Community of Practice in MedEd

Learning is a social rather than an individual activity, and much of it occurs at the unconscious level, resulting in the acquisition of a large body of tacit knowledge. In this podcast, Dr Alice Fornari who is Vice President of Faculty Development at Northwell Health System and Associate Dean at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine helps budding educators to understand this novel concept.

3 key characteristics for the successful development of Community of Practice –

• Relationship Building
• Passion for the topic
• Sharing of resources

Speaker Bio –

Dr Fornari is the Associate Dean of Educational Skills Development, Zucker SOM (ZSOM) at ZSOM and is the Vice President of Faculty Development for the 23 hospitals of the Northwell Health organization. Her faculty development role at both institutions is designed to align the UME, GME and CPD continuum. Serving in these roles for the past 10 years allows her to bring UME curricular innovations to the GME programs and recruit educators from GME to participate in faculty development and teaching at the School of Medicine. She is co-editor of the IAMSE publication “How to Guide for Active Learning” produced by the IAMSE Publications Committee in 2015.  She has developed and implemented longitudinal CPD learning for faculty: “Learning Drives Teaching and Assessment” workshops, an educational research curriculum, “Educational Research Skills Development”, and system-wide “Resident as Teacher” and “Chief Resident” curriculum courses, all of which include interactive didactics and experiential components to assure skill-building is occurring in real-time. Dr. Fornari is actively engaged in obtaining external funding and implementing novel programs to transform medical education across the continuum. In 2014, Dr. Fornari was awarded a 2-year grant, Mentoring and Professionalism in Training (MAP-IT), funded by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation that focused on developing mentoring skills in clinicians to achieve humanistic relationships with trainees, colleagues and ultimately patients across the continuum of medical education. In 2015 the Department of Internal Medicine was awarded a 5-year HRSA Primary Care Training and Education grant, Improving Patient Access and Care Through Training (IMPACcT). Dr. Fornari is Co-Principle Investigator on this grant and has oversight of the implementation of grant activities which seek to transform the delivery of education to students and residents in ambulatory clinical care environments and impacting care delivered in those settings. All of her grant-funded projects have had sustainability beyond the funding period. National presentations and publications have disseminated funded educational innovations. Currently, she is a peer reviewer for numerous medical education journals, including Medical Science Educator and MedEdPortal. She uses her professional time to mentor numerous colleagues on educational research and how to bring an idea to project fruition and then publication. This mentoring also includes grant writing to seek funds for medical education projects. Dr. Fornari is an inaugural member of the Zucker SOM Academy of Medical Educators (AME) and in her faculty development role is intimately involved in the creation of its mission, landmark activities and message to all faculty at the Northwell Health Organization. 

Resources –

1. Medicine as a Community of Practice: Implications for Medical Education.