faculty/Staff Session
June 17, 2021
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. CT
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