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Happy fall y’all! Two Pills Podcast is back from summer break and better than ever!

Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

Can you increase your confidence (intervals) in teaching biostatistics?! 

Oh, biostatistics. A subject that strikes fear into anyone studying for an exam that contains them, someone presenting a journal club, or even analyzing your own data for research. Today, I am going to be describing a systematic approach to biostatistics that may help you in teaching the content and help your students with application. 

Healthcare professionals are required to continuously update their knowledge; therefore, our students need the skills for life-long learning, as well as an appreciation for the scientific method. Biostatistics is the “basic science” of quantitative evaluation of evidence and students will need to require evidence for methods of: prevention, diagnosis, and therapy/management in the treatment of medical conditions. Students need to know how to interpret diagnostic procedures and apply them to individual patients. Students need to develop the skills to read the medical literature with confidence in their ability to evaluate the validity of articles. 

Often, students are taught biostatistics in a lecture-based format. When I was taught biostats in professional school, I think I had last seen statistics in high school during AP statistics. As we’ll discuss, repetition is key for understanding and applying biostatistics. After they initially learn about biostatistics, their first presentations on statistical analysis may be in the high-pressure environment of a journal club. I think we have all seen the spectrum of confidence that students have when presenting statistics in a journal club.  

I first became interested in augmenting my teaching of biostatistics in an interprofessional setting. I was working with a medical residency and they wanted to increase the structure of their journal club/biostatistics curriculum. The milestones that I attempted to address were: 

PBLI -1: Locates, appraises, and assimilates evidence from scientific studies related to the patients’ health problems  

Level 1: Describes basic concepts in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical reasoning Categorizes the design of a research study  

Level 2: Identifies pros and cons of various study designs, associated types of bias, and patient-centered outcomes Formulates a searchable question from a clinical question Evaluates evidence-based point-of-care resources  

Level 3: Applies a set of critical appraisal criteria to different types of research, including synopses of original research findings, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and clinical practice guidelines Critically evaluates information from others, including colleagues, experts, and pharmaceutical representatives, as well as patient-delivered information  

Level 4: Incorporates principles of evidence-based care and information mastery into clinical practice 

Level 5: Independently teaches and assesses evidence based medicine and information mastery techniques 

Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

For full episode notes and more information, visit www.twopillspodcast.com

Happy fall y’all! Two Pills Podcast is back from summer break and better than ever!

Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

Can you increase your confidence (intervals) in teaching biostatistics?! 

Oh, biostatistics. A subject that strikes fear into anyone studying for an exam that contains them, someone presenting a journal club, or even analyzing your own data for research. Today, I am going to be describing a systematic approach to biostatistics that may help you in teaching the content and help your students with application. 

Healthcare professionals are required to continuously update their knowledge; therefore, our students need the skills for life-long learning, as well as an appreciation for the scientific method. Biostatistics is the “basic science” of quantitative evaluation of evidence and students will need to require evidence for methods of: prevention, diagnosis, and therapy/management in the treatment of medical conditions. Students need to know how to interpret diagnostic procedures and apply them to individual patients. Students need to develop the skills to read the medical literature with confidence in their ability to evaluate the validity of articles. 

Often, students are taught biostatistics in a lecture-based format. When I was taught biostats in professional school, I think I had last seen statistics in high school during AP statistics. As we’ll discuss, repetition is key for understanding and applying biostatistics. After they initially learn about biostatistics, their first presentations on statistical analysis may be in the high-pressure environment of a journal club. I think we have all seen the spectrum of confidence that students have when presenting statistics in a journal club.  

I first became interested in augmenting my teaching of biostatistics in an interprofessional setting. I was working with a medical residency and they wanted to increase the structure of their journal club/biostatistics curriculum. The milestones that I attempted to address were: 

PBLI -1: Locates, appraises, and assimilates evidence from scientific studies related to the patients’ health problems  

Level 1: Describes basic concepts in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical reasoning Categorizes the design of a research study  

Level 2: Identifies pros and cons of various study designs, associated types of bias, and patient-centered outcomes Formulates a searchable question from a clinical question Evaluates evidence-based point-of-care resources  

Level 3: Applies a set of critical appraisal criteria to different types of research, including synopses of original research findings, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and clinical practice guidelines Critically evaluates information from others, including colleagues, experts, and pharmaceutical representatives, as well as patient-delivered information  

Level 4: Incorporates principles of evidence-based care and information mastery into clinical practice 

Level 5: Independently teaches and assesses evidence based medicine and information mastery techniques 

Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

For full episode notes and more information, visit www.twopillspodcast.com

Two Pills Tip: Video Assignments!

Having students create short, video content for online learning can increase STEM self‐efficacy (Campbell et al., 2020), and thus, making student content part of the course can be beneficial. 

Students are (generally) VERY comfortable creating videos-Snapchat, TikTok, Reels, etc 

Assign via link, immediately asks student to record, goes into folder you design for this assignment, student lists their unique link as answer to quiz 

Practice, edit, assign short videos 

Many different options-students can even set up a zoom meeting by themselves (I often do this so that I can have a creative virtual background), for informal, can just record on their phone and upload...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com

Two Pills Tip: Positives of Pandemic Teaching and Learning!

Resources: 

https://news.cengage.com/higher-education/survey-about-half-of-faculty-are-more-positive-about-online-learning-today-than-pre-pandemic-and-expect-to-keep-new-teaching-techniques-and-digital-materials-in-place-post-pandemic/ 

Congratulations! Finished the semester and graduated another class of students! While there are MANY things we want to leave behind in the pandemic and revert back to the before-times, I wanted to take a minute to talk about the positives of teaching during the pandemic. What do you want to continue in your teaching? 

Stats: 

half of faculty (51 percent) are more positive about online learning today than pre-pandemic. Most faculty (71 percent) said their teaching in Fall 2020 was “very different” or included a “number of changes” and almost half (47 percent) expect those changes to remain post-pandemic...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com 

Two Pills Tip: Positives of Pandemic Teaching and Learning!

Resources: 

https://news.cengage.com/higher-education/survey-about-half-of-faculty-are-more-positive-about-online-learning-today-than-pre-pandemic-and-expect-to-keep-new-teaching-techniques-and-digital-materials-in-place-post-pandemic/ 

Congratulations! Finished the semester and graduated another class of students! While there are MANY things we want to leave behind in the pandemic and revert back to the before-times, I wanted to take a minute to talk about the positives of teaching during the pandemic. What do you want to continue in your teaching? 

Stats: 

half of faculty (51 percent) are more positive about online learning today than pre-pandemic. Most faculty (71 percent) said their teaching in Fall 2020 was “very different” or included a “number of changes” and almost half (47 percent) expect those changes to remain post-pandemic...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com 

Two Pills Tip: Video Assignments!

Having students create short, video content for online learning can increase STEM self‐efficacy (Campbell et al., 2020), and thus, making student content part of the course can be beneficial. 

Students are (generally) VERY comfortable creating videos-Snapchat, TikTok, Reels, etc 

Assign via link, immediately asks student to record, goes into folder you design for this assignment, student lists their unique link as answer to quiz 

Practice, edit, assign short videos 

Many different options-students can even set up a zoom meeting by themselves (I often do this so that I can have a creative virtual background), for informal, can just record on their phone and upload...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com

Interview with Gina Thomas!

Gina brings more than 35 years of healthcare expertise to Nobis Rehabilitation Partners, LLC. Gina has held a number of clinical and leadership roles in non-profit acute care hospitals, for-profit, public, and private organizations. 

Prior to Nobis, Gina served as the Chief Development Officer at Lumere where she built the commercial and marketing foundation. She brings a wealth of healthcare, clinical and operational knowledge and is known for 'connecting the dots' in healthcare. Prior to Lumere, Gina held business development and consulting roles at The Advisory Board and MedAssets with the early portion of her career devoted to clinical roles at 11 different healthcare organizations.​

​

Gina is a licensed Registered Nurse and holds a Master's of Business Administration. She currently serves as an adviser to the Co-Founders at CoverMe and Inlightened. Gina has also served as a leader or adviser on a number of professional non-profit organizations.

Full episode notes and more available at www.twopillspodcast.com

Interview with Gina Thomas!

Gina brings more than 35 years of healthcare expertise to Nobis Rehabilitation Partners, LLC. Gina has held a number of clinical and leadership roles in non-profit acute care hospitals, for-profit, public, and private organizations. 

Prior to Nobis, Gina served as the Chief Development Officer at Lumere where she built the commercial and marketing foundation. She brings a wealth of healthcare, clinical and operational knowledge and is known for 'connecting the dots' in healthcare. Prior to Lumere, Gina held business development and consulting roles at The Advisory Board and MedAssets with the early portion of her career devoted to clinical roles at 11 different healthcare organizations.​

​

Gina is a licensed Registered Nurse and holds a Master's of Business Administration. She currently serves as an adviser to the Co-Founders at CoverMe and Inlightened. Gina has also served as a leader or adviser on a number of professional non-profit organizations.

Full episode notes and more available at www.twopillspodcast.com

How are you preparing for the semester? 

Welcome to 2021! I hope you all had a great holiday! I ended up contracting Covid, so I have not been recording recently. Thankfully, my symptoms were mild and I am excited for the new year! I think many of us are cautiously optimistic and hopeful about what 2021 could bring.  

As we start January, consider this question-how prepared are you for the semester? You may have taught the same content in previous years, but how could you improve it this year? Have you switched to remote learning? If you switched to remote learning in Spring 2020, it was probably more of an emergent online teaching situation rather than a prepared and fully thought out plan. Now, you have some time left to prepare! Based on the resources listed at twopillspodcast.com, I have some areas to keep in mind as you plan for Spring 2021. 

Clarity: Students and instructors have had to increase our flexibility over the past year. With changes in how students attend class, how we teach, and how we take students on rotations-there have been quite a few variations to adapt to. Clarity of due dates and expectations can only help during this time. In my experience, overcommunication and with a variety of methods can help students meet or exceed expectations. Have a calendar, syllabus, course platform, emails, and/or verbal reminders. While it may feel excessive, a specific type of communication is likely preferred for some students over another type. Encourage students to set alerts, reminders, and organize their calendars/planners at the beginning of the semester. If, and more likely when, we are to see changes to the way we teach or the way students attend class, I recommend over-communication and reminders of these changes as well.  

For full episode notes and more information head over to www.twopillspodcast.com

How are you preparing for the semester? 

Welcome to 2021! I hope you all had a great holiday! I ended up contracting Covid, so I have not been recording recently. Thankfully, my symptoms were mild and I am excited for the new year! I think many of us are cautiously optimistic and hopeful about what 2021 could bring.  

As we start January, consider this question-how prepared are you for the semester? You may have taught the same content in previous years, but how could you improve it this year? Have you switched to remote learning? If you switched to remote learning in Spring 2020, it was probably more of an emergent online teaching situation rather than a prepared and fully thought out plan. Now, you have some time left to prepare! Based on the resources listed at twopillspodcast.com, I have some areas to keep in mind as you plan for Spring 2021. 

Clarity: Students and instructors have had to increase our flexibility over the past year. With changes in how students attend class, how we teach, and how we take students on rotations-there have been quite a few variations to adapt to. Clarity of due dates and expectations can only help during this time. In my experience, overcommunication and with a variety of methods can help students meet or exceed expectations. Have a calendar, syllabus, course platform, emails, and/or verbal reminders. While it may feel excessive, a specific type of communication is likely preferred for some students over another type. Encourage students to set alerts, reminders, and organize their calendars/planners at the beginning of the semester. If, and more likely when, we are to see changes to the way we teach or the way students attend class, I recommend over-communication and reminders of these changes as well.  

For full episode notes and more information head over to www.twopillspodcast.com