Educating for Adaptive Expertise

The Harvard Macy Institute Podcast aims to connect our Harvard Macy Institute community and to develop our interest in health professions education topics and literature. Our podcast is hosted by our Program for Educators in the Health Professions course faculty Victoria Brazil, and will feature interviews with health professions education authors and their research papers.

In this podcast, Vic speaks with Martin Pusic, Bill Cutrer, and Elissa Hall about their article “Educating for Adaptive Expertise: Case Examples Along the Medical Education Continuum.”

What do we mean by adaptive expertise? Our discussion starts with some definitions and examples, including Routine procedural approaches, plus creative, innovative ones, when the situation calls for it.” This capacity is critical in a health care environment brimming with complexity.

How do we educate for adaptive expertise? Our guests suggested four instructional strategies, including: Developing deep conceptual understanding, exposure to meaningful variation, emphasis on productive struggle and discovery, and metacognitive strategizing. They drew upon the Master Adaptive Learner conceptual model.

We worked through the practicalities of this kind of education in the undergraduate, postgraduate (Emergency Medicine), and continuing professional development educational contexts. This is not easy! Our guests explained how they have worked through various barriers and constraints to realize the opportunities for fostering adaptive expertise in our health care professionals.

Victoria Brazil, MD (Educators, ’05, Leaders ’07, Assessment ‘10) is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of Simulation at Bond University Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine. Her research interests include podcasting and simulation, and she is co-producer of Simulcast - a podcast about health care simulation. Victoria can be followed on Twitter.