Learners in the Carver College of Medicine are invited to provide examples of effective teaching at the end of each rotation. Read what our trainees had to say about Internal Medicine educators over the past few months.
Clinical Assistant Professor, Endocrinology & Metabolism
Dr. Wahba was a great teacher and a pleasure to work with in endocrinology clinic. Dr. Wahba intentionally chose patients for me to see with a wide variety of endocrinology pathologies, ensuring I experienced a well-rounded, comprehensive array of patients. He consistently gave me constructive feedback, which allowed me to improve my skills over the time we worked together. After expressing my struggles with understanding calcium/phosphate balance, Dr. Wahba wrote me a set of practice problems with lab values. Together, we went through the different cases and talked through how to interpret the lab values and clinical findings. As a student, I greatly appreciated the individualized teaching Dr. Wahba provided during downtime between patients at clinic.
Clinical Professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care, & Occupational Medicine
Went out of his way to effectively teach one specific learning point each day.
Resident, Internal Medicine
Alp is a natural leader who builds excellent team trust and morale. He was very in tune with when to provide additional support versus when to let me act more independently to expand my learning and build skills for the future. He was very engaging, provided relevant teaching points frequently, and had excellent interactions with his patients and colleagues.
Clinical Associate Professor, Gastroenterology & Hepatology
The best teacher I’ve had thus far during core year, and the bar is pretty darn high. Dr. Polyak was both extremely consistent with daily teachings as well as thorough. Dr. Polyak helped me out the most with my patient presentations. I always had a little trouble understanding the assessment portion of the presentation, but now I get it. He challenged me to think deeply about the differentials and wouldn’t just give me the answer, which I appreciated.. I also appreciate some good, hard, honest coaching. He wasn’t afraid to interrupt me as much as necessary to get things straightened out. He was also very helpful with clinical and procedural teaching, I could write a few more paragraphs about it.
Overall, Dr. Polyak is the kind of doctor you want to be around. He’s kind, intelligent, cares greatly about his patients, and clearly takes pride in his teaching. I haven’t taken advantage of dishing out feedback for faculty as much as I should have through core year thus far, but I knew I had to get on here to vouch for Dr. Polyak. What a great human.
Resident, Internal Medicine
I was able to work with Aubri during my inpatient rotation at the VA and on nephrology consults, and she took every opportunity to teach me and other students about any topics that came up on rounds despite carrying a heavy patient load and having several responsibilities. She also has such a positive attitude and warm personality that made for a very welcoming teaching/learning environment from a student perspective.
Resident, Internal Medicine
Alec went above and beyond to not only make me and the other medical students on 6RC feel welcome and a part of the team, but also to help us develop our own clinical reasoning when seeing patients. He encouraged us to suggest our own plans and take autonomy of our patient’s workup, including pending orders and consulting other specialties. He also made sure to check in frequently with how we were doing and gave multiple chalk talks on topics that we were not confident in before our shelf exam.
Resident, Internal Medicine
Trey did a great job engaging all members of the team during a very dynamic time of year. He managed core students, a sub-i, and interns who had just recently begun their residency with grace and ease. If a topic came up that didn’t get covered in a given day, he would be sure to circle back to it and make a teaching point out of it the next day. He focused not only on the typical aspects of education, patient care, and exam preparation, but also taught us about the challenges and successes of managing situations of high stress and learning to deal with the emotions that can arise.