Lynne Bemis, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Cancer Biology
University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine
Mail Stop 8117
PO Box 6511, Aurora, CO 80045
303-724-3846
Lynne.Bemis@uchsc.edu
What is the central question, issue, or problem you plan to explore in your proposed work?
The central question of our work is: Does training in health disparities and cultural diversity enhance health care professional’s knowledge of the factors influencing health needs of people from diverse backgrounds. The long term goal of our program is to prepare healthcare professionals trained in the research of health disparities to implement positive solutions to health disparities.
Why is your central question, issue, or problem important, to you and to others who might benefit from or build on your findings? Recall that the goal of the scholarship of teaching and learning is not simply to improve your own teaching but to contribute to the practice and profession of teaching more broadly.
Comprehensive Health Disparities Training for First Year Medical Students was funded for the last two year as a Diversity and Excellence pilot project. The project was initiated because of a deficit that several of our first year medical students had identified in their preparation for a medical career. They had come to realize that prior to entering medical school many of their peers developed laboratory research skills, whereas laboratory research experience was not available to many of the minority students. Another area of concern is that of cross cultural issues and health disparities, that is often students of color are expected to be experts on health disparities by virtue of their heritage. Although, many students from under represented populations may have experienced health disparities firsthand, most probably have not discussed these issues with national leaders in the field of health disparities research. The goal of this project was originally to rectify both the lack of research experience and the inadequate preparation to discuss health disparities by providing a comprehensive training program. The training requires that participants (first year medical students) attend the weeklong Annual Summer Workshop, Disparities in America – Working Towards Social Justice held in Houston, Texas and if their schedule permits spend the remainder of the summer conducting research in a laboratory or public health setting. We had to adapt the program because the University began to offer the students research opportunities and this aspect of the program was no longer needed. We have decided to evaluate the student experience at the health disparities training in Houston. We will conduct interviews with the students who attended this week long course in Houston. Our goal is to determine if this week long training has influenced their attitudes in the clinical setting.
Broader Impact and Contribution to Teaching
The area of health disparities is so very complex and difficult to teach that we hope our study will identify information that is truly useful in the practice of medicine and will help to guide the teaching of this topic in the future.
How do you plan to conduct your investigation? What sources of evidence do you plan to examine? What methods might you employ to gather and make sense of this evidence? How might make your work available to others in ways that facilitate scholarly critique and review, and that contribute to thought and practice beyond the local? (Keep in mind that coaching will be available to help you develop these aspects of your proposal.)
We will be designing the interview questions and conducting the interviews with help from my PTLC coach and advisor Dr. Robin Michaels and Dr. Gretchen Guiton.
Include a literature review of the theory and practice of the subject of your inquiry in order to locate your research in the literature preceding it. (The Website offers expert information and advice on how to conduct a modest literature review.)
In reviewing the literature it seems that our program best fits into the category of fellowship programs. We were able to find a few publications that had evaluated such programs but they have many years of followup or they pooled their data from small groups (1 – 3). Through interactions with the PTLC we are hoping to lay the ground work for longterm followup and longterm evaluation. Our expectation is that short term evaluation is also of great importance to our ability to develop a sustainable program.
What aspects of the design and character of this work are you not yet fully prepared to describe?
We will be designing the interview questions and asking for IRB permission this year.
What questions do you have and what do you still need to know?
Does our program have the desired effect which is to better prepare health care professionals to solve health disparities problems that they encounter in their own practice.
What is your record of innovation in teaching and/or the assessment of learning?
I am the co-founder of the innovative teaching program, Genetics Education for Native Americans (GENA). This program focuses on teaching genetics to under represented minorities (URM) with the goal of providing education to inform decision making. Students from URM often do not have exposure to scientific careers and are thus often excluded from these fields of study. In addition, genetic information is increasingly more often required for communities to make decisions about healthcare and yet many of the community members have had little education in the field of genetics. GENA was developed and evolved into a 30 objective curriculum that addressed the needs of Native American community members and was useful to other URM community members as well. Descriptions of the GENA curriculum and its evaluation have been published in numerous peer reviewed articles (4-8). The most recent assesment of learning for GENA has included use of an Audience Response System (ARS) which has also been previously described (9). My previous experience gave me an interest in applying innovative methods to collaborative curriculum development and is the reason I am interested in working with the students to develop this student initiated training.
Can you suggest an appropriate coach for your project?
Dr. Robin Michaels and Dr. Gretchen Guiton are working with me to find new avenues to present health disparities topics to medical students. We are in the process of applying for additional funds to be able to fund students who would like to attend the Health Disparities Conference in Houston.
Are you able to attend the required meetings as specified above?
Yes I will attend meetings as required.
If your project is selected, are you willing to serve as a coach in PTLC in a future year?
Yes, I am willing to serve as a coach in future years.
References:
1)Mitchell, J, Levine, R, Gonzalez, R, Bitter, C, Webb, N, White, P. Evaluation of the National Science Foundation Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program. 2003. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. (this is a reference available on AskEric)
2) Ball, WJ. Using Public Policy-Oriented Community-Based Research to Boost Both Community and Political Engagement. 2003 paper
presented at the annual political science association (this is a reference available on AskEric).
3) Trumbull, E. and Pacheco, M. Leading with Diversity: Cultural Competency for Teacher Preparation and Professional Development. 2005. Education Alliance at Brown University.
4) Burhansstipanov, L., Bemis, L.T., Dignan, M. and Dukepoo, F.C. Development of a Genetics Education Workshop Curriculum for Native American College and University Students. Genetics. (2001) 158:941-948.
5) Romero, F., Bemis, L.T., Dignan, M. and Burhansstipanov, L. Genetic Research and Native American Cultural Issues. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. . (2001) 7:97-106.
6)Burhansstipanov, L., Bemis, L.T., and Dignan, M. Native American cancer education: genetic and cultural issues. J Cancer Educ (2001) 16(3):142-5.
7) Burhansstipanov L, Bemis L.T., Kaur JS, Bemis G. Sample genetic policy language for research conducted with native communities. J Cancer Educ. (2005) 20:52-7.
8) Dignan MB, Burhansstipanov L, Bemis L.T. Successful implementation of genetic Education for Native Americans workshops at national conferences. Genetics. (2005) 169(2):517-21.
9) Gamito EJ, Burhansstipanov L, Krebs LU, Bemis L.T., Bradley A. The use of an electronic audience response system for data collection. J Cancer Educ. (2005) S20(1 Suppl):80-6.