Friday Courses

Modality: In person

Class size: 15

Goal: This course aims to provide information about the impact of different opportunities that medical professionals, including medical students, can pursue, and assess their impact. Many students are motivated to pursue a career in medicine out of a sense of altruism, but on some analyses, the marginal societal impact of the average physician is surprisingly modest. At the same time, survey responses from medical students indicate uncertainty about which areas afford greater than average opportunities to do good. 

Learning Objectives: 1) Learn about high impact cause areas from a series of guest lecturer experts in global health, biosecurity, medical technology, research, and health policy, with a focus on evidence of impact and opportunities for early career medical students and physicians. 2) Learn how to identify other higher impact opportunities to leverage their medical training, skills, and even their careers, to maximize their impact. 

Format: lectures (including guest lecturers), discussion, flipped learning

Assignments: 30 minutes/week of articles, podcasts, and/or videos. Participation & written or recorded reflection in which students address how they will apply the methods taught in the course in their own careers, or evaluate the expected impact of contributing to a medical cause area of their choosing. 

Instructors: Benjamin Krohmal, JD

Modality: Hybrid

Class size: 12

Goal: To introduce students to culturally competent care for LGBTQIA+ patients through the lens of the history of LGBTQIA+ equality and its intersection with healthcare discrimination.

Learning Objectives:  1) Gain knowledge about the history of discrimination experienced by members of the LGBTQIA+ community in healthcare. 2) Reflect on how different identities (for example, race, gender, ethnicity, social class, physical or mental ability) can intersect with LGBTQIA+ identity in the experience of healthcare. 3) Critically evaluate the current status of legal protections for the LGBTQIA+ community and where protections may be lacking. 4) Develop cultural competency and cultural humility in providing appropriate care and the use of appropriate language for the LGBTQIA+ community in healthcare.

Format: Small group discussions with prompted questions. 

Assignments: Attendance, readings, active participation and final written reflection

Instructors: Leon L. Lai, MD & Ashley VanMeter, PhD

Modality: In-person

Class size: 12

Goal: The experiential learning focus of this course is for students to answer the rhetorical question, What Do You Do, as practicing physicians faced with the myriad examples of bias and discrimination that we will encounter in course readings and discussions. I also teach this class for second- and third-year law students at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. 

Learning Objectives: 1) Understand the biochemical origins of bias and the impact of bias in health care equity, disparities and discrimination. 2) Understand the federal civil rights laws and principles that apply to health care, physicians, and nurses.

Format: Interactive discussions, active learning, and scenario based problem solving. Court cases, studies, analyses, and media reporting on applicable situations.

Assignments: Weekly readings, active class participation, satisfactory final project completion.

Instructor: Bruce L. Adelson, Esq.

Modality: In-person. NOTE: The course is best suited for those with intermediate level of Spanish language proficiency.

Class size: 12

Goal: This course aims to increase Spanish language proficiency and cultural competency of students, empowering them to better serve English-limited patients. It integrates a dynamic and diverse set of instructional methods, including lectures, role play, and active discussion of sociocultural issues that affect the Hispanic community, with the overarching goal of helping the students gain an enhanced cultural sensitivity towards these patients and learning fundamental strategies to optimize their physician-patient interactions.

Learning Objectives: 1) To gain knowledge in the fundamentals of physician-patient interactions with monolingual Hispanic patients and in the nuances particular for communication with this population. 2) To learn about the main health issues that affect the Latino population in the US and to gain a better understanding of the social, economic, and cultural factors unique to the Hispanic/Latino community and their role in health disparities. 3) To acquire training in the Medical Spanish of the musculoskeletal organ systems/diseases, diabetes diagnosis/management and cancer screening integrated with relevant knowledge of Hispanic/Latinx cultural beliefs and social circumstances. 

Format: Lectures, class role play, student presentations/discussions and final project (health literacy video).

Assignments: Students will be required to review vocabulary lists ahead of class, prepare a one-time short presentation and create a short health literacy video as their final project. Attendance, participation in class, quality of presentations and final health literacy video.

Instructor: Olga C. Rodriguez, MD, PhD & Luis Ricardo Henriquez, MD

Modality: Hybrid (some sessions in person and some virtual)

Class size: 12

Goal: Students will be able to focus on their personal health--physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, occupationally, spiritually and financially.  Students will select one personal health behavior that they intend to improve during the selective. 

Learning Objectives: 1. Increase your awareness of strategies for improving personal health and well-being. 2. Improve your overall sense of health and wellbeing and one personal health behavior. 3. Report on the effect of group support and accountability on your health improvement efforts. 4. Report increased comfort with sharing personal health information with classmates and instructors. 5. Increase your level of empathy for patients’ efforts to change health behaviors. 6. Reflect in writing on the process of improving personal health and well-being.  

Format: Each session will feature a different aspect of wellbeing and an activity to practice the featured aspect. Discussions, demonstrations, guest speakers, student presentations and small-group activities, including meditation and yoga, are designed to support their personal health improvement projects. 

Assignments: Readings, videos, podcasts, written reflections, attending spiritual service and trying out new exercise, 30 minutes/weekComplete a final written paper and asynchronous assignments, actively participate in each session

Instructors: Kathryn Hart, MD & Lady Nwadike

Modality: In-person

Class size: 12

Goal: To teach students compassionate communication skills using active listening skills, patient-centered communication and non-verbal skills in clinical settings. 

Learning Objectives: 1) Identify practical words, postures and facial expressions that convey compassionate listening and attention in medicine. 2) Recognize the existence and role of implicit bias in healthcare. 3) Recognize some personal implicit bias(es). 4) Learn and practice an effective, research- based way to deliver bad news. 5) Recognize basic components of self-care and will prepare a concrete and relevant personal, written plan for self-care. 

Format: Lectures, guest speakers, role play and readings

Assignments: Student preparation will be limited to about 30 minutes weekly (aside from final project) and will primarily consist of reading assignments for class discussion. Various surveys will also be assigned for preparation. Students should maintain an active presence in the class, respectfully listen and contribution to discussions. 

Instructors: Maura Carroll, MD & Colleen Blanchfield, MD

Modality: Hybrid (some sessions in person and some virtual)

Class size: 12

Goal: How can you, as doctors, navigate the legal and ethical issues that arise when providing reproductive health care? This course will explore the legal, ethical, medical, racial and socio-economic issues related to reproductive health care in the United States today. Students will also discuss the social policies behind these regulations, obstacles faced by patients and providers, and opportunities for patient advocacy. 

Learning Objectives: 1) Understand the legal and practical barriers to accessing and providing reproductive health care, particularly with regard to vulnerable populations; 2) Explore the ethical questions and obligations faced by doctors in the context of reproductive health; and 3) Examine the impact of poverty, race, age and geographic location on access to reproductive health care and how to improve that access.

Format: Lectures, guest speakers, role play and readings, 30 min reading/ week, with one week devoted to watching a film.

Assignments: Class participation, short written reflection on film (30 min), final written reflection. 

Instructor: Tricia Hoefling, JD

Modality: Virtual

Class size: 15

Goal: The primary purpose of this course is to encourage critical thought and to engage in dialogue about structural injustice and how it affects our patients. 

Learning Objectives: 1) Understanding the Essential Factors for Physicians to Consider in the Quest for Health:  Political Economy and Structural Causalities of Suffering. 2) Learning The ABC’s of political economy and how it fits in with medicine. 3) Understanding Structural Forces:  Globalization, Trade Relations, the rise of Multi-National Corporations, and Media Bias. 4) Understanding the role of race in our society, review of the school to prison pipeline, the prison industrial complex and structural violence. 5) Understanding what Organizing and movement building looks like in medicine and the physician's role in structural change. 

Format: Primarily discussion based, some lectures, multi-media presentation, simulations

Assignments: Most assignments will be readings and thinking of responses for class discussions. The final project will be an oral presentation and a brief written component. Final project preparation may add about an hour in the final week. Students will be assessed by 1) attendance; 2) participation in discussion; 3) final project.

Instructor: Nima C  Sheth, MD, MPH