The invisible work of distributed medical education: exploring the contributions of audiovisual professionals, administrative professionals and faculty teachers

Abstract

Publisher's copyright statement:The nal publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-016-9695-4Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Distributed medical education (DME) is becoming increasingly prevalent. Much of the published literature on DME has focused on the experiences of learners in distributed programs; however, our empirical work leads us to believe that DME changes the context significantly, not only for learners, but also for other important members of the educational community including: audiovisual professionals, administrative professionals and faculty teachers. Based on a three-year ethnographic study, we provide a detailed account of how alliances between various workers involved in DME develop to produce and deliver an undergraduate medical curriculum across geographically separate campuses. We explore the question 'What is the work involved in the delivery of a DME program?' and cast a critical gaze on the essential but invisible, and therefore unrecognized and underappreciated, contributions of AV professionals, administrative professionals, and faculty teachers. Our goal is to make visible the complexity of DME, including the essential contributions of these workers. The study was theoretically framed in sociomateriality and conceptually framed in Star and Strauss' notion of articulation work.

COVID 19: Designing and conducting an online mini-multiple interview (MMI) in a dynamic landscape

“…This and other preparatory and on-the-day logistics mean that the "behind the scenes" workload was considerable, requiring significant numbers of faculty, administrative and IT staff and resources to ensure things run smoothly. People who are often invisible in medical schools (MacLeod et al 2017), such as IT and administrative professionals, were core to smooth processes.…”

Challenges, success factors and pitfalls: implementation of distributed medical education

“…Work in the ordered domains requires adequate resources and aligned operations for simultaneous movement on multiple fronts. With these present, successful outcomes were achieved and challenges in establishing core requirements such as technology‐assisted learning in DME and technology personnel could be overcome. Conversely, the strain on local health resources cannot be relieved if DME implementation is not adequately resourced.…”

Adapting to the impact of COVID-19: Sharing stories, sharing practice

“…This is exacerbated for those educators who also have a clinical workload whose roles are shifting and expanding. The support for teaching, learning and assessment varies widely by context, is essential but invisible, and therefore potentially unrecognized and underappreciated, but people such as IT and administrative professionals are also under much pressure (MacLeod et al 2017). There is, rightly, much focus on supporting students in this time of difficulty but the burden on staff must also be acknowledged.…”