The Student as a Teacher

Despite my primary role as a learner, medical school has afforded me many opportunities to act as a mentor and teacher to others. In many ways, this has served to further solidify my desire to incorporate teaching into my practice as a physician and reinforced that the “lifelong learning” of medicine holds true regardless of status or situation.

One of my hobbies in medical school has been continuing in my role as an MCAT instructor (that I began as an undergraduate). This involves many late nights teaching classes in Meiling from 7-10pm after which I typically have additional studying to do for my own coursework. However, I find the role incredibly rewarding in paying it forward to the next wave of medical students (and it helps that it pays well, too). I make myself available to students before and after class and receive emails throughout the week with questions on coursework and life as a medical student. Although much of the information that I’m teaching is no longer relevant to my career in medicine (quantum physics, anyone?), the process of disseminating information, asking students to apply that knowledge to practice questions, and then reviewing and solidifying those concepts is very gratifying as a learner myself. I see a lot of parallels to my education of patients in the hospital. In both instances, I am considered the “expert” (emphasis on the quotation marks), but I do just as much learning myself from the students or patient. That reciprocal learning is what I love about medicine, and I hope to continue teaching in some capacity as I advance in my career.

Another aspect of my role as an educator is my experience with ultrasound at Ohio State. I have completed through Advanced Ultrasound and will be conducting an Honors Ultrasound project this upcoming year. As part of that program, I have been a proctor for various scans as other students complete the coursework. Passing along my knowledge to fellow classmates has been very rewarding as well, especially because I know that I gained my ultrasound skills from other classmates. That atmosphere of community-driven learning is really special at Ohio State, and I have loved my time in ultrasound as a result. My Honors project will focus on building ultrasound phantom models and developing a guidebook. As part of that role, I will seek to establish myself as the “go-to” for ultrasound phantoms among the medical students. Already I have fielded questions from classmates for advice on their own projects related to ultrasound models, and I’m thrilled that part of my 4th year project can include that sort of education as well. I’m excited to continue ultrasound through residency as well and continue to be an educator in that role.

Proctoring an MSK ultrasound scanning session during M3.