Developing the inner scientist: book club participation and the nature of science.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Griffard PB
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3587859 | biostudies-other | 2013
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:BackgroundThe importance of effective leadership for improving patient care and physician well-being is gaining increased attention in medicine. Despite this, few residency programs have formalized education on leadership in medicine. The most effective ways to train graduate medical education (GME) trainees in leadership are unclear.MethodsOur large internal medicine residency program implemented a book club to develop leadership skills in residency. Through independent reading of the selected book and resident-led small group discussions, we facilitated dialogue on the challenges of leading effectively.ResultsA survey-based curricular evaluation demonstrated that 61% of respondents felt that the book club influenced their thoughts about leadership and that 66% of participants would recommend the book club to other residency programs. Lack of time was the main barrier to participation while addition of complementary media or alternative book formats were identified as possible solutions to increase engagement.ConclusionsLeadership book clubs are a practical and effective way to teach leadership during residency. More research is needed to identify the best formats for book club discussion and to develop additional tools to foster future physician leaders.
| S-EPMC10031603 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionProfessional development is an important component of graduate medical education, but it is unclear how to best deliver this instruction. Book clubs have been used outside of medicine as a professional development tool. We sought to create and evaluate a virtual professional development book club for emergency medicine interns.MethodsWe designed and implemented a virtual professional development book club during intern orientation. Afterward, participants completed an evaluative survey consisting of Likert and free-response items. Descriptive statistics were reported. We analyzed free-response data using a thematic approach.ResultsOf 15 interns who participated in the book club, 12 (80%) completed the evaluative survey. Most (10/12; 83.3%) agreed or strongly agreed that the book club showed them the importance of professional development as a component of residency training and helped them reflect on their own professional (11/12; 91.7%) and personal development (11/12; 91.7%). Participants felt the book club contributed to bonding with their peers (9/12; 75%) and engagement with the residency program (9/12; 75%). Our qualitative analysis revealed five major themes regarding how the book club contributed to professional and personal development: alignment with developmental stage; deliberate practice; self-reflection; strategies to address challenges; and communication skills.ConclusionA virtual book club was feasible to implement. Participants identified multiple ways the book club positively contributed to their professional development. These results may inform the development of other book clubs in graduate medical education.
| S-EPMC7806317 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Professional development for biomedical doctoral and postdoctoral trainees is vital, especially due to the increase in individuals pursuing non-faculty career paths. We created a professional development-focused discussion group between trainees and faculty/staff by utilizing a book club format in which monthly small group meetings occurred over an 8-month period. A pre- and post-survey consisting of Likert and free-response questions was completed by participants. Results demonstrated that after the book club, trainees: 1) were more knowledgeable about a variety of career paths; 2) had improved awareness of their interests in relation to their career; 3) were more knowledgeable of their transferrable skills; 4) were more comfortable engaging with their PI and completing/updating an Individual Development Plan; 5) were more likely to find mentors in addition to their PI to address career specific needs; and 6) were more likely to seek opportunities to conduct informational interviews or experiential learning. Additionally, we found that faculty/staff: 1) were more knowledgeable about careers outside of academia; 2) had greater consideration for their mentee's values and interests in relation to their career; 3) had a better understanding of their mentee's transferable skills; and 4) were more comfortable engaging with their mentee about their career path and addressing an Individual Development Plan. Overall, we found that the utilization of a book club consisting of trainees and faculty/staff as a professional development tool was beneficial for both groups of participants, and this format is feasible for use in biomedical education professional development.
| S-EPMC8741441 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way large citizen science events can be carried out-reducing gatherings of large groups and shifting toward individual, small-group, and online participation. This paper aims to describe changes in participant engagement in the City Nature Challenge (CNC) in Tokyo. The CNC is a four-day international event held in April to document biodiversity in cities using an online citizen science platform, iNaturalist. To assess the impact of COVID-19, we compared the number of participants, observations, species, and identification rates in 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (during the pandemic). We also used cluster analysis to elucidate participation patterns, and we assessed changes in the geographical distribution of observation sites. The results showed: (1) the number of participants and observations decreased by 63% and 68%, respectively; however, the number of species was almost the same in the two years, and the identification rate increased 154% in 2020 relative to 2019. (2) The most enthusiastic participants contributed in similar amounts in 2019 and 2020, but participation by less enthusiastic volunteers drastically declined. (3) The spatial distribution of observation sites changed from cluster-like to scattered. Understanding participant engagement during the pandemic could help to improve data quality, reduce geographical bias in observations, maintain records, and recruit more users in future years. Online citizen science could provide opportunities for many citizens to get outside and participate in conservation science during and after the pandemic.
| S-EPMC8455166 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The traditional approach to teaching neuroscience often involves presenting a topic like one might present a "murder mystery"; evidence is presented serially until the final answer is revealed. Although this approach mirrors the scientific discovery process, it is not always effective at engaging students, particularly those who are less familiar with the scientific concepts being presented as evidence. By the time the answer arrives, students may be too overwhelmed to absorb it. One way to combat this is to reverse the order of presentation. By starting with the final condition and working backwards through the underlying neuroscientific concepts, students have a relatable framework in which to couch the scientific detail necessary to understand neural phenomena. It was with this approach in mind that the course, "Fundamental Neuroscience: Understanding Ourselves" was designed. Taught for the past seven years at the University of Minnesota, the course uses the best-selling book The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge in lieu of a traditional textbook. Each chapter focuses on a case study of a particular neuropsychological problem or, in some cases, the work of a particular neuroscientist. This material is then used as a launching point to delve deeper into the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the particular disorder. In our experience, the result is that students from a wide variety of academic backgrounds are able to engage with the material throughout the entire lesson and apply their new knowledge broadly across the discipline of Neuroscience. This article aims to provide an in-depth presentation of the course, including potential challenges of working with a pop-science text. Further, we extend our discussion to a newly-developed companion course using non-traditional texts and how these courses fit into a Neuroscience minor.
| S-EPMC5105967 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PURPOSE:We aimed to study the impact of a combined faculty-student book club on education and medical practice as a part of the informal curriculum at the University of Florida College of Medicine in the United States. METHODS:Sixteen medical students and 7 faculties who participated in the book club were interviewed through phone and recorded. The interview was then transcribed and entered into the qualitative data analysis program QSR NVivo (QSR International, Burlington, MA, USA). The transcripts were reviewed, and thematic codes were developed inductively through collaborative iteration. Based on these preliminary codes, a coding dictionary was developed and applied to all interviews within QSR Nvivo to identify themes. RESULTS:Four main themes were identified from interviews: The first theme, the importance of literature to the development and maintenance of empathy and perspective-taking, and the second theme, the importance of the book club in promoting mentorship, personal relationships and professional development, were important to both student and faculty participants. The third and fourth themes, the need for the book club as a tool for self-care and the book club serving as a reminder about the world outside of school were discussed by student book club members. CONCLUSION:Our study demonstrated that an informal book club has a significant positive impact on self-care, perspective-taking, empathy, and developing a “world outside of school” for medical school students and faculty in the United States. It also helps to foster meaningful relationships between students and faculty.
| S-EPMC7577880 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Bibliometric mapping of scientific articles based on keywords and technical terms in abstracts is now frequently used to chart scientific fields. In contrast, no significant mapping has been applied to the full texts of non-specialist documents. Editorials in Nature and Science are such non-specialist documents, reflecting the views of the two most read scientific journals on science, technology and policy issues. We use the VOSviewer mapping software to chart the topics of these editorials. A term map and a document map are constructed and clusters are distinguished in both of them. The validity of the document clustering is verified by a manual analysis of a sample of the editorials. This analysis confirms the homogeneity of the clusters obtained by mapping and augments the latter with further detail. As a result, the analysis provides reliable information on the distribution of the editorials over topics, and on differences between the journals. The most striking difference is that Nature devotes more attention to internal science policy issues and Science more to the political influence of scientists. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11192-010-0205-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
| S-EPMC2995878 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background:The following case example provides an overview of one innovative way to engage health professions faculty with health sciences librarians in the development of an interprofessional book discussion and identifies strategies to address implementation challenges. Academic health sciences librarians worked with the Interprofessional Education (IPE) Steering Committee to organize interprofessional book discussion groups for incoming health professions students. This inaugural book discussion brought together students and faculty of different disciplines to engage students in "learning from, with, and about" other professions. Case Presentation:When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi, allowed involved discussions on important health sciences issues. The project included outreach, designing pre- and post-surveys, scheduling participants, and communicating with all participants before, during, and after the event. A total of seventy-nine students and thirty-six faculty, representing all health professions schools, participated in the small group IPE book discussions over two weeks. Conclusions:Small group book discussions have been shown to be an effective tool to engage students and faculty in IPE. The results of the participant surveys were positive, and the IPE Steering Committee found value in including health sciences librarians throughout the process. Lessons learned from the pilot project include needing an efficient scheduling system, strongly communicating at all stages of the project, and starting the planning process months ahead of time. The IPE Steering Committee plans to conduct similar book discussions every fall semester moving forward and explore options for other IPE events.
| S-EPMC6579584 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Science is undergoing rapid change with the movement to improve science focused largely on reproducibility/replicability and open science practices. This moment of change-in which science turns inward to examine its methods and practices-provides an opportunity to address its historic lack of diversity and noninclusive culture. Through network modeling and semantic analysis, we provide an initial exploration of the structure, cultural frames, and women's participation in the open science and reproducibility literatures (n = 2,926 articles and conference proceedings). Network analyses suggest that the open science and reproducibility literatures are emerging relatively independently of each other, sharing few common papers or authors. We next examine whether the literatures differentially incorporate collaborative, prosocial ideals that are known to engage members of underrepresented groups more than independent, winner-takes-all approaches. We find that open science has a more connected, collaborative structure than does reproducibility. Semantic analyses of paper abstracts reveal that these literatures have adopted different cultural frames: open science includes more explicitly communal and prosocial language than does reproducibility. Finally, consistent with literature suggesting the diversity benefits of communal and prosocial purposes, we find that women publish more frequently in high-status author positions (first or last) within open science (vs. reproducibility). Furthermore, this finding is further patterned by team size and time. Women are more represented in larger teams within reproducibility, and women's participation is increasing in open science over time and decreasing in reproducibility. We conclude with actionable suggestions for cultivating a more prosocial and diverse culture of science.
| S-EPMC7533847 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Strong communication skills are essential for future science professionals, but practical training has not been featured strongly in undergraduate curricula. To better train diverse life science majors in communication theory and skills, we created a foundational 200-level course and an advanced 400-level science communication course. Here, we outline the strategy, including lesson plans, assignments, and grading rubrics, for these courses. The science communication assignments presented are diverse in terms of audience, including communication to fellow scientists, to clinicians, and to the public, as well as in terms of format, including written, oral, and visual modes. We also provide suggestions for placing assignments designed to build upon each other into preexisting courses in a scaffolded manner to promote mastery of science communication skills.
| S-EPMC7861209 | biostudies-literature