OBGU-4063 - Basics of Infertility

OBGU-4063 - Basics of Infertility

Elective Type: career
    
Title
Basics of Infertility
Course Number
OBGU-4063
Duration/Weeks
1
Prerequisites: Successful completion of Year 2 
      Additional Requirements:
Consult with Dr. Hossain (amhossai@utmb.edu) at least 30 days prior to signing up for the elective. C-form required, send forms to Brandie Denton (bldenton@utmb.edu).
Responsible Faculty Director:
Amjad Hossain, Ph.D.
Other Faculty:
Location to Report on First Day
335 Clinical Science Building (CSB), Conference room in OB Gyn Suite (3rd floor near CSB auditorium) Contact: Dr. Hossain @ amhossai@utmb.edu or 409-772-2610/ 281-785-6804
Periods Offered
1A or B
excluding holiday period 8
Maximum Enrollment
1

Goals
Infertility affects approximately 20% of the population worldwide. In western countries human reproduction is facing multifaceted challenges from the fast evolving industrial, environmental, technological, social, cultural and other lifestyle changes. Further, social and economic pressure are forcing the couples to delay family building and because of which they are ending up seeking medical help for assisted reproduction more increasingly. Perhaps these complex reproductive issues make many students eager to know more about the reproductive health in their undergraduate medical training so that they can prepare themselves to face the ongoing as well as future fertility challenges.
To address the need a short introductory course on infertility has been proposed. The course will acquaint the students with the progresses and challenges in the infertility field. The proposed course will be for the students who dream to be an infertility specialist and equally for those who want to develop their career in primary care practices like general gynecologist, primary care physician (PCP) and internal medicine (IM) doctor but have interest in human fertility. The course will prepare them with the necessary infertility related In-trustable Professional Activities (EPAs) that will be foreseen during their graduate medical education. The course will be highly structured and enriched with selected study materials and resources thus is called “Guided Study”.

Objectives
1. Primarily to familiarize the learner with the infertility literature and resources and to track the continued development and challenges in the field. It will also assist the learner knowing

2. How environment, personal health, life style and aging can impact the normal function of the reproductive system causing reproductive failure

3. Learn how to utilize medical knowledge to protect reproductive health and achieve success with viable pregnancy

Description of course activities
The course activities will be designed so that it can be completed by total 40 hours spread over 5 workdays. The schedule outline will look like below. The schedule details can be seen in Appendix 1.
Day 1: 2 hours lecture + 5.5 hours guided study + 0.5 hour of discussion & guidance
Day 2 & 3: 7 hours guided study + 1 hour discussion & feedback both days
Day 4: 7 hours guided study + 1 hour presentation, discussion & feedback
Day 5: 8 hours guided study + written report preparation
Appendix 1: Program and Schedule Details
Day 1: The learning will start with a 2-hour face-to-face meeting. The learner will be introduced to the field of infertility, relevant literature and resource. The learner will also be given information on infertility issues that fall under primary care and specialty care. Emphasis will be given to familiarize the learners with fertility issues that can be addressed employing basic medical knowledge. In addition, some of the important requirements of the guided study such as timely completion of the reading the study materials, oral presentation and writing a short assay will be explained to the learner. After the meeting, the learner will spend 5.5 hours to read the selected literature in his preferred location. In the remaining 0.5 hour of the day the learner and the instructor will meet again to review the progresses the student made and any issue he might have. Appropriate guidance will be provided for efficient learning in the subsequent days.
Day 2 and Day 3: In both days, for the first 7 hours, the learner will read and analyze the study materials. At the end of each day the student and instructor will meet for an hour to review the learning achieved and student’s feedback. The progress-based guidance will be provided.
Day 4: The learner will continue with his assigned readings. In addition, will prepare a presentation focusing the learnings he achieved on infertility. In the 8th hour the presentation will be done, and the instructor will evaluate the presentation and share the feedback. The instructor may invite a senior Ob/Gyn resident, if available and thus optional, to attend the presentation and his comments will be requested for rating the quality of the presentation.
Day 5: The learner will continue with his assigned study and write a short assay highlighting his learnings on the status of human infertility, when and how he can apply his medical knowledge to address some of the common but simple infertility issues and when he needs to refer the patient to the infertility specialist. The written assay is due on day 5 preferably by mid night, but the submission will be acceptable next day by 5:00 pm.
Data Collection/Analysis: The student will be challenged with carefully selected infertility related study materials and resources. He will be asked to read, analyze and synthesize the information from the given resources. The student will be required to inform his knowledge gained on infertility to the course instructor during the daily interactions with the instructor plus by oral presentation and written report.
There will be about 2.5 hours of faculty time the first day and about 1 hour the rest of the days. There will be about 7-8 hours of self-directed study time each day.


Type of students who would benefit from the course
Medical students who have interest in developing career in Gynecology, Primary Care and Internal Medicine practices but has interest in human fertility issue either as a generalist or specialist.

Weekly Schedule
  Clinical Activities (estimated schedule)
  Day of Week AM PM
  Monday
  Tuesday
  Wednesday
  Thursday
  Friday
  Saturday
  Sunday
   Average number of patients seen per week: N/A  
   Call Schedule:   N/A  

Research Activities (estimated schedule)
Activity Hours per Week
Faculty Contact-Time
Self-Directed Study
Data-Collection/Analysis
Other

Method of Student Evaluation
1.  Clinical Observation
  A. Where are students observed on this elective?
    Inpatient Service   Ambulatory   Surgery   Standardized patients
Patients simulators   Other
  B. Frequency - How often are students observed clinically?
    Daily
  C. Format - What method(s) are used to document the student's clinical performance?
    Daily oral feedback   End of period oral feedback   Written feedback
Other

2.  Oral Presentation
  A. Audience - To whom does the student present?
    Faculty/Instructor
  B. Frequency / Duration of Presentation(s)?
    One, 30 minute presentation
  C. Format - What guidelines are set for the student's presentation?
    Instructor will set guidelines for a Power Point presentation
  D. Assessment - Who assesses the student's presentation performance?
    Self-assessment   Peer assessment   Faculty assessment
  E. Method of content selection
    Current cases  Student-selected topic   Assigned topic

3.  Written Assignment (H&P's, notes, papers, abstracts, etc.)
  A. Frequency of written assignment(s)?
    1 assignment
  B. Format - What guidelines are set for the student's written work?
    Will be set jointly by the instructor and student upon discussion
  C. Length of written assignment(s)?
    Abstract   Annotated bibliography   1 - 2 page paper   3+ page paper
  D. Are recent references required?   No    If yes, how are they selected?
    Instructor recommended way, should be ≤ 6
  E. Method of content selection - e.g. student-selected, relate to cases, etc.?
    Faculty-selected to fulfil the course learning objectives
  F. Audience - Who assesses the student's written performance?
    Peer Assessment     Faculty Assessment     Other

4.  Examination
  Format
    Oral   Written multiple choice   Written essay / short answer   OSCE
Other

5.  Extra Course Activities
  What expectations do you have for the student to demonstrate participation in the elective (e.g. small group activities, seminars, thoughtful questions, providing resources, journal club, resident lecture attendance)?
    The student is expected to demonstrate progressive content knowledge as time passes particularly during daily interaction with the faculty.

6.  Additional Costs
  Please list any additional costs and/or purchases (books, materials, movies to watch, etc.) that are required for this course. Include an estimated total cost. If there are no additional costs, please enter "None".
    None

7.  Other Modes of Evaluation
  Please explain below.
    The faculty may invite (optional) an Ob/Gyn resident (limit one) during the student’s presentation and may seek his opinion.

8.  If this course is an Acting Internship, please complete the following:
  A. Objectives for the AI should relate directly to the Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs). Each AI should describe how the four key Year-4 EPAs that our school has identified as being Year-4 skills are assessed. The Year-4 objectives are:
1. Entering and discussing orders/prescriptions.
2. Give or receive patient handover to transition care responsibility.
3. Recognizing a patient requiring urgent or emergent care and initiating management.
4. Obtaining informed consent for tests and procedures.
Specify how the student will be given formative feedback on their clinical skills.
   
 
B.

Year-4 students should demonstrate mastery of EPAs they developed in the clerkship year, including recommending and interpreting common diagnostic and screening tests, and performing general procedures of a physician. They should be able to demonstrate masterfully and independently skills they mastered in Years 2-3, including efficiently performing comprehensive admission-notes and succinct daily progress notes and perform accurate, concise, and hypothesis-driven clinical presentations, form clinical questions and retrieve evidence to advance patient care. They should be able to demonstrate basic understanding of and beginning mastery of collaborate as a member of the interprofessional team and identify system failures and contribute to a culture of safety improvement.

List advanced clinical skills that a student will be assured an opportunity to practice.
   
 
C.

How specifically will this AI build on developing skills from the clerkship year to prepare students for internship?
   
 
D.

What opportunities will typically be available to all students who take this AI (procedures, required presentations, etc.)? What opportunities may be available based on patient load/presentation or student initiative (ie. Writing a case report)?
   
 
E.

An AI should have expectation of a minimum of 32 hours per week of clinical responsibilities. Duty hours should be capped at ACGME limits for an intern, thus up to 24 hours followed by 4 hours of activities related to patient safety, education, and handoff. Students cannot work more than 80 hours per week averaged over 4 weeks. They can only have 1 day off in a 7-day work week with 8 hours off between shifts.

Clinical responsibilities will vary depending on specialty, but how is the student functioning with work commensurate to a PGY1 with an appropriate level of training?
   
 
F.

How is the student demonstrating drawing clinical conclusions and/or developing a management plan and documentation as an intern would do?
   
 
G.

How and by whom will midpoint feedback be provided to the student? How will you remediate deficiencies identified at midpoint?
   
 
H.

Acting Internship students often seek letters of recommendation following their experience. How many different Faculty will work directly with the student and have knowledge of the student's abilities to detail in a written evaluation? Describe the degree of supervision and interaction with faculty vs. residents or other providers and how feedback will be obtained if more direct work is with residents or other providers.