Session Design Submission Review

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Have you ever felt out of your depth while taking care of a patient with a marginalized identity?

Have you ever felt that you could make the experience of a marginalized patient better, but didn’t want to speak up to your attending?

Upteaching describes an educational model in which a person who is typically a learner teaches a new concept to a person who is typically an educator. Often seen in informal settings, upteaching carries with it an understanding that learning may happen at any time and from a variety of sources. Upteaching can be applied in a variety of settings when a psychologically safe environment is present. This model can allow for those typically in the learner role to consolidate their knowledge and improve their confidence while providing new information to the person typically in the educator role.

Although the rigid hierarchy of surgery mandates a top-down educational structure in which a medical student or resident learns from an attending, students and trainees have valuable insights to offer that can have a positive impact on patient care. In particular, in an ever-changing landscape of social justice and equity, the up-to-date knowledge that students and trainees have may help attendings to understand these concepts and apply them to the care of marginalized patients. In the surgical education environment, upteaching is a valuable tactic to exchange ideas and promote dialogue within the healthcare team. Upteaching may also have downstream effects of promoting a culture of safety by creating a respectful and inquisitive learning environment.

This workshop is aimed at attendings, residents, and medical students. It will cover the importance of upteaching, why it matters for promoting health equity, and how to apply upteaching principles—for both learners and educators—in the clinical environment. Workshop participants will be given the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences and develop an action plan for applying upteaching principles to their own practice.

90-minute workshop

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Analyze the ways in which the culture of surgery is and is not amenable to upteaching.

Describe upteaching as a framework for learning about health equity topics and explain its importance.

Apply upteaching principles in a practice environment.

Develop strategies for creating a welcoming space for upteaching in the learning environment (attendings) or for practicing upteaching in the learning environment (residents/medical students).