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Sheri Fong, MD, PhD and Justin Abe, MS2 attended the Western Group on Educational Affairs (WGEA) conference in Riverside, California on May 4-7, 2024. This is one of four regional education conferences held in the spring, through the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), with the medical schools in that region being rotating hosts. In 2023, JABSOM was the host for the combined Western Group Collaborative Conference which occurs every other year, and in 2024, the host was University of California at Riverside.
Both Dr. Fong and Mr. Abe represented JABSOM on the plenary panel titled “Satisfaction with Student Satisfaction” which provided viewpoints from three different schools on strategies to improve student satisfaction, an important component of the LCME accreditation process. The other two schools represented were the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and Kaiser Permanente, Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. JABSOM’s portion of the presentation started with our recent ISA results – of 93 items, 81 were above 95% satisfaction, and only 1 was less than 90%. The lowest rating was 88.3% for access to opportunities to specialties with no home residencies. They then shared about the spirit of aloha and ʻohana in Hawaiʻi and JABSOM, and how it is a part of our culture that promotes connection between students, faculty and staff, and our mindset towards curricular activities as well as gathering and responding to feedback. The plenary was very well received.
In addition, both Dr. Fong and Mr. Abe gave oral abstract presentations. Mr. Abe presented on behalf of his co-author, Michelle Trinh, MS2, on their medical education project, “Project Lexicon – A medical terminology mnemonic video curriculum”, which utilized animation to help learn medical terminology. The faculty supervisor for their project was Dr. Richard Kasuya. Mr. Abe’s project and presentation received multiple compliments from various faculty and students after the session. Fong’s presentation with her co-presenter, Dr. Dan Rogstad from Loma Linda University School of Medicine, was on behalf of a community of practice composed of 18 members from 16 different schools meeting weekly for over 3 years. Their presentation, “Getting to clerkship and beyond: Adaptable biochemistry learning objectives integrating basic and clinical science concepts for any curriculum”, described backward design in developing pre-clerkship learning objectives aimed at achieving the clerkship-level integrated learning objectives from Aquifer Sciences. Both Dr. Fong’s and Mr. Abe’s presentations were nominated for an WGEA award. Although the award ultimately went to different presenters, they were very honored to be nominated!
