IAMSE Winter 2019 Webcast Audio Seminar Series
The Learning Environment in Health Sciences Education

The 2019 winter series of the IAMSE webinar program will focus on the role of the learning environment in health science education. The significance and importance of the learning environment is based on the assumption that a poor environment is associated with poor student performance, burn-out and stress. Numerous reports of students experiencing increased levels of unprofessional behavior and mistreatment on the part of faculty, residents, staff and other students have raised concerns about student well being, professional development, and accreditation requirements. As a result, a major emphasis on the part of health science educators today is to evaluate the learning environment, identify areas of concern, and take measures to address these issues.

The goal of this series is to raise awareness of the importance of ensuring a positive learning environment across health sciences education and to provide examples of systems and programs that have addressed this issue in an impactful manner. The introductory session will discuss the challenges in developing a conceptual framework for the learning environment, current limitations in measuring the learning environment, and initiatives designed to improve the learning environment. The remainder of the sessions will examine the current state of affairs in a variety of different health science settings. A panel will discuss these issues from the perspective of osteopathic, nursing and physician assistant educational programs.

We will gain insight into the issues and research being conducted on the global learning environment from some selected schools outside of the United States. We will explore the learning environment in graduate medical education (ACGME) and will conclude with an in-depth practical approach of how one medical school created a robust system to monitor the learning environment which will include case studies. It is anticipated that at the end of the series the audience will be more in-tuned with the importance of maintaining a healthy learning environment and be better equipped with practical applications for their educational programs.