CHEST has set itself apart as a leader in medical education by providing innovative and engaging resources for clinician educators in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. That tradition will continue at CHEST 2024, where dynamic sessions will highlight effective teaching techniques and insights that attendees can incorporate into their curricula.

A comprehensive schedule of clinician educator and educator development programming at the annual meeting can be found by filtering the CHEST 2024 online schedule and CHEST Events app by the relevant topic tags. Simulation sessions and other ticketed programming will require an extra registration fee. Stop by the registration desk in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center first floor north lobby to inquire about availability.

APCCMPD-CHEST Clinician Educator Forums

The Association of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Program Directors (APCCMPD) and CHEST will once again host joint forums for clinician educators during the annual meeting. Three hour-long sessions will be held back-to-back, with small breaks, on Sunday afternoon, October 6, in Room 258C at convention center.

Graduated Responsibility, Effective Teaching in Fellows Clinic, at 1:30 pm ET, will examine barriers to teaching in the outpatient setting and explore methods for improving fellows’ ambulatory training. Making the Checklist Make Sense—Procedural Competency Assessments in the Age of Changing ACGME Requirements, at 2:45 pm, will look beyond procedural volume as a surrogate for fellow competence and identify other tools and assessment metrics. And Developing a Regional Virtual Critical Care Fellowship Core Curriculum, at 4 pm, will address challenges and solutions for creating a multi-institutional collaborative for fellows that can optimize the use of available facilities and educators.

Pardon the Disruption

The popular Pardon the Disruption series of sessions, returning for its seventh year at the CHEST Annual Meeting, will address hot-button topics in the realm of medical education for the first time.

Pardon the Disruption: Controversies in Medical Education, on Tuesday, October 8, at 9:15 am, in Room 210A, will feature four experts in a spirited debate moderated by Session Chair and Past CHEST President, David Schulman, MD, MPH, FCCP, of Emory University School of Medicine.

“It’s a chance to talk about really interesting things with really smart people,” Dr. Schulman said. “If you can’t do that at a meeting, why would you attend? That’s the best part.”

The game show-style format, where humor and attitude are almost as important as the facts, should result in an entertaining review of current principles and practices in medical education. While Dr. Schulman will lead the discussion, he noted that the audience will have a chance to influence the amount of time spent on topics—and potentially the score distribution.

“I’ve always enjoyed having a session where we fly by the seat of the pants. We try to target 13 to 15 topics. Sometimes we get through 10 just because there is a lot of discussion,” he said. “And I’m okay with that. It’s a better session if we can be flexible in meeting the audience’s needs in real time.”

Healing Our Healers

Clinician educators also won’t want to miss Healing Our Healers: Building a Program to Manage Second Victim Syndrome, Stress, and Burnout, on Wednesday, October 9, at 11:15 am, in Room 258C. Speakers will share unique perspectives on how to support colleagues who may be struggling with challenges related to negative patient outcomes. An interactive discussion will specifically address how institutions can best prepare trainees for those experiences.

“It’s important to hear how different groups are approaching wellness support systems because wellness is not ‘one size fits all,’ and every facility that’s interested in the well-being of their physicians should have multiple layers and multiple options for health care workers to find what fits their needs,” said Session Chair, Jacqueline Pflaum-Carlson, MD, of Henry Ford Health.

During the session, Dr. Pflaum-Carlson will discuss second victim syndrome, which affects many clinicians who have lost a patient. She said the term “second victim syndrome” doesn’t aim to remove the patient from the center of the narrative but rather acknowledges what clinicians are experiencing at the same time.

“The fact that a lot of people go through this and very few people talk about it is what makes these talks so dynamic and valuable,” Dr. Pflaum-Carlson said. “When we start sharing stories, and people in the room chime in, everybody’s always kind of like, ‘My goodness, I can’t believe so many people in this room feel the same way.’”