Over the past several months, members of the APA Education Committee, in collaboration with COMSEP and the APPD have discussed holding a conference solely devoted to promoting educational excellence in pediatrics. We envision this to be the first in a series of annual meetings to enable pediatric educators at all levels to collaborate and learn from each other.

For our first meeting we propose to focus on the faculty development needs of “front-line” clinician-teachers in the ambulatory or inpatient setting. We would also like to address leadership skills for those in student, resident or fellow education. We envision that this conference will also appeal to experienced pediatric educators through opportunities for sharing ideas and the potential to collaborate on pilot projects to introduce new curricula or improve education across the pediatric continuum.

Prior to further planning, we will be soliciting your input and requesting that you complete a needs assessment. We will be sending the survey out by e-mail within the next month. Please take a few minutes to reply. We value your ideas!

We are also planning a separate collaborative “Educational Summit” with the APPD and COMSEP to determine what a competency-based curriculum for pediatric education across the continuum from medical school through residency would look like and how it could be developed and implemented so that learners at each level would move forward to become teachers at the next level. Learning resources and evaluation tools could be developed collaboratively and modified for use with different levels of learners. The ability of trainees to learn and to teach would be enhanced by a consistent, phased curriculum which is clearly understood by learners and teachers so that large “jumps” in expectations, such as between medical school and internship could be reduced. A pivotal topic for discussion will be how the fourth year of medical school may be enhanced to better prepare students for internship.

Finally, we welcome your help in reviewing abstracts for the Ray Helfer Award. Please contact me if you are interested in being a reviewer or learning more about the initiatives described above.

Updated 11/1/07