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HSF to honor faculty members with
awards
Three
MUSC professors representing the colleges of Medicine (COM),
Health Professions (CHP) and Graduate Studies (COGS) have been selected
to receive the 2006 Health Sciences Foundation Teaching Excellence
Awards for their extraordinary accomplishments and teaching methods
that have earned praise from colleagues and students.
COM’s C. Michael Bowman, Ph.D., M.D.; CHP’s Patty Coker; and
COGS’Gabriel Virella, M.D., Ph.D., will receive their awards at the
Faculty Convocation Aug. 22.
Each of these recipients deserve
our highest praise for the contributions they have made and continue to
make to our educational mission. They serve as role models for
all of us who are fortunate enough to spend our careers in academia. It
is clear they are also role models for the scores of individuals they
have motivated, enlightened, and prepared to be outstanding health
professionals. We are indeed fortunate to have them among us.
The recipients will be formally recognized in August at Fall
Convocation, and each will receive a cash award of $3,000 and a
certificate. In honor of their accomplishments and as a continual
recognition of their contributions, they will also receive a
medallion to be worn with their academic regalia at all future
graduations.
Valerie
T. West, Ed.D.
Associate
Provost for Education and Student Life
C.
Michael Bowman
C. Michael Bowman, Ph.D., M.D., will receive the Educator-Mentor Award.
Bowman previously was awarded the Best Teacher Award by Pediatrics
residents in 2004-2005. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry
with honors from the University of Illinois, Urbana; and received his
Ph.D. and M.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in genetics
and medicine, respectively. He has been associated with MUSC as a
pulmonary attending physician since 2000 after having served as
professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California.
Bowman is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric pulmonology, and
he is licensed in both South Carolina and California.
In his philosophy, Bowman writes: “In graduate school, the most
relevant material, from lecture, lab or library, was tested. In stark
contrast, the medical student memorized exhaustively. If it wasn’t
emphasized in lecture, it wouldn’t be tested. I have spent my academic
career trying to bring self-directed learning to medical education. It
could be compared to passive vs. active immunization—medical school
facts, like infused antibodies, will disappear over time. We want our
trainees to recognize what they don’t know and to be life-long
learners.”
In recommending him for the award, Pediatrics resident Lisa Bryce
Lopez, M.D., discussed her history with Bowman, including sharing
inpatient rotations in General Pediatrics. After their rounds, “He
wanted to know what our plans were for each patient. If his ideas
differed, he gave the reasons, and usually a reference to back it up.
He would bring in a paper the next day to reinforce his teaching
points. He never seemed to be in a rush, he was always smiling, and sat
down after rounds each day to teach the students and the residents
something,” Lopez said. Lopez recalled a time with Bowman consoled the
family of a dying child. “Dr. Bowman was there at the bedside with the
family when he passed away. I watched as he shared a hug and a few
tears with the mother and grandmother of the patient. I have never seen
such a heart-felt, empathetic display of emotion from an attending
before. …He taught me lessons about medicine and life that I will never
forget.”
The many other accolades in award nominations included the terms:
“excellent teacher, “mentor,” and expressions of how he led students to
self-discovery and to become more committed to their professions
through his example.
“There is a certain constancy in the manner of Dr. Bowman,” wrote
MUSC’s Constantine Peter Copses, M.D. “He is often on the wards late at
night, finishing the day’s work completely and in a way that is not
rushed. He trusts the process of being a mentor and a physician—that
the seed he is planting will reach their potential naturally as they
have in so many of his patients and his students.”
“There can be no finer complement to Dr. Bowman’s contributions than
the future accomplishments of the students who have been fortunate to
have him as their mentor,” said Valerie West, vice president of MUSC
academic affairs.
Patricia
Coker
Patricia Coker, MHS, OTR/L, will receive the Developing Teacher Award.
Coker received her Bachelor of Science in Special Education from
Pennsylvania State University, and earned her BS in Occupational
Therapy, Master in Health Sciences from MUSC; and she is currently
working toward her Ph.D. in Education, Professional Studies in
Education from Capella Unversity.
Since 2001, Coker has been an instructor in the Occupational Therapy
Education Program at MUSC.
Coker’s philosophy is simply: “Learning is doing.”
“It is important to design and implement learning experiences that will
profoundly shape student learning,” she wrote. “Students that
participate in real-life experiential learning become more intimately
involved with the theory, concepts, and ideas learned in lecture and
lab coursework.”
Coker said that designing experiences for adult learners should include
an understanding of the social nature of the community of practice. She
has developed several learning experiences—Camp Hand to Hands (a
weeklong day camp for children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy), the
Charleston Miracle League, and the new Pattison’s Academy—that
encourage interaction among students and provide real-life interaction
with clients that benefit from the occupational and physical therapy.
In the Charleston Miracle League, students work with more than 80
children with various disabilities and their families in
non-competitive baseball games.
The recipient of the 1995 Teacher of the Year for the Florence School
District #1, the Pi Theta Epsilon, Coker also served as Lowcountry
chair for the SC Occupational Therapy Association.
Colleagues praised her for the passion and enthusiasm she exhibits in
her work and lecturing and mentoring students. She encourages
creativity in students. Coker has coordinated multiple on-campus
patient interactions for MUSC student labs and classes including
one-on-one experience with children with autism, interdisciplinary
pediatric evaluations, and in-class observations with disabled clients,
according to a student.
“Those who know Patricia Coker would agree that she exemplifies
Vincent van Gogh’s quote, ‘I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with
all my heart,’” wrote Cristina Reyes, one of her occupational therapy
students. “She has proven to be an outstanding teacher, clinician, and
mentor. She consistently commits herself to going above and beyond the
call of duty and demonstrates a high standard of excellence for
students and clinicians alike.”
A committed and hard worker, Coker inspires her students to achieve
excellence.
“Patty has a genuine drive to prepare students for what’s to come
in the field of OT,” wrote Madelyn O’Connor, OTS. Patty’s large base of
experience and background in the field of pediatric OT has contributed
to my awesome experience here at MUSC.”
“It is clear that our occupational therapy students benefit greatly
from having Ms. Coker as one of their teachers,” West wrote.
Gabriel
Virella
Gabriel Virella, M.D., Ph.D., will receive the Educator-Lecturer Award.
Virella earned his Ph.D. in Medicine (microbiology) and his M.D. from
the University of Lisbon, Portugal. His postdoctoral training includes
his time as a research fellow at Gulbenkian Institute of Science,
Pharmacology Laboratory in Portugal, and as a visiting researcher for
the Division of Immunology, National Institute for Medical Research in
Mill Hill, London.
Virella has been with MUSC since1979, having worked as coordinator for
second-year medical curriculum; vice chairman for Education, Department
of Microbiology and Immunology, vice chairman of the Department of
Microbiology, and director of Education for the microbiology and
immunology department, among other positions.
Virella has earned an award at MUSC nearly each year he has been here,
including a number of Golden Apple awards for excellence in teaching,
and he has authored more than 220 articles on topics related to
immunology. More recently he was bestowed the 2005 S.C. Governor’s
Award for Excellence in Scientific Awareness.
In his personal statement about teaching, Virella describes the
education crisis in the United States as one not limited to pre-college
years.
“Rather, with different shades and unique problems, [the crisis] has
spread to all levels of higher education, including medical education,”
Virella observed. “A major problem is the continuing shrinking of
public support for education, which forces medical schools to seek
alternative revenues. More often than not, research is seen as the
salvation board, and the institutions are very aggressive in their
fight for sponsored research funds.”
Meanwhile, he said a trend to increase class sizes and raise tuition
has resulted while fewer dollars become unavailable to improve
infrastructure. To help ease this mounting dilemma, Virella said he is
a proponent of “group-based learning as an alternative to endless hours
in the lecture room.”
He also has experimented with computer-based education and believes
that expansion of computer based activities be given a very high
priority. However, “One needs to recognize … that our current online
computer-based teaching programs are somewhat pedestrian and years away
from state of the art (which can be appreciated in video games).”
Virella urges more “interactive, multi-branching, cross-referenced
programs, which can be used independently by the students and that
should be followed by some type of evaluation that would go beyond
re-reading some sentences in the program to choose the right answers.”
He said that while the crisis unfolds, he will continue to “promote
understanding and appreciation of science and continue teaching my
discipline in a clinical context, with strong interdisciplinary
components.”
Comments of praise are numerous, as one might imagine for such a long,
tenured and accomplished career. The common thread is that Virella is
an excellent teacher, “extremely dedicated and talented.” One student
said in a course evaluation: “He was like a coach in many ways, which
some people in the class may not have appreciated, especially at
post-test reviews, but when Dr. Virella gave us a hard time (as a
class) for missing a question that he thought we should get, it was
like a coach coming down hard on his players for making a stupid
mistake. ... He’s just trying to motivate us to get our stuff together
for the board exams.”
Another called Dr. Virella, “one of the best, most effective teachers.
…He is very concerned with the students’ involvement and learning,
which I found refreshing.”
“It is very clear that the Medical University has been fortunate
to have a gentleman of Dr. Virella’s talents and dedication involved in
the education of future health professionals,” West wrote.
Friday, May 19, 2006
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