Helping medical trainees find their passion

Alisa McQueen, MD, works with a student.

The intensity of medical training is like no other, and such recent events as the COVID-19 epidemic and the ongoing pediatric viral surge have made medical education even more challenging. “Pediatric attendings and trainees have had to navigate situations we’ve never seen before against a backdrop of national concerns and conversations about physician burnout, well-being and the right way to train in medicine,” said Alisa McQueen, MD, Program Director of Pediatric Residency Training and Vice Chair for Education in the University of Chicago Medicine Department of Pediatrics.

But McQueen, who oversees undergraduate and graduate programs in pediatrics, has more than a few ideas and strategies for creating excellence in medical education, and they’ve caught the attention of other leaders in the field. Recently, McQueen was named the recipient of the 2023 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The award honors program directors who have fostered innovation and improvement in their residency and fellowship programs and who serve as exemplary models for residents and fellows.

McQueen, a pediatric emergency medicine physician, has been lauded for helping residents identify careers that stir their passion. “Residents who discover an aspect of pediatrics that they can really wrap their hearts and souls around approach their training with a greater sense of meaning and purpose,” she said. All residents are assigned mentors to guide them in individualizing their training. Residents interested in primary care, for example, can elect a clinical schedule that allows them to experience different outpatient settings and to attend seminars with experts in urban primary care. Other education tracks allow residents to do an extra year of training and get a master’s degree in public policy or public health. “Our residents are becoming leaders and innovators in child health,” said McQueen.

A select number of residents can choose a unique physician-scientist track, which replaces some of their clinical training with lab time. “They are engaged in translational research and literally bringing the bench to the bedside,” McQueen explained. The MERITS Pathway gives residents interested in medical education exposure to curriculum development, simulation-based medical education and education scholarship. And yet another track gives residents the opportunity to participate in a modified version of a medical ethics program that is generally open only to fellows.

McQueen also breaks new ground by devising ways to forge connections between 50 fellows in 12 different pediatric subspecialties. “We are bringing together all the fellows across specialties to train them in the skills that every subspecialist needs, and also to build community among our fellows, which can be especially difficult in intense training environments,” she said. All fellows now learn “big-picture skills” together, which includes research methodology, the process by which evidence-based medicine is created, and how to talk to families about end-of-life care. “All pediatric subspecialists have to work with families on making difficult medical decisions for children who have chronic diseases,” said McQueen. Fellows also attend career-development conferences, which address topics such as skills they need to become leaders in their subspecialties.

And this year, Pediatric Critical Care Fellow Kayla Duvall, MD, assumed the new role of chief fellow. “The chief fellow is a liaison between all the pediatric fellows and the department leadership to help us think creatively about ways we can support our fellows and help them achieve their goals,” said McQueen.

McQueen’s biggest innovation yet is still in the workroom phase, but it promises to deliver a monumental overhaul of pediatric medical education. “So much is changing in the landscape of child health, and we want to be at the forefront of meeting the healthcare needs of the next generation of children,” she said. How, for example, can pediatricians in training meet the huge challenge of treating children with behavioral and mental health problems when there are so few child psychiatrists and specialists in developmental and behavioral pediatrics? McQueen asks.

On her office wall, McQueen displays a quote by Fred Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You’ll always find people who are helping.’” Said McQueen, “We ask medical trainees to work through new and often difficult situations every day. I just want to be one of those helpers.”