Training Medical Professionals as
Higher Education Professionals:
Developing a Certification in
Health Professions Education
Karen Hughes Miller, Ph.D.
University of Louisville
(Louisville, Kentucky, USA)
Presented at:
Collaborating Across Boarders: An
American- Canadian Dialogue on
Interprofessional Health Education,
October 24-26, 2007
University of Minnesota
Academic Health Center
Twin Cities Campus
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Background:
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Physicians, nurses, and other health
sciences professionals who teach often find
their knowledge of teaching is learned on
the job.
Although professional development sessions
on teaching are efficient, they may not
always be an effective solution to
addressing topics as complex as adult
education theory or curriculum analysis.
Background:
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Medical education is growing as a
recognized discipline with its own grants,
publications, and conferences.
For healthcare faculty to fully participate in
what this discipline has to offer, they must
not only be expert in their fields but also be
educated in medical education (Eitel, Katz,
and Tesche, 2000; and Benor, 2000).
Background:

In 2003, the University of Louisville College of
Education and School of Medicine Office of
Medical Education joined forces to create
a Certificate in Health Professions Education
program.
The objective of this presentation is to share
our experience as a replicable model for
other institutions.
Program overview:
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The Certificate in Health Professions
Education is awarded by the
University’s Graduate School after
participants complete four 3-credit
hour graduate courses.
Participants must be admitted to the
Graduate School and all courses are
graded and taken for academic credit.
Program overview:
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The curriculum allows participants to join in any
term of any year rather than waiting for a two-year
rotation.
Each course is grounded in a syllabus already
approved for the College of Education and Human
Development (CEHD), but is customized for health
science professionals.
Courses include Research Methods, Program
Evaluation and Planning, College Teaching, and
Adult Education and Development.
Current program sequence:
ELFH 683 College Teaching: syllabus
development, teaching and assessment
strategies, students’ rights, the role of research
and publication in the academic arena.
Fall, 2007
ELFH 661 Adult Development & Learning: basics of
instructional design, principles of adult
learning, and teaching in the clinical
environment.
Spring, 2008
ELFH 600 Research Methods: Research problem
identification, research methodologies, and
introductory statistics.
ELFH 606 Program Evaluation and Planning:
Course and program planning and validation.
Fall, 2008
Spring, 2009
Customized content for HSC:
Examples of customized content include:
 The course on Adult Education and Development
includes clinical teaching issues such as bedside
teaching and the protocols of teaching using both
real and simulated patients.
 Techniques for teaching psychomotor skills (i.e.
intubation) are included along with techniques for
teaching cognitive skills such as quick recall.
Customized content for HSC:

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The instructional design for the four
courses is grounded on the principles of
meeting instructional needs for working
professionals such as described by
Cheetham and Chivers (2001).
Faculty and participants represent the
entire range of healthcare education
at U of L including medicine, nursing,
dentistry, and public health.
Customized content for HSC:
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Courses apply a blended model of online
and face-to-face instruction.
Class meetings are held on at the Health
Sciences Campus.
Teaching teams include education and
health sciences faculty and guest lecturers
are often used.
Field trips to look at different teaching
venues are built into the schedule.
Course Calendar ELFH 606- 76
Program Evaluation and Planning
Week/Session
Topics
Faculty/presenters
Advance
Readings, Class
Assignments, and
Tasks
Week 1;
January 11
Course overview and
organization; introduction to
program evaluation as an area
of specialization; introduce
the class project
Dr. Muriel J. Harris
Dr. Karen Hughes Miller
Ms. Gail Haynes
Dr. Deborah S.
Armstrong
Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and
Worthen- Chapters 1 and 2.
Introduce faculty and
students; discuss student
expectations from the course.
Week 2;
January 18
Objectives Oriented
Evaluation; The U of L School
of Medicine Curriculum
Evaluation project (as an
evaluation example).
Other evaluation stakeholders
– managers.
Gail Haynes
Karen Hughes Miller
Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and
Worthen- Chapters 4 and 5.
Harden: the Integration
Ladder: a Tool for Curriculum
planning and Evaluation
(article posted in Week 2
folder).
The blended learning model:
The blended learning model:
The blended learning model:
Program success:
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The first course in the program, College Teaching,
was offered in the fall of 2003. Fourteen students
enrolled and 12 completed the course.
The next course offered, Introduction to Research
Methods, also began with 14 and ended with 12.
However, we saw a “slump” in enrollment for the
next course, Adult Development and Education;
and by the spring of 2005, only four students
enrolled in the Program Evaluation course. That
group was combined with doctoral students taking
the course in the College of Education.
Program revision:
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Consensus among participants and faculty was
that we may have been packing too much
content into the courses. While the course
participants were well grounded in scientific
method and physical science research, the social
science research methodologies of education
were new.
This type of feedback was an essential component
of the curriculum redesign for future courses.
Courses had to be tailored to the specific
needs of health science educators.
Program revision:
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An additional strategy for encouraging certificate
completion was to analyze all course rosters since
the beginning of the program and contact former
participants who were still at U of L.
A formal letter on Office of Medical Education
letterhead was sent reminding them which
course(s) they needed to for certification and
encouraging re-enrollment.
Response to this small campaign was very positive
and several former participants returned in the fall
2006 or spring 2007 semesters.
Program support:
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To encourage new students to enter the
program, lunchtime open house sessions
are now held at the end of each semester
to introduce the next course being offered
and to introduce potential students to
participating faculty.
Over the past several semesters, these
sessions have become informal get
“together’s” so all sorts of questions and
concerns can be addressed.
Program outcomes:
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The Certificate in Health Professions Education at
the University of Louisville is not a large project; but
by using a cycle of course delivery, reflection, and
refinement along with some consistent participant
recruiting strategies, the program is growing.
By the end of the spring 2007 semester, we had
awarded 10 certificates.
For the fall 2007 semester, we have seven new
enrollees in the program, and eight who are active
returnees.
Program outcomes:
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One unexpected positive outcome is that
two Certificate participants have recently
enrolled in the College of Education in
order to complete Master of Education
degrees to add to their M.D.s.
An additional positive outcome, beginning
this year, is that new faculty in Public Health
are being required to take the College
Teaching course. (If we do our job right,
they will take the remaining courses for
certification!)
Program outcomes:
And the most recent positive outcome:
ELFH 606-76, Program Evaluation and
Planning, won a 2007 Kentuckiana
Metroversity Award for Instructional
Innovation
Limitations of our model:
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Students in the certificate program are
self selected and highly motivated.
Grades in any given course are usually
A or A+. This may seem intimidating to
new faculty considering the program.
It is a serious commitment of time and
effort for already busy healthcare
professionals. They must be perceive
real value for the program.
Our three major challenges:
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Making the course work load realistic and
appropriate for working professionals while
maintaining academic integrity.
Retaining participants once the enter the
program.
Maintaining diversity among program faculty
to insure an interdisciplinary approach.
Ongoing program objectives:
Objective:
Continuous
assessment and
course
improvement.
Process:
Collect and analyze
course and faculty
evaluation data,
review course
content and design
each time the
course is offered.
Ongoing program objectives:
Objective:
Active recruitment of
new participants
and faculty.
Recognition of the
Certificate as an
academic
credential of value.
Process:
Information sessions,
email and list serve,
word of mouth.
Publications and
presentations.
References and resources:
Benor, D. E. (2000). Faculty development, teacher training and teacher
accreditation in medical education: twenty years from now.
Medical Teacher, 22(5), 503-512.
Cheetham, G. and Chivers, G. (2001). Part I, How professionals learn:
the theory. Journal of European Industrial Training, 25(5), 250269.
Cheetham G. and Chivers, G. (2001). Part 2, How professionals learn,
the practice. What the empirical research found. Journal of
European Industrial Training, 25(5), 270- 292.
Eitel, F., Kanz, K-G., and Tesche, A. (2000). Training and certification
of teachers and trainers: The professionalization of medical
education. Medical Teacher, 22(5), 517-526.
References and resources:
Miller, K.H. and Greenberg, R. (2007). Training Medical Professionals
to be Educators: Developing a Certification in Health Professions
Education. Journal of the International Association of Medical
Science Educators (JIAMSE), special supplement, October,
2007, in press.
Muller, J.H., and Irby, D.M. Developing educational
leaders: the teaching scholars program at the University of
California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. Academic
Medicine. 2006: 81:11, 959-964.
Robins, L, Ambrozy, D., and Pinsky, L.E. Promoting academic
excellence through leadership development at the University of
Washington: the teaching scholars program. Academic Medicine.
2006:81:11, 979-983.
Wilkerson, L.A., Uijtdehaaghe, S. and Relan, A. Increasing the pool of
educational leaders for UCLA. Academic Medicine. 2006:81:11,
954-958.
A closing note….
In addition to articles on the UCLA, UC
San Francisco, and University of
Washington models, the November
2006 issue of Academic Medicine
includes several more articles on
medical education fellowships.