HSEI at Michigan Medicine
Learn about our education innovation community and how you can join.
Our community supports collaboration through shared ideas, resources and goals. This inclusive community represents learners, staff and faculty innovators across the Michigan Medicine continuum from different disciplines, organizations and expertise. This community implements ideas to address important educational problems, shares best practices, fosters professional development and ultimately drives innovation throughout all of health sciences education.
For additional questions, please contact [email protected].
Rajesh Mangrulkar, MD, Executive Director
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Dr. Mangrulkar’s work lies in organizational leadership and innovative technologies, and their interface with transforming medical education at scale. In addition to serving as the Executive Director of RISE, Dr. Mangrulkar is the Director of the Center for Interprofessional Education. He previously served as associate dean, where he led the curriculum, student affairs, evaluation and assessment, educational research, learning community and admissions units for medical student education at the University of Michigan.
Paula Thompson, PhD, MA, Program Director
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Dr. Paula Thompson is the Michigan Medicine Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Education (RISE) program director. She oversees the RISE unit operations and innovation project development. Prior to this role, Dr. Thompson served as director, Advancing Scholarship at the University of Michigan Medical School where she led efforts to develop and disseminate the school’s education research and promote an infrastructure to produce high-quality scholarship.
Nikki Bibler Zaidi, MEd, PhD, Evaluation and Assessment Director
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Dr. Nikki Bibler Zaidi is the evaluation and assessment director for Michigan Medicine Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Education (RISE). She oversees the RISE unit evaluation and assessment. Prior to this role, Dr. Zaidi served as associate director, Advancing Scholarship at the University of Michigan Medical School where she worked with Dr. Thompson to advance and disseminate the school’s education research and promote an infrastructure to produce high-quality scholarship.
Meg Wolff, MD, MHPE, Curriculum Director
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Dr. Meg Wolff is the curriculum director of the Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Education (RISE) unit at Michigan Medicine. In this role, she provides oversight to the development and progress of our RISE innovators. Dr. Wolff also currently serves as the director of the medical student coaching program at University of Michigan Medical School. She has previously served in medical education leadership roles spanning UME and GME including as the emergency medicine medical education fellowship director and the associate program director of pediatrics residency. Prior to this, she served in medical education leadership roles spanning UME and GME including as the emergency medicine medical education fellowship director.
Learn more about the Innovators in the Innovator Development Program.
Emily Balczewski, BA, MD/PhD Student
Emily Balczewski is an MD/PhD student at the University of Michigan Medical School and Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. To stay on top of the vast and growing amount of medical knowledge they are required to understand, health professions students increasingly rely on electronic flashcards as a study tool. As a RISE Innovator, Balczewski plans to build educational and software tools to empower educators to understand this new learning strategy and shape its future role in health professions education.
David Belmonte, MD, MS, Department of Psychiatry
Dr. David Belmonte is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan Medicine. Belmonte’s project involves the use of artificial intelligence to assess medical student communication skills. As a RISE Innovator, he intends to develop a machine learning model with Large Language Model architecture and fine-tuned with Standardized Patient Encounters and the University of Michigan Communication Skills Checklist.
Emily Bilek, PhD, ABPP, Department of Psychiatry
Dr. Emily Bilek is a clinical associate professor and child psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan Medicine. Currently, exposure therapy is the most effective psychotherapy skill for treating youth anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD). Unfortunately, it is also the least commonly delivered skill due in part to clinician hesitancy about delivering exposure. As a RISE Innovator, Bilek will develop and pilot an experiential training curriculum for exposure to improve provider comfort with and delivery of exposure to youth with anxiety or OCD.
Ibtissam Gad, MD, Division of Rheumatology
Dr. Ibtissam Gad is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Gad will develop the first simulation model of its kind to help learners detect small joint swelling in the hand, which can be seen in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematous. Her and her team’s vision is that this model can be an excellent learning tool for trainees to help improve their physical exam skills, and to extrapolate those skills on patients.
Jenny LaCross, PT, DPT, PhD, WCS, ATC, CLT, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
Dr. Jenny LaCross is a research fellow in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Michigan Medicine and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. LaCross will be developing a Michigan Online Teach-Out covering pelvic floor anatomy and biomechanics to address disparities and inaccuracies in pelvis health anatomy education. The project will incorporate interviews and insights from U-M’s internationally recognized pelvic floor research group, and will also include anatomically accurate 3D-printed pelvic floor models demonstrating, for the first time, common childbirth injuries as well as the effects of aging and disease on the pelvic floor.
Emile Muallem, MD, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Emile Muallem is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Muallem will design and implement a Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) curriculum for the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine to improve patient care delivery at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. To achieve this, he will utilize a multi-pronged approach including educational modules, hands-on sessions and dedicated image review.
Julie Piazza, CCLS, MS, Office of Patient Experience
Julie Piazza is a senior project manager in the Office of Patient Experience at Michigan Medicine. Piazza’s innovation is to develop and implement a Patient & Family Life Specialty (PFLS) education program, establishing the PFLS role as an integral part of the adult interprofessional clinical care team. By addressing the issues of anxiety, procedural preparedness, emotional health, psychosocial care and non-pharmacologic interventions through innovative evidence-based education, Piazza plans to yield a positive impact on the patient/family/staff experience, as well as improving care team culture and well-being.
Pat Schloss, PhD, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Dr. Pat Schloss is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Schloss will evaluate the ability to strengthen learners' data science skills using an ensemble learning modality. His team will develop and disseminate best practices for being a member of an ensemble and being the conductor of the ensemble.
Maxwell Spadafore, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine
Dr. Maxwell Spadafore is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Michigan Medicine. He also serves as the director of educational informatics for the Office of Medical Student Education. As a RISE Innovator, Spadafore will work on a real-time AI-powered feedback quality assurance system. He will create a “Grammarly for feedback” which can coach evaluators in producing high-quality feedback for our learners.
Candice Stegink, MA, Department of Surgery
Candice Stegink is the associate director of innovation in the Department of Surgery at Michigan Medicine. Stegink’s project will address the need for tailored innovation programming for residents by expanding the Surgical Trainee Agile Innovation and empoweRment (STAIR) framework from Surgery to other departments, starting with Obstetrics and Gynecology, using a train-the-trainer model. The initiative will evaluate the program’s feasibility, scalability and its impact on resident leadership development, innovation mindset and interprofessional collaboration.
Courtney Burns, BSE, Medical Student
Courtney Burns is a medical student on a research year in the Department of Anesthesiology in between her third and fourth years at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE Innovator, Ms. Burns will develop the use of community-engaged art to promote emotional resilience among anesthesiology trainees and faculty after challenging clinical events (e.g., patient deaths, cardiac or respiratory arrests, etc.).
Malak Elshafei, BA, Medical Student
Malak Elshafei is a second-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE Innovator, Ms. Elshafei plans to enhance the M1 curriculum by integrating EPIC training and simulating patient cases during the scientific trunk, fostering early application of medical knowledge and providing students with earlier clinical experience.
Kathrine Giarra, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine & Internal Medicine
Dr. Kathrine Giarra is a second-year critical care fellow in the Department of Emergency Medicine & Internal Medicine at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Dr. Giarra will develop a computer-based simulation platform that will enable resident and fellow physician learners to hone clinical reasoning skills through deliberate practice on simulated critically ill patient cases.
Rachel Gottlieb-Smith, MD, MHPE, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Rachel Gottlieb-Smith is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Dr. Gottlieb-Smith will develop a system to more accurately and completely describe the clinical experiences and knowledge gaps of child neurology residents in real time, to allow for more timely precision education.
Jenna Greenberg, MD, Department of Family Medicine
Dr. Jenna Greenberg is a clinical assistant professor in family medicine and assistant residency director at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Dr. Greenberg will develop a novel feedback process with a focus on equitable assessment and mitigating bias to promote a culture of inclusion.
Katie Grzyb, MHSA, Department of Internal Medicine
Katie Grzyb is the continuous improvement specialist lead in the Department of Internal Medicine at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE Innovator, Ms. Grzyb will create resources for residents to make clear connections between Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and Quality Improvement work.
Kayla Marcotte, MS, MD/PhD Student
Kayla Marcotte is an MD/PhD student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE Innovator, Ms. Marcotte will develop and implement a faculty dashboard that displays quality metrics for narrative feedback given to medical trainees.
Alana Otto, MD, MPH, Division of Adolescent Medicine
Dr. Alana Otto is a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE Innovator, Dr. Otto will evaluate and optimize a novel longitudinal cross-institutional learning collaborative for Adolescent Medicine fellows.
Michael Brenner, MD, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Dr. Michael Brenner is an associate professor of otolaryngology—head and neck surgery at University of Michigan Medical School, Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Brenner addressed fragmented health care by integrating learning and patient care across medical, dental, nursing, social work and pharmacy health professions.
Heather Burrows, MD, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Heather Burrows is a clinical professor of pediatrics and serves as the associate chair of education in pediatrics as well as the pediatrics residency program director at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Burrows created and implemented a leadership curriculum for the graduate medical education community.
Ivan Co, MD, Departments of Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care
Dr. Ivan Co is a clinical assistant professor in emergency medicine and internal medicine, critical care. He serves as the assistant program director of the Emergency Medicine Critical Care Fellowship at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Co continued creating MI-DIVA (Michigan- Difficult IntraVenous Access Model). This model allows trainees to practice challenging central venous catheter placement in a simulated environment through a deliberate practice model.
Melanie Donahue, MD, Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program
Dr. Melanie Donahue is a fourth-year med-peds resident at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Donahue developed a novel curriculum for internal medicine and pediatric physicians to facilitate patients transitioning from pediatric to adult providers.
Chelsea Fisk, BS, Department of Cardiac Surgery
Ms. Chelsea Fisk is a clinical researcher in cardiothoracic surgery at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Ms. Fisk developed The Health Equity Literature Archive (HELA), an employee-centered initiative to foster independent, self-paced learning about the social determinants of health through memoirs, literary fiction and other works.
Glenn Fox, PhD, Anatomical Sciences
Dr. Glenn Fox is the director of the Anatomical Donations Program and co-directs the first year (M1) medical anatomy course at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, he developed and integrated eXtended Reality learning experiences into M1 gross anatomy sessions.
Alton R. Johnson Jr., DPM, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
Dr. Alton R. Johnson Jr. is a clinical assistant professor, podiatrist, podiatric surgeon and wound care specialist in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE innovator, he developed and implemented scalable utilization of augmented reality to enhance medical training education and patient care experiences.
Elissa Patterson, PhD, Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology
Dr. Elissa Patterson is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Patterson developed a curriculum focused on interprofessional core competencies of pain management.
Vitaliy Popov, PhD, Department of Learning Health Sciences
Dr. Vitaliy Popov is an assistant professor in the University of Michigan Medical School Department of Learning Health Sciences with a courtesy appointment at the School of Information. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Popov implemented a validated radar graphical tool mapping the four constructs of shared decision-making (SDM) to provide real-time visualization of care provider/team and patient/family perspectives on a given SDM situation.
Andrew Wong, MD, Department of Internal Medicine Residency Program
Dr. Andrew Wong is a third-year internal medicine resident at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Wong developed a novel curriculum (DATA-MD) to teach and empower health care professionals to use and appraise machine learning decision tools in the clinical setting.
Sandra Hearn, MD, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Dr. Sandra Hearn is the interim associate chair of education and professional development in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Hearn reshaped the feedback culture using a virtual landscape.
Hyeon Joo, MS, M.H.I., META
Mr. Hyeon Joo is a software engineer at META. As a RISE innovator, Mr. Joo developed an evidence-based machine learning tool to improve the care of heart failure patients by integrating its use with practitioners and learners.
Andrew Krumm, PhD, Department of Learning Health Sciences
Dr. Andrew Krumm is an assistant professor of learning health sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Krumm devised targeted assessment-feedback encounters to improve general surgeons’ operative performance.
Margaret (Meg) Wolff, MD, MHPE, Department of Emergency Medicine
Dr. Meg Wolff is a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Wolff developed innovators’ master adaptive learner skills through a comprehensive coaching program.
John Burkhardt, MD, PhD, Departments of Emergency Medicine and Learning Health Sciences
Dr. John Burkhardt is an assistant professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Learning Health Sciences. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Burkhardt engaged residents to use their individual clinical practice data to stimulate critical reflection on unconscious bias in health care practices.
Emily Johnson, MD, M.Sc, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Dr. Emily Johnson is a general surgery resident at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Johnson worked to address a key health issue in society by developing a curriculum for future health care providers at the intersection of health, clinical practice, sustainability and climate change.
Jenni Lane, MA, Weitzman Institute
Ms. Jenni Lane is the assistant director, training and technical assistance at Weitzman Institute. As a RISE Mini-Grant Recipient, Ms. Lane developed an educational model that translates research intro practice to improve provider practices for delivering confidential risk screening to adolescent patients. Learn more about her project
Marcus Sherman, PhD, The Roux Institute at Northeastern University
Mr. Marcus Sherman is an assistant teaching professor of bioinformatics at Northeastern University. His project aimed to improve scientific knowledge for all biomedical science graduate student instructors (GSIs) through a novel curriculum (POISE), combining traditional classroom education with community outreach.
Shoba Subramanian, PhD, University Partnerships at Amazon
Dr. Shoba Subramanian is the principal program manager, university partnerships at Amazon. As a RISE innovator, Dr. Subramanian developed competencies and a competency-based intervention to facilitate creativity and problem-solving in early biomedical sciences graduate students.
Marty Tam, MD, Department of Internal Medicine, Cardiology
Dr. Tam is the internal medicine program director at Michigan Medicine. As a RISE innovator, he developed a time-variable model of education for late residency and early cardiology fellowship using entrustable professional activities (EPA) in practice.
Michigan Medicine is committed to making it easier to join, participate in and receive support from our different health science education communities. Thus, Research. Scholarship. Innovation. Education. (RISE) and the Academy of Medical Educators are seeking faculty, staff and learners with a passion for education to serve on the newly established Education Community Steering Committee (ECSC) and join us in leading education excellence, innovation and transformation at our institution. As a member of this committee, you will have the opportunity to work with a vibrant community and alongside senior education leaders to help shape health science education at Michigan Medicine. RISE and the Academy are both committed to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice within health science education.
The Education Community Steering Committee (ECSC) will serve the visions of both the Academy and RISE and individual members will be asked to contribute in following ways:
- Provide input and feedback on the direction and activities of RISE and the Academy of Medical Educators.
- Assist with sessions that RISE and the Academy sponsor (individually and together), proposing topics, speakers and facilitators for these activities.
- Advocate for policies and structures at our institution that will help enable more frequent, creative and impactful education initiatives.
- Connect members of our education community to a broad, diverse network of experts and resources to advance their educational work.
- Leadership of the committee will include current leaders of RISE and the Academy (Dr. Rajesh Mangrulkar, executive director of RISE and Dr. Louito Edje and Dr. Emily Abdoler, co-directors of the Academy of Medical Educators).
- The Committee will include members from the Michigan Medicine faculty, staff and learners as well as key external partners and members of the university-wide community.
- The Committee will include education leaders and experts from different departments (basic science and clinical), specialties and areas of education expertise.
- Committee members will serve on different sub-committees given their interest, expertise, and institutional need.
- A simple but formal application process will be used to select members.
Committee members should commit to regularly attending monthly meetings and an annual planning retreat.
- Three -year term for faculty and staff (renewable once).
- One-year term for trainees (renewable once).
- Attendance at RISE and Academy sponsored seminars and special events is strongly encouraged.
Faculty, staff and learners from all health professional fields within Michigan Medicine are eligible to apply. Both junior and senior members of these groups are encouraged. Prior RISE Advisory Council and Academy Steering Committee members are also eligible to apply.
RISE
Michigan Medicine established Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Education. (RISE) in February 2019 to build a community to innovate health science education.
RISE aims to facilitate greater system-wide awareness of education innovation activities, resources, and funding opportunities and establish pathways that support Innovators from the pilot phase through implementation of their innovation into standard practice. This awareness and support will contribute to new ideas in teaching and learning that impact existing approaches, scale to other places and learner groups, and lead to changes in practice and health outcomes at Michigan Medicine and beyond. To date, RISE has built a community of over 600 Innovators, accelerated dozens of ideas, developed nearly 30 Innovators in the RISE Innovators Development Program and disseminated findings through multiple traditional and non-traditional venues.
To guide all of its activities, RISE uses two innovation frameworks that it developed. First, the Health Science Education Innovation Guiding Framework outlines the characteristics of innovations along three axes: (1) impact (the degree of change), (2) scale (across departments, disciplines and institutions), and (3) translation (the level of outcomes affected by the innovation). Second, the seven Health Science Education Innovation Competencies guide innovator development-curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, initiative, intelligent risk-taking, teamwork and visioning.
ACADEMY OF MEDICAL EDUCATORS
The Academy of Medical Educators (i.e. Academy) at the University of Michigan Medical School was established in fall 2013 as a community of practice for faculty to grow as educators in the service of better learning. The Academy was deliberately structured to be inclusive of any medical school faculty member who has a passion for medical education and is interested in teaching and the improvement of learning. Presently, there are nearly 250 members. In addition, Academy seminars are open to all (i.e. including non-members, staff, learners, and interested colleagues from other schools).
The goals of the Academy are to:
- Nurture the education community and forge connections among faculty interested in medical education
- Facilitate discussions and debates on important and timely educational topics
- Promote faculty development and mentoring/sponsorship for those who are focusing their careers on teaching and medical education
- Showcase educational scholarship and innovation within Michigan Medicine
- Help make educational careers more accessible to all Michigan Medicine faculty
- Support scholarship in medical education
- Explore educational innovations and scholarship at other institutions of potential interest to Michigan Medicine
Over its decade of existence, the Academy has undertaken a variety of educational initiatives, including peer-review and educator recognition programs. Presently, Academy activities include:
- Academy Seminars: 90-minute sessions focused on large presentations, discussions, and workshops
- PRISM (Projects, Research, Innovations, & Scholarship in Medical Education) - 60 minute medical education scholarship “lab meetings” where community members share educational initiatives and receive feedback
This video series provides a platform for education innovators to share their innovative ideas and discoveries. It also provides a unique opportunity for our innovation community to learn about education innovations happening within Michigan Medicine. We hope you are inspired by these innovation stories, and we invite you to reach out to these innovators to learn more about their work.
Speakers in the series include:
- Dr. Gurjit Sandhu (Entrustment in Surgical Medical Education – OptTrust)
- Dr. Daniel Cronin (Medical Education Novel Teaching On-Demand Resource)
- Dr. Brian George (Surgical Trainee Competency & Early Career Patient Safety)
- Dr. Sonal Owens (Cardiac Anatomical Virtual Reality (VR) Curriculum)
- Dr. David Zopf (The Impact of High Fidelity, 3D-Printed Surgical Simulated Models on Education and Patient Care)
- Dr. David Marzano (Emergencies in Clinical Obstetrics (ECO) Course)
- Dr. Payton Schmidt (Fundamentals of Vaginal Surgery Curriculum and Simulation Model)
- Dr. Zach London (A Novel Neurology Localization Educational Board Game: The Lesion: Charcot’s Tournament)
- Dr. Margaret (Meg) Wolff (A Learner-Centered Coaching Handbook)
Our video series was highlighted in MHealth Lab.
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