Make the Field Better

Pediatrician and Clerkship Site Director, Kimberly Hughes, MD

Kimberly Hughes, MD: I went to the University of Minnesota Medical School and Residency. We had a huge spectrum of preceptors. People that were a little bit more passive in their style, where you got to see them in action, but you weren’t actively participating. But then our core clerkships were a lot more interactive. I think the best teachers were people who would take the clinical situation, especially early on in the student years, and would broaden it and say, “Okay, what if this is a five-year-old? How does that change it? What if this person had two weeks of cough instead of two days? Then what would you think?” And that really helped us take one example that we learned and really understand how we could actually think through similar examples and broaden that information. I think that kind of teaching was super valuable.

If you’re a teacher in the field, you can make it better. You can help people and support their development — help them become better providers and then kind of pay it forward from the people who did that for you. Teaching also challenges me in a way that I like. When students ask you questions, it forces you to figure out why. It allows you to question things that you went two years without questioning, because the human brain, you just get used to things and forget the why. Sometimes you forget the specifics — the biochemistry behind things. That’s one reason it is really fun to be in touch with students, because as a doctor, that was why I took that path. I really wanted to know from a cell level how things work all the way up to the big picture. And students bring some of that back to the forefront for you.

I really hope to make it a valuable experience for the students. I hope to make it an interactive experience that allows for open dialogue and student-led questions about what they are thinking, what they are questioning. And hopefully they start to feel the sense of fulfillment of being a physician.

Hopefully the students start to feel the sense of fulfillment of being a provider. you spend so long in a classroom, it takes a while until you really get to see why you wanted to do this and what you like about it.

Kimberly Hughes, MD

I mean, you spend so long in a classroom, it takes a while until you really get to see why you wanted to do this and what you like about it. Most people like the academics to some degree, but really, what is the fulfillment? What is the joy of being able to be a doctor? I’m hopeful they start seeing that by having fulfilling conversations with families, providing information that is appreciated, or being able to connect with a child. Those are rewarding reasons we’re here, and so helping the students see those things is going to be really valuable.