Superstars

I am a scientist/explorer. I know that many people can say they are a scientist, and many will also say that science is exploring the unknown. However, from an early age I liked to explore how things worked. What was and still is my motivation is a mystery. I can only state that a few virtues drive my life. One virtue is inquisitiveness/exploration, and another is kindness/helping others. Innovation in the area of research and teaching is a form of exploration that helps others; thus, innovation within academia is an outlet that fulfills two of my core values. Intellectual evolution is a form of innovation, and one mission of higher education is to expand knowledge, or to rephrase one mission is to stimulate intellectual evolution – to innovate. Innovation is buried in typical mission statements because intellectual innovation is what brings about new knowledge and devices that push society forward. Research is a form of innovation, but research does not always lead to a new assay or product. Outside of academia, innovation is closely tied to product development, and if that is the thought of innovation in this question then it would be best suited to teaching and learning as well as commercial ventures. As stated previously innovation fulfills two of my core values. There is also a fun exploratory and risky nature of innovation. Innovation begins as an idea, a seed of a project, and the process of germinating the seed is exciting as it is your own seed and risky because one does not know what the outcome of the idea will be. In short, the idea could fail, or the intended audience may not be receptive; these are some of the risks and the risks pose excitement. Thus besides fulfilling my core values innovation is fun. An innovation strategy at WesternU would help some of the existing ideas gain legs so that they can be completed more rapidly and tested more widely. For products, this is important if they are going to become commercial. For research, this may spur more creativity and foster greater discoveries than would be possible without that creative spark that an innovation strategy may bring. If an entity does not evolve, it will become obsolete. This is true in academics as it is for organisms.  Take Harvard for an example. Is Harvard training people in the same manner as when Harvard first opened its doors? No! Harvard has evolved and generated new knowledge – or more simply Harvard innovated. The same is true for individuals, none of us think and act the same as we did in the past, and I do not mean when we were children. We too change as we age – we gain wisdom through our experiences. Innovation is part and parcel of an academic’s mission, thus to improve and keep WesternU relevant we will need to innovate.

In my many years of involvement in medical education, I have had the opportunity to approach content delivery in a variety of milieus and platforms, each with different challenges. I have interacted with students individually on clinical rotations, taught students in large groups, lectured to them by remote connections, and engaged in discussions with them in small group sessions. The challenge to innovate is particularly exciting, as I continually search and find new platforms that seem to reach and stimulate many students. But a suitable system needs to also enable the learners to interact with the teaching module in a positive, constructive, and user-friendly manner in order to motivate them to become sincerely interested to learn about essentials of pathologic basis of disease.

I have personally experienced, and was always one of the first to utilize and see the benefits of, incredible innovations through my years of teaching. I remember the days when I had file cabinets of my latest journal articles that I had to go to in order to find, prepare and update my lectures. I painstakingly prepared Kodachrome images for my presentations. Many days were spent at medical libraries to find just the accurate and latest information regarding disease processes. Innovation has allowed me to utilize my time more efficiently, store and update my educational contents including most authoritative research articles, as well as my own images of disease processes, on my computer regularly and search the Internet easily for best innovative approach amongst the many that are available in the medical education domain.

When thoughtfully approached and prepared, there is not an area that cannot benefit from engaging with an innovative strategy. In the wrong hands, however, it can culminate into chaos. Thorough knowledge of the educational content and available delivery platforms are important prerequisites for any successful innovation strategy. Having the right professional team to work with is essential.

Having actually gone through and experienced years of new innovations in medical education, I have always been excited and passionate to implement a new approach that I thought would be most effective and beneficial in content delivery. The goal is to reach the most number of participating students in order to improve comprehension and implant motivation or desire to learn. For example, I was so excited to implement PowerPoint as a new approach to teach when it first appeared as a novel educational platform. Internet teaching sites have slowly advanced over the years and I am constantly searching for a meaningful way for students to willingly engage and interact in the learning process.

I have had no problem motivating students on an individual, one-to-one, basis when they are on rotations with me, because the students are at ease and open to interact, be motivated, and learn. It becomes a challenge, however, when we are teaching a large group of students, and even more so when we are confronted with remote with distant learning.

For many years, up to the present time, I have had to pursue establishment of innovation strategies on my own without any professional IT support. I am now experiencing a team of very talented Internet savvy individuals at WesternU who are so excited and willing to help develop such strategies with me. I know success comes only when there are knowledgeable individuals, experts in their own specialties that can flourish in this task. I am very fortunate and grateful to have come across such individuals in our own backyard.

Innovation is important in health care education to continue to evolve the quality of patient outcomes. Think where health care would be today if we did not continue to innovate. That innovative spirit needs to be instilled while the student is getting his/her education. Innovation can then become part of his/her lifelong learning process and be ingrained in their health care delivery rather than an afterthought or not thought of at all. As technology continues to evolve more opportunities for innovation arise leading to better health outcomes. I am passionate about innovation because it offers new and unique ways to solve existing problems. Innovation can also be used to free up time for people to do more high-quality work by making more trivial tasks more efficient.  One example is the IT Team helped create a tablet-based lab exam that:

1. Reduces proctor time required to administer the exam
2. Reduces the stress for the students by eliminating announcements of remaining time throughout the exam
3. Reduces grading time
4. Decreases the time to provide feedback and exam results to the students
5. Allows the instructor/faculty easily see where the class as a whole needs more education by aggregating question response data

The College of Pharmacy envisions to develop leaders who will advance global health outcomes through innovative pharmacy practice. Therefore, delivering an innovative educational program is instrumental in achieving the vision. I serve a supporting role to our faculty members to continually seek new teaching and assessment methods to ensure that our graduates are practice-ready, not only for current practice, but also for future practice. I firmly believe that education is the starting point for many innovative practices. Pharmacy, along with other health science professions, is a very dynamic field where new discoveries impact practice daily. Our students and patients are changing, requiring unique generation-specific needs. Technology is evolving ever so quickly. So if we take a moment to pause and reflect all the moving targets that surround us, it is quite evident that continual development and innovation is not an option but a must.