BU Interprofessional Team to Develop Critical Thinking Course with Seed Grant
“Health professional students come from a background where there’s always a right and wrong answer; it’s always “a,” “b,” “c,” or “d—they are experts at being right,” says Dr. Neal Fleisher, Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of General Dentistry and Director of Pre-doctoral Periodontology at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM). “But your patient doesn’t walk in the door wearing four letters, from which you pick what’s wrong with them.”
A foundational skill for students of all health professions is the ability to perceive and analyze complexity and ambiguity in patient diagnosis—to learn to think critically. Recognizing the importance of critical thinking, Dr. Fleisher—with the assistance of Associate Dean for Global & Population Health, Dr. Michelle Henshaw—teamed up with three other faculty members representing all Boston University health professional schools to propose a curriculum module titled “Critical Thinking Strategies for the Health Care Provider” for first year students of GSDM, Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), and Boston University College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College (Sargent).
The other members of the faculty team are Dr. Mary Palaima, Clinical Associate Professor of Physical Therapy at Sargent; Dr. Matthew Russell, Assistant Professor of Medicine at BUSM; and Dr. Suzanne Safarty, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at BUSM.
In August 2014, the group was awarded a $5,000 Interdisciplinary Course Development Seed Grant from the Boston University Office of the Provost and the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching. With this funding, Drs. Fleisher, Palaima, Russell, and Safarty will recruit one student from each of the schools to work together to develop course goals, objectives, and content for a more detailed course proposal. They will also engage consultants from the Critical Thinking Community and Arts Practica. With further funding, the team aims to create a fully developed course to be offered for the first time in September 2015.
Critical Thinking Strategies for the Health Care Provider will teach students to systematically apply critical thinking concepts throughout their educational and professional careers. The first year dental, medical, physician assistant, and allied health students will collaborate in the learning process via small group discussions, electronic discussion boards, as well as online didactic activities. The visual component of critical thinking, which has already been successfully taught to GSDM and BUSM students as Visual Thinking Strategies for first year students, will be a component of the new Critical Thinking Strategies module.
This course is part of a larger initiative to incorporate interprofessional collaboration into the curricula for all health professional students. At GSDM, Dr. Henshaw has been working to create programs that will rigorously prepare trainees for collaborative practice and interprofessional care as part of her role as Associate Dean for Global & Population Health, which she took on in February 2013.
Dr. Fleisher explains the value of this type of collaboration: “A physician and a physical therapist may look at the same problem from a different perspective; and not just in terms of how they have to deal with it, but just in terms of the overall importance of the problem itself.” He continues, “Health professionals can improve patient diagnosis and treatment by understanding and combining these various perspectives.”
Dean Jeffrey W. Hutter said, “I commend the efforts of Drs. Fleisher and Henshaw to develop and showcase the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine’s position as a world leader in interprofessional care initiatives.” He continued, “I am confident that enhancing interprofessional training on critical thinking skills in the School’s curriculum will greatly benefit both our students and our patients.”