Bringing New Perspectives to Academic Veterinary Medicine

Heather Fedesco, PhD, has built her career at the intersection of interpersonal communication, education, and organizational change. She earned a PhD in interpersonal communication and social psychology from Purdue University and has held roles at the University of Georgia, Vanderbilt University, and Purdue University, where she supported higher education change initiatives and professional development for educators.

Today, Fedesco serves as director for academic affairs at the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC), providing strategic leadership on curriculum innovation, outcomes assessment, faculty development, competency-based education, accreditation, and academic leadership across accredited U.S. veterinary colleges and international programs.

As a connector among institutions navigating complex educational transformation, Fedesco works to advance collaborative, evidence-informed change across her organization. She applied to the Harvard Macy Institute’s Leading Innovation in Health Care and Education program to strengthen her leadership capabilities, expand her interprofessional network, and bring new perspectives and approaches back to her field.

“I wanted to bring evidence-informed strategies from other health professions back to my community, while offering my peers access to insights and collaborations from academic veterinary medicine, which is also outside their usual sphere,” she explains.

Building an Interprofessional Network

Fedesco entered the program excited to broaden her network of health professions educators and her understanding of what was happening in the field. In her role at the AAVMC, maintaining an understanding of current events in other fields is essential to identifying emerging ideas and opportunities that can inform academic veterinary medicine. The program offered an opportunity not only to connect with health professions educators from around the world, but also to engage with their experiences in a more personal and sustained way.

“The Harvard Macy Institute in general and this program in particular provided a phenomenal opportunity to get to know leaders across the world on a more intimate basis during our week in Boston,” Fedesco says.

She was also interested in the program as a potential professional development opportunity for the broader academic veterinary medicine community. By experiencing the program firsthand, Fedesco could consider how the approaches and connections developed at the Harvard Macy Institute might translate into opportunities for constituents within her own organization.

Applying Design Thinking to Organizational Challenges

Another one of her primary goals was to develop a deeper understanding of design thinking and explore how the approach could be applied to complex challenges in academic veterinary medicine. Fedesco had extensive experience conducting qualitative research and was familiar with the backward design process, but the program encouraged her to view these existing skills through a design-thinking lens.

Seeing aspects such as the concepting phase in action during the IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design case study led by Harvard Business School professor Ryan Buell was particularly transformative and helped her understand how design thinking could be applied in practice.

“As a social scientist, I’ve conducted qualitative research projects, and as an educator, I’m well versed in the backward design process. But taking these skills and considering them under a design-thinking lens stretched me in ways that I found so valuable,” she explains.

The program also reinforced the value of interprofessional collaboration and the diverse perspectives that can strengthen health professions education. During project group discussions, Fedesco enjoyed listening to the challenges her peers were facing and drawing on her background in social science to offer new perspectives and explore potential solutions alongside her colleagues.

“I loved the accountability to engage so deeply in a well-designed program,” she says. “One of my favorite activities was taking part in the journal club and having opportunities to reflect on our readings with the group. I also found it rewarding to listen to a group member’s issue, then work with the other members to consider solutions to this problem.”

Rethinking Faculty Recruitment and Retention

The project that Fedesco brought to the program was focused on faculty recruitment and retention in academic veterinary medicine. Her organization had already formed a working group and begun developing a research project focused on the issue. The Leading Innovation in Health Care and Education program provided an opportunity for Fedesco to refine and develop her ideas further and return home with a fresh perspective on how to move the project forward.

After learning about the concept of “extreme users” during the program, she encouraged the group to identify people who represent different archetypes within academic veterinary medicine, such as those who love their academic job or those who have recently left academia. By evaluating varied types of individuals, the working group can gain a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing faculty recruitment and retention.

Once data is collected, Fedesco plans to encourage her organization to move into the concepting and prototyping phases of design thinking, exploring what structural changes could help address the challenge.

Carrying New Perspectives Forward

The relationships that Fedesco developed during the program have continued beyond her week in Boston. She attended the program alongside a colleague in academic veterinary medicine, creating an opportunity to reflect together throughout the week on how the concepts they were learning could apply to their field. They have since decided to submit an abstract to their organization’s annual conference focused on the key insights they gained about AI in health professions education.

For Fedesco, the value of the program extends beyond the frameworks and strategies she brought back to her work. The strong community she found through the Harvard Macy Institute continues to inspire her to innovate in her field, and she hopes to stay connected with her cohort for many years to come.