COMSEP Scholarship Consultation

One of the goals of the COMSEP organization is to support the development and dissemination of scholarly work in education by its members. To help foster this important aspect of career development among our members, the Research and Scholarship Taskforce and the Faculty Development Task force will be offering formal scholarship consultations as a part of the upcoming COMSEP meeting in 2005. This is the first year of this program, and if successful, it will become an ongoing part of our efforts to support the COMSEP membership.

Program outline:
COMSEP members will meet in a one-on-one session with a senior COMSEP member with experience producing and disseminating scholarly works about medical education. The goals of the session will be to enhance the scholarship of the member's educational project (e.g. identifying the appropriate program evaluation, where the work could be presented, how to get peer review, is it appropriate for publication, is there a research question etc.). We hope to enhance a broader view of scholarship (Glassick, CE. Academic Med 2000; Sept 75(9): 877-80), thus the type of scholarly work discussed in these consultations will not be limited to research or writing papers, but will focus on demonstrating the scholarly nature of our educational endeavors.

Request for Applications:
We are inviting all COMSEP members who are interested in this program to email Sherilyn Smith by January 25th. Please include in the body of your email:

1. A description of the educational project
2. The specific questions or areas that you would like to address with the consultant
3. Indicate your commitment to working on the project and generating a scholarly work
4. Activities to date developing the project

Projects will be chosen based on the applicant' ability to:

1. Clearly describe their educational project
2. Articulate the specific questions/needs they have to create a scholarly work
3. Commit to an ongoing mentoring relationship with the consultant to ensure the project will be completed

There is no requirement for previous experience in the field

Members who are selected to participate in the process (we will try to accommodate as many people as possible in the pilot year) will be asked to submit an in-depth description of the project that describes the current status of the project, what your questions are and what you hope to accomplish during the consultation by February 20, 2005. This will allow your consultant to make the most of your time together. For example:

• I teach students about communicating with parents using an interpreter (then describe the curriculum and setting). How can I evaluate whether these teaching sessions I am doing works?
• I want to teach residents how to break bad news using a series of 1-hour workshops, the first one was well received, how do I present this to a larger audience?

Your consultation will occur either prior to the meeting (Thursday am for those attending the pre-conference workshops) or at the time as one of the workshops during the meeting. We will work with you to insure that you get the most of the meeting!

Reply directly to: Sherilyn Smith if you are interested