Transformative Education Leadership Program Launched This Summer with Positive Results

The Transformative Education Leadership Program (TELP) launched its inaugural standardized patient encounters this summer to unanimously positive feedback from students, faculty and standardized patients. TELP was created by NYMC medical students, Lior Levy, left, and Redab Alnifaidy, right, both SOM Class of 2023, with the goal of building thoughtful, action-taking and anti-racist leaders and developing skills to address microaggressions. The program was chosen amongst highly competitive initiatives nationally to be supported by the 2021 Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Medical Society Medical Student Service Leadership Grant over a period of three years. 

This past year, the TELP team developed real-life clinical scenarios that challenge students to confront uncomfortable situations in the safe environment of a standardized patient encounter. This included the creation of role-playing scripts, rubrics and debriefs throughout the experience, led by the TELP scholars, who underwent intensive training by Pamela Ludmer, M.D., M.S., associate dean for curriculum integration. The summer course immersed students in modules on difficult conversations, leading change in healthcare education, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, leadership competencies, personal and professional growth as a leader, as well as high-performing team dynamics among other topics. 

“It is one thing to have discussions on being anti-racist. It is another to practice being an ally through action. These standardized patient encounters present a unique opportunity at NYMC to allow students to try out what they want to say and stay curious when put in a difficult situation where a patient, colleague or superior says something that is insensitive,” said Ms. Levy.

“Were a patient to micro aggress a healthcare team-member or peer, it is vital to educate the patient about the impact of their actions, while continuing to build and maintain a strong patient-physician relationship. Similarly, if one’s superior is to make an insensitive remark, it may be difficult as a subordinate in the totem pole of medical professionals to discuss how such implicit biases may unknowingly influence the patient’s care. This underlines the importance of increasing awareness and practicing the execution of your advocacy before one is inevitably faced with it,” said Ms. Alnifaidy.

Feedback on the program has been overwhelmingly positive. “Thank you so much for putting together such a phenomenal workshop. The standardized patient sessions were SO incredibly helpful in allowing us to practice the skills. I can only imagine the amount of time, thought, planning, and effort that went into creating this session,” said one student.

“We began with a vision and with the support of our mentors, SOM faculty and the TELP scholars, watching that vision come to fruition was truly humbling,” said Ms. Levy. 

“This program was designed to leave a legacy at NYMC and so going forward we hope to expand this program into other clinical years to continue to research and address microaggressions in the clinical setting. While we have completed this year of TELP, our work is not yet over,” said Ms. Alnifaidy.