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[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
Alex Walters: What's up everyone? Welcome back to the Learning Curve.
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For this episode, I was joined by Doctor Scott Bragg, a professor at the MUSC College of Pharmacy.
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During this conversation, we discussed his journey to MUSC, how his teaching philosophy has evolved,
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teaching and clinical experiences that have impacted how he now approaches instruction and course design.
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The College of Pharmacy's new curriculum and the importance of faculty being in development.
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And we close the conversation with the discussion around AI and how this is affecting the pharmacy profession and education.
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This was a great conversation full of fantastic insights.
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I hope that you enjoy this episode of The Learning Curve.
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Alex: Awesome. How's your week going so far? And I know it's Monday, but how's your first few hours been so far versus yours has gone?
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Scott Bragg: Well, I had a class at ten so that's okay. That went smoothly.
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So that's always good. Yes. You know good to start the week smoothly.
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Alex: So awesome. Um, so like I mentioned we are already recording.
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Okay. So we're just going to kind of jump into it. Very good.
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Um, and I always like to start these episodes kind of talking about folks is like personal journey.
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So how do they get to that? Their position now at MUSC.
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So if you could kind of just walk us through, um, your journey to where you are now.
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So your background and what kind of go from there? Scott: Sure. So I didn't expect to be in a teaching role.
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When I first, uh, went into pharmacy, I went to West Virginia University for my undergraduate,
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got into pharmacy school, thought I wanted to be an independent community pharmacist.
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Along the way, I transitioned a few times.
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So the first time I, um, developed type one diabetes in the middle of pharmacy school, and that was a kind of life changing experience.
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But I was able to volunteer at a pediatric diabetes camp in the summer of my, uh, second and third year of pharmacy school.
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That kind of led me into thinking I wanted to be a clinician, because I was able to see the impact we were able to make.
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At that point, I was like, I definitely want to be a pharmacy preceptor.
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Um, as a as a pharmacist. But I wasn't bought and sold on academia at that point.
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But, uh, went into residency, uh, master residency in, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, UPMC Saint Margaret.
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And from there, I just caught the teaching bug.
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So there, um, pharmacy residency was kind of married to a family medicine, uh, faculty development fellowship.
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And so they went through all things being a faculty member, running a meeting, doing a research portfolio.
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How do you improve your teaching skills? How do you precept, how are you a contributing faculty member?
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And that kind of got me really interested in faculty development, interested in lifelong learning.
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And that led me into looking at exclusively academic pharmacy teaching positions, both teaching within family medicine,
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working with medical students, working with medical residents to working with uh, College of pharmacy students, uh, pharmacy residents.
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Um, and it was really a nice marriage for me as far as one that was able to kind of take, uh,
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a lot of my faculty development training within, uh, residency and, uh, put it on a different, um, trajectory for my career.
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Okay. Very interesting. Um, so, first of all, um, go, mountaineers, because I'm also, I'm from West Virginia.
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Mountaineers. We've got a, um. Yeah, I wish a tournament game. Exactly.
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Very excited about. It's the one time I wish we had video actually had like a Western new water bottle.
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Some be, like, pointing at the camera right now. Um, yeah. But anyway, so that's really interesting.
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Um, so, so basically you kind of went into it, you definitely weren't sure if you wanted to get in academia.
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You never really saw yourself in the classroom. You had this evolution where, um, you know, you're working, said you're working with like residents,
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working with like, students, and you kind of kind of caught the bug.
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And then you kind of it's kind of evolved from there.
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Right? So talk about, um, how you kind of got into more the didactic part of teaching.
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So you're you're now decided you've got the teaching bug, it's time to stand in front of a class and kind of,
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you know, teach that way, um, talk about that experience.
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So I think that's very interesting for folks to hear about, um, how that kind of got started for you.
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And what was your experience like in those terms as well?
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So I feel like a little bit of a fraud as a teacher, kind of not having a formal teaching background.
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My my family is a family of teachers. My aunt was a teacher for 35 years.
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My sister is a medical middle school teacher.
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Um, back in West Virginia, um, I had no formal training, you know, outside of my faculty development fellowship.
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But one of the things as part of that program, um, and also a few things with the residency we lost,
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uh, a resident, they were, um, not wanting to be a pharmacy resident, uh, after a few months.
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And so we had to pick up the extra lectures as part of that, um, uh, person moving on from the residency program.
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Um, with that, I taught every other week.
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So I was giving a formal lecture, whether it's a small group, whether it's a didactic lecture every other week through the rest of residency,
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which was difficult to prepare on a lot of different content.
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But it was kind of a a nice thing. It was trial by fire. It it got me to realize I can speak in front of others.
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I actually like the interaction of an audience being able to clarify points, um, slow you down, speed you up.
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And I just really kind of fell in love with that, um, classroom teaching, um, in the College of Pharmacy.
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At first we were, um, primarily teaching through precept ING and doing small group work, but that.
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Kind of gradually grew as I was able to kind of, um, go through years and years of being offered different opportunities.
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And so I've kind of built up over the course of time, the amount of teaching hours from 1 or 2 hours,
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kind of didactic teaching, the first few years to, um, probably 20, 30, 40, um, depending upon the year.
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In subsequent years. So, um, and I think each time you give a lecture, you learn a little bit about the content,
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you connect things from a, um, basic science to apply it a little bit more effectively,
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or you learn things clinically while you're, um, working as a clinician,
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and you're able to kind of share those stories and experiences with, with learners.
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And, and that's what I absolutely love about the teaching that I do within the, within the classroom.
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A lot of the, um, lectures and materials that I try to build are case based, um, scenarios where we're able to actively apply things to a case,
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and I'm able to challenge people by saying, hey, if this lab were different, what would you do?
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Or if the patient presented with this complication, how would you go about managing that?
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And I find that to be my most rewarding teaching when I'm able to kind of relate
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things to things that I am seeing on a day to day basis and being able to,
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um, stay dynamic with that interaction with students. Definitely.
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So it sounds like and I always like to ask folks about their teaching philosophy too.
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So it sounds like, um,
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kind of one of the things at the core of your teaching philosophy is like creating relevance so that you're talking about case studies,
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you're talking about telling stories, um, you know, to make those connections.
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How is your teaching philosophy evolved? So from that day, one that you were in the classroom is you've gained more hours, gained more experience.
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What's changed, uh, over the years, teaching philosophy wise.
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So, so I think in, in my kind of background, early on, I recognized that I was interested in, in lifelong learning,
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in kind of constantly improving my abilities to take care of patients and, and be able to educate others.
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And that's really where a lot of it centers on. So I think that I try to take all the experiences that I have in, in different academic settings,
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whether it's writing a paper, how can I actually apply that to patient care?
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How can then I incorporate that into my teaching? What are new resources that I can share with learners?
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So, um, that was one thing that I did in lecture today.
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Um, I was teaching a, uh, case on pancreatitis and was trying to talk about drug induced pancreatitis.
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And I was like, you know, there's a lot of drugs that are associated with pancreatitis, but we're going to take a stop here.
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You all have a looked at, um, severity,
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causality scoring scales for how could a various medicine be associated or is it associated with causing pancreatitis or other, um, complications.
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So so that was a nice opportunity.
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I just googled the Durango um, causality scale, was able to kind of share that with with learners and kind of took a tangent in it,
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but it was something that I found to be very valuable because afterwards students were like, I've never heard of this before.
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This is a nice resource to be able to incorporate as part of my, uh, resources that I can kind of use to take care of patients.
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Um, so that is one thing I just want to share resources, tools that, um, I can learn about, apply it the next day,
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or apply it two weeks from now to, um, doing a little bit better job with connecting with my audience.
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Um, I think two another thing that I've had to kind of learn and,
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and get more empathic over time, develop that, um, understanding that people's life situations.
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As a pharmacy school student and learner, there's a lot going on with people.
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Um, so that that's something that I've tried to continue to reflect on is, is what is, uh,
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ways that I can kind of adapt, um, my materials to people with different learning, uh,
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abilities or challenges, uh, to what are ways that I can make more of my content asynchronous so that they can,
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uh, look back on materials and be able to kind of make their own connections.
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And I reflect on that myself. I feel like a lot of times when I'm doing, um, learning and doing faculty development talks,
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a lot of times I can teach it better to myself when I actually do the hard work of
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trying to learn the material and read about it on my own and do Trial by um fire.
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Um, as opposed to sometimes where people are just trying to lecture new material to me.
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So that's one thing that I kind of think about is there's a lot of ways that, um, teaching and learning works, and I'm just trying to facilitate.
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How does that, um, become more seamless for people?
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By giving them a lot of options. Yeah. So one thing it sounds like to.
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That you've definitely kind of evolved on or changed this very much like almost educating, uh, students holistically.
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So rather than just thinking them as bodies in a classroom that you, you know, are sharing content with or talking to or trying to give,
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you know, resources to, um, you know, you're also very much thinking about, like, what are their experiences?
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What are they going through? Because obviously they have this didactic part. They have like clinical hours there.
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So they're they're working, you know, in the field and things like that.
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So it's am I correct to say, like you're very much taking those considerations into, into view when you're thinking about how you're teaching?
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Yes, definitely. I am trying to constantly test the tone or feel.
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Is there anxiety in the air? Do I need to kind of, um, be that moral support, slow things down?
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Um, and are things making sense with people? When I'm going through an audience response question, is it, um, everybody is answering it at 100%,
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and I can kind of just speed up in my lecture, or is half the class missing it?
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And I need to maybe take a step back and try to explain the rationale for why I selected this for this particular, uh, case.
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Sure. Yeah. And, uh, I also want to hit on you said something kind of interesting.
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You also said, um, you kind of like to adapt now for, like, asynchronous learning.
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So I want to touch on that briefly, because we do have folks who listen to this podcast who who work in,
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you know, instructional design, course design, things like that.
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What's been your experience like adapting, um, what you teach for asynchronous learning and how how's that process look?
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Because I think that's something, um, that's, that's worth talking about and maybe talking about, um, what's been your experience with that?
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So I've tried to reflect on this a lot by creating different assignments that people can kind of do at their own pace, whether it's, uh, um,
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one of the assignments that we have posted right now in our course, we recognize that, um,
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the common associations of the top 300 drugs, um, wasn't always there for our learners to be able to connect.
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Um, this is the branded generic and this causes this side effects.
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And these are the things that need to be, uh, monitored.
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These are precautions.
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And so, uh, we reflected on this as an entire faculty, and then we're like, we need to teach this in each of our individual semesters.
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Uh, one of my courses called, uh, Clinical Applications,
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was picked to kind of have this asynchronous module kind of put in where I could post, um, practice questions.
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I could have a milestone assessment kind of down the road. Um, but that was actually something I just posted this morning.
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I, um, helped with, uh, one of my colleagues, Doctor James Sterrett.
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We were able to kind of create questions to test, um,
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learners on the top 300 drugs for this semester that they're going through in their, uh, spring P2 year.
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And so we have that as, uh, um, opportunity for people to identify what are their strengths and weaknesses within drugs,
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within, um, respiratory diseases and gastroenterology and, um, diabetes and infectious disease.
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And so then they're able to kind of take things that they've learned, um, uh,
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few weeks to days ago and, and be able to then, uh, have an assignment that they are able to,
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um, answer questions, uh, on an exam and then help prepare them and reflect on things that, um, they can then apply in a couple of weeks.
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Um, another one that, uh, I'm working on right now is called a, um, pharmacy outcomes assignment.
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So one of the things that I want people to be able to do is read, uh, medical literature and be able to apply it.
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And so that's, uh, um, thing where we created a scaffolded, um, assignment where students are getting a article a week or two in advance.
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They read through it, they complete, um, a two page worksheet, and they try to identify, is this a solid article?
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And can they actually, um, apply this to a patient case?
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So we're actually having the session tomorrow where I'll give them the patient case.
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And then they'll be able to say, well, based on the article we read, we would apply this article to the patient case or we would not.
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And so that's one of the things that, um, I've tried to, um, have something that they are able to kind of go out complete on their own,
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can ask questions in advance if, if there's any content of how you actually apply it.
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And then we get together in the class tomorrow, we're going to go we're going to debrief on the article.
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We're going to say, hey, could you apply this or could you not to this particular patient case.
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Um, and it gives an opportunity to practice outside of the classroom, inside the classroom.
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Um,
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and hopefully we're incorporating enough active learning within the class for them to be able to apply it in situations where they will then need to,
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um, be able to do as, as a pharmacist, kind of in the future.
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Right. Um, so I love that idea, like all together, because one thing and it's been a common theme on this podcast is like one thing I.
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I say a lot is like, I feel like learning now is necessarily hybrid.
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Like there's no such thing as just hybrid learning or, um, learning doesn't really, like occur in silos anymore, right?
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Like you very much have to have opportunities to engage, um, with your peers or with content or with assignments, like outside of the classroom walls.
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And I think, you know, obviously, 2020, the pandemic really like, demonstrated that,
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like that's something even more so we have to have uh, I want to follow up on that.
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Um, just kind of briefly, uh,
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how is how was your experience in far how would how would your experience have been in pharmacy school if you had those opportunities?
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Because I'm going to assume, you know, hybrid learning, online learning wasn't, um, as abundant as it is now.
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So would you say your your experience would have been different if you had these opportunities that you're presenting your students?
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I think so, I think that the my pharmacy training was absolutely phenomenal.
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We, um, had problem based learning for a lot of our curricula where we would be assigned reading chapters beforehand, have, um, activities to do.
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Um, were asked to actively apply information in the classroom.
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I think what is maybe a little bit different from what we are doing now is there's more breadth,
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there's more understanding of kind of learning theory.
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And how do you kind of, um, create scaffolding within an assignment,
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within a course and within multiple courses to be able to kind of build people up over time?
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I think in our, um, pharmacy curricula, we have a lot of, um,
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active learning built within two different courses, one called, uh, Clinical Applications,
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where each semester throughout the course of five semesters, they are being asked to have patient cases and apply them on a different level.
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At first it's just presenting, um, this is what happens with this disease state.
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It then evolves into writing a Soap note.
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It then evolves into writing a more detailed soap and providing evidence around things.
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Um, and then being able to argue with, uh, an intending pharmacist, why you would actually go in and use this.
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Um, and a lot of that, in my opinion, is, um, a capstone is, uh, one of our courses called Clinical Assessment,
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where they are that person that is looking through the electronic medical record,
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they're coming up with their own, uh, patient problems for a patient case,
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and then they are trying to present it to a pharmacy preceptor and convince them that this is what needs to happen.
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And I think that really, um, progression, um, helps people step up over time,
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but also is able to give them some practice scenarios for being able to convince,
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um, a team of other medical professionals that you need to be making a change with the therapy plan, which I think is is daunting.
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Yeah, definitely. Uh, that whole concept of guided learning is,
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is amazing because I think what that does also is it gives students practice opportunities rather than making everything,
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you know, feel like for like lack of a better phrase, like life and death, they have time to like practice these and get used to them.
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And then you step them up occasionally and then eventually they see, you know,
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that kind of the, um, holistic, you know, journey that, that, you know, happens.
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Um, I think that's amazing. And it really is a nice segue into what I want to talk about next, which is, um,
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some of the, uh, curricular redesign that you've been doing at the College of Pharmacy.
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Um, so I know you been working on on it for a while. Uh, can you just kind of walk us through that experience, what it's been like so far?
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And then, um, what are some of the outcomes that you're hoping, uh, from, from, from this redesign?
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So just tell us a little bit about X. I think it's very interesting.
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And I think it'll be really interesting for folks who are, uh, maybe considering, um, this to, to hear as well.
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So this has been a huge endeavor for us.
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I mean, this has been something that has been discussed for the last five, six, seven years, um, that I've been on the faculty.
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But we officially approved this about a year and a half ago in, ah, about a year of serious, intense work to actually make this happen.
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Uh, we're calling this the Helix Plus curricula. So we are trying to have a curriculum that spirals all content together.
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And, um, we do have blocks of material where you might have a course over the course of, um, 3 to 5 weeks.
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Um, but a lot of our content, whether it's pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, um,
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pathophysiology, therapeutics, a lot of that is kind of wrapped all together in one course.
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Um, as part of that, we're centering things on active learning.
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We are trying to have active learning as much as possible, so that we are giving learners the ability to,
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um, apply material and learn it on a much different level.
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Um, one of the critiques in our current curricula was in our first year,
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we're not getting, um, a lot of examples to be able to apply to actual patients.
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And so that's one of the. Things that we are trying to change in our current model is give them more opportunities
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to be able to learn and actively have application as part of that process.
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We're also trying to have block exams as something that is fundamental with what we're trying to do.
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Having a block exam every 2 to 3 weeks, um, that's a little bit more holistic.
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I think many other curricula, like the College of Medicine at MUSC uses block exams very successfully.
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Um, but we are trying to, um, basically stop being the talking head, try to have different types of activities, try to,
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um, innovate, try to be open, to try new teaching instructions, um, be able to track data like what was it before?
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What is it now? Are we being effective in our instruction techniques?
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Um, a lot of it is centered on the scholarship of teaching and learning and being able to, um,
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take a pilot for a semester or a year where we are trying a new innovative method and see how it works.
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Um, so that is, uh, what a lot of our curricula is centered on.
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And right now we are just trying to figure out how do we coordinate and how do we step up the expectation and how do we get enough, um,
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replication and redundancy so that they have the opportunity to not just think about one topic,
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memorize it for an exam, and then reproduce it and then forget about it.
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What are ways that we can actually bring that up over the course of two and a half years,
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so that they are able to more readily go on rotation and be like, okay, fluids and electrolytes.
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That was the first thing that I learned about in our therapeutic series,
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but I actually feel good at adjusting to different electrolyte disorders and calculating out of maintenance fluid rate and,
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um, seeing the patient for as complex as they are and being able to adapt to the scenario.
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So you're it sounds like you're trying to design just a thread that starts from the first time they enter the doors of the College of Pharmacy,
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kind of a thread all the way through the curriculum, where as they progress, they're continually making connections.
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So this last course I know we learned about ECS.
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I need to remember that, retain that information because I'm going to have to apply it, potentially apply it in this next course.
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And kind of just. Am I right? Am I correct what I'm saying? You want to kind of lead them through the through the curriculum that way?
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Yes, exactly. And I think another, um, big component of our curriculum is what we are calling transcending concepts.
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So like, um, artificial intelligence or um, digital health, that's one of the transcending concepts that we have.
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So we're having various leaders, um,
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look at our entire curricula and understand where various parts fit and try to identify new opportunities for
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where we may be need to add content to teach about something that is being taught in a different course,
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or, um, teach something completely new and innovative that we find in the practice of pharmacy is important to to know about,
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but it's not currently in our current, uh, curricula.
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So, um, that across I think we have 9 or 10 different transcending concepts.
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And so we have these, um, teams that are working outside of our regular curriculum to try to figure out how do we loop everything
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in and how do we slightly elevate the expectations semester to semester so that people are,
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um, progressing the way that they need to be for when they are going on rotation?
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Yeah, definitely. And it sounds like to me like this new curriculum is not only beneficial for students,
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it's beneficial for faculty, too, because you're talking about the scholarship of teaching and learning.
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So again, what I'm seeing is like that holistic like it's not like it needs to be about the students, of course,
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but like there's also a lot of value in it for faculty for engaging with these courses and engaging with this content and eventually being able to,
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you know, publish on it or present on it, uh, which I think is really, really super interesting.
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Um, I think that leads us to our next point I want to discuss, which is just how are you developing faculty?
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How are you preparing faculty, um, to teach in this new curriculum or, um,
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if you're not really to that stage yet, what are what are kind of your aspirations for faculty development?
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Um, as part of this, this redesign. So I think part of our success is really lean in our staff.
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We actually have several staff members that have, um, an education degree.
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So, um, and one faculty member that has their um, uh, PhD, um, in education.
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And so that that's really valuable to kind of leverage that experience and,
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and be able to look at things from an instructional design standpoint, be able to have high quality peer reviews.
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Um, that is something that we've really tried to jump into in the last couple of years,
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is getting every faculty member a peer reviewed so that they are reflecting on their own teaching methods.
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They are learning from their peers. They're, um, not just stagnant with the status quo.
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They're constantly looking at ways to kind of improve.
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Um, one of the things that we have done, um, two years ago, we had a journal club on remediation.
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We were identifying. A lot of our learners were, um, having course deficiencies and figuring out what are ways that we can better support students.
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And so we launched uh, uh, Journal Club on that.
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We have an academic advising pilot, too, that was going on at the same time.
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So that was a really valuable resource to be able to kind of me as a peer faculty over the course of a year.
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Um, current journal club that we're working on is active learning.
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And so we are having ten different sessions on various, uh, teaching and learning methods.
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So, um, I was assigned one of the first ones on Pogo process oriented guided Inquiry and learning, um,
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where you were essentially creating, uh, groups and evolving the group dynamic each time by switching.
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What is the role of this particular team member, uh, assignment to assignment.
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And so, um, we have, um, for many of the, um, clinical applications courses that I have, I have a full semester with them in the spring right now.
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And, um, each one is centered on Pogo.
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I'm trying to do that on every single, um, case that we have throughout the course of the semester where the role is evolving and they have a,
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um, 3 to 4 page, scaffolded out assignment that reiterates the content that we were hoping to teach.
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Um, historically, what I would have done was just spend 45 minutes, um,
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rehashing the case and kind of taking them through slides and maybe answering some, some questions here or there.
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But now a lot of that process is, um, me helping to coach them a little bit through this material,
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but leaving it up to them to kind of find their own solutions and find their own answers to, um, questions that we've already, um, put out.
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And ultimately, it's the same things that we want them to learn.
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But I think the process of them going out and, um,
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teaching themselves and using resources is more valuable than me just being a
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talking head and giving them every answer to the fill in the blank question.
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So very much a change to, I mean, it sounds like the majority like student centered learning,
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like essentially they're the ones in charge of their learning.
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You're essentially there as the guide or the coach or the expert to answer questions and kind of fill in blanks.
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Um, I just had a this is just, uh, kind of like an intrusive question that just kind of popped up in my head as you were talking, um, for you, um,
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do you think the idea of the traditional lecture is something that is going to, like,
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fall by the wayside, or do you think or do you think there's still a place for it?
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I think there's still a place for a traditional didactic lecture.
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I mean, I think it was never something that was proven to be ineffective.
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It just might not be the most effective always.
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And I think that there is some content that is very difficult to incorporate,
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a more active learning component to it, um, especially over the course of, um, multiple lectures.
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So I definitely think that there that is going to be something new within our new curricula that we're still going to be doing,
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um, in a more traditional format.
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But, uh, I think we are challenging the status quo a little bit and saying, hey, you need to have more of your content.
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You need to actually think about what is the best delivery mechanism for this particular content.
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And hopefully we're, um,
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thoughtful when we're taking feedback from peers or taking feedback from students to see what what works well and what doesn't.
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Do you think students are surprised when they walk into, um, your classroom and they have more of a student centered active learning experience?
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Do you think they expect lecture, or do you think they expect active learning?
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Uh, kind of knowing what you know about the students you teach now? I think right now they expect it at times.
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So it depends on the the course.
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I think for our course series in in clinical applications, they do expect that it is going to be much more student focused and active learning,
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uh, focused, and they are going to be called upon to, um, make decisions and write up a care plan and apply information that we have taught them.
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But I think largely for our main, um, we call it disease processes and therapeutics,
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where it incorporates pathophysiology, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry and, and therapeutics.
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I think they're largely it's thought to you're the teacher, you're the expert.
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You need to deliver content to me. And I ask questions as we're kind of going along.
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But um, there isn't as big of an expectation of I am actively applying this right now or doing advanced reading.
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Right, um, in advance. And so that that's, I think, a big struggle that we're going to be, um, encountering in our new curricula.
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How do we teach content that would have taken our of two of lecture and be able to package
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it in a way that they can kind of go through that material and do it more efficiently?
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Or, um, are there ways to maybe record content beforehand or have.
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Um, ways to get them to engage in it.
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Um, early on, and I think that takes just a whole faculty effort of getting on the same page,
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um, figuring out where various aspects of our curricula are.
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I think that was one of the things that I was very humbling about our current curriculum.
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I didn't know what was really taught in a lot of our curricula,
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but I think now I've got a much better understanding of where things are going to be taught.
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What is going to be taught, um, how do we spiral in and teach an introductory concept now,
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but then bring it back in two years time and do it at a different level?
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Um, and I think that, um, all the faculty are kind of going through that process right now of identifying,
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okay, this is where this fits, and this is why we're doing what we're doing.
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Right. Yeah. And it goes back to what I feels like been a theme of this podcast is just like constantly like thinking about constantly reviewing,
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constantly, uh, making, making decisions about how to improve your instruction.
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It sounds like this is very much, you know, um, just being mindful of how to fill in those gaps,
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um, how to create interventions where they might make sense. Right.
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So just thinking thinking about that in terms of teaching. Um, so that's all very interesting.
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Um, I know we could probably spend another hour talking about curricular, um, uh, revisions.
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Um, but, uh, one thing I always like to talk about that I want to move to, um, towards towards the end here, um,
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is talking about AI stories about AI in education, large language models, kind of all those things that fall under that umbrella.
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Um, um, I want to talk very general to start.
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Um, so what have been what have been the effects that you've seen in the field of pharmacy and more specifically,
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pharmacy education when it comes to AI and large language models?
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Um, so far, I think when I reflect two years ago, nobody in our college faculty,
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students, nobody was using it in the last year, it is absolutely blown up.
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It has blown up from faculty using it clinically, faculty using it to design assignments.
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Faculty is, um, using it to empower their research and come up with better, uh, research, uh, protocols.
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I think that that largely has been a really successful thing that I have, um, seen.
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I feel like, um, the faculty's use of artificial intelligence has been very valuable, just as a brainstorming, uh, mechanism in planning.
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Um, I think the the challenge with it is it's difficult to detect some hallucinations or things that are not, um, factually based.
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And I think that's one of the inherent challenges that I see with it, with students,
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I, I see students using it all over the place, whether it's creating practice,
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um, exam questions, whether it's helping with assignments, whether they're on, um, clinical rotations and being able to kind of work patients up.
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I see them using it across the spectrum.
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Um, and I am a little bit worried that they may have less ability to detect hallucinations and, um, non factual material that is getting put out.
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I think it has tremendous potential for augmenting and making learning more efficient and, um, potentially making it more durable.
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But I, I feel like I was really created for experts and not necessarily for novices that are trying to learn and develop content expertise.
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And that's the area that I'm struggling with.
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Where, uh, where do we, um, incorporate early learners in the process of using AI?
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Would you say that students rely on it too much now already, or would you say they're still kind of like working their way into using it?
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Now, you mentioned several examples of how students are using it.
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Do you think the reliance is too high already, or if you could, if you can kind of gauge that, what would you say?
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At this point in time? It's hard for me to say. That's actually, um, uh, a colleague of mine, Doctor Raymond Schott.
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Now, he and I and, um, Doctor Allison Vento, we're actually doing, uh, a research project on that.
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Oh, interesting. Okay, cool. Gage.
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Um, perceptions of artificial intelligence and trying to quantify, um, student use of it and try to get the domains of words, um, being used.
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Um, so that's actually something that we're working on to submit to our IRB is a, um, uh, research protocol is,
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um, just really a survey to kind of just gauge what is the current, um, platforms that people are using.
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How are they using it? Um, I have the perception or, or bias me that I feel like it's being slightly overused,
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um, for the stage that they are at right now, but I just have that,
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um, based on a handful of experiences of, um, having sessions where, um,
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they'll tell me something and I'm like, that doesn't where are you getting that?
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Some where are you getting that from? And then they'll, uh, reveal that it's been an artificial and.
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Audience resource. And I'm like, no, that's wrong. Right? We gotta, um, figure out how to, um.
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How for you to be able to identify that that is in factual information.
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So I was gonna ask about that. Have you, uh, experimented with any assignments where maybe you give students, um,
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incorrect information from a large language model and ask them to actually go in and identify errors or correct it?
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So I haven't, um, had that as a, as an example.
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But um, in, in my, uh, clinical applications course last year, for the first time, I, um, experimented and I was like the last assignment,
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um, we are going to have complex cases, and I want you to feed these two complex cases into the large language model of your choice.
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Um, and I want you to write up what are the top four problems and how would you address these problems?
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Um, so, um, as part of that assignment, I asked them, do you identify any potential errors?
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And are there any things that, um, you would note? And a lot of the class was just kind of reflecting on the things that, um,
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they were able to identify as, um, not happening in the case or, um, ways to not treat the patient.
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Um, one of the interesting findings was one of our cases was a patient with respiratory failure.
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And, um, the I model that one of our learners had use identify that they were having a myocardial infarction,
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which was not evident in any part of the case, which was which was interesting.
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But the learner was able to say, this patient is not having a myocardial infarction.
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So this is something that I was getting wrong, but I haven't designed to this point something where I am giving them,
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um, non factual information and they're having to kind of confirm that.
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Interesting. Yeah. Uh, so I want to ask this because I've seen um, just more recently, um, some uh,
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instructors, professors like thinking about how you can actually, you know,
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obviously, um, create, create, you know, um, artifacts or items for students to look at,
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you know, look at and say, well, you know, obviously this isn't correct. This is correct.
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So kind of like really ramp up that critical thinking when it when it comes to things like that.
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Um, so one one final question kind of around I and this is of course will be, you know, your perception of it within the College of Pharmacy.
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Um, what's the call or what's your impression of the College of Pharmacy kind of stance on, on AI currently?
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Um, what's the stance in terms of like how it can be used in your courses?
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And I know we talked about, you know, the curriculum redesign.
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Is there any, um, particular stance when it's coming to the curriculum redesign as well?
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00:38:15,660 --> 00:38:21,239
So maybe just kind of like generally where's the College of Pharmacy at when it comes to the use of AI, particularly, um,
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00:38:21,240 --> 00:38:25,379
particularly around students as what what I'm curious about, I think largely speaking,
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00:38:25,380 --> 00:38:30,630
we're very positive and we're excited to incorporate it and use it on a higher level.
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00:38:30,630 --> 00:38:33,690
But there's that baseline skepticism.
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Is it giving you information that is truly adding to value for students?
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Is it helping us to create methodologically sound courses in assignments?
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00:38:47,220 --> 00:38:57,120
Um, I think largely speaking, there's a ton of optimism around it, and we are trying to look at new ways to use this in practice.
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00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:02,850
Um, but time will tell. I think that's, uh, the thing that we've got to learn with time.
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How how accurate is it? Right. Is it useful in certain contexts but not others?
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What is the ideal timing of implementing it?
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Because my current bias right now is, um, I am skeptical using it earlier on in our curricula, but later on in our curricula and on rotations.
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00:39:24,690 --> 00:39:32,280
I'm a heavy, um, user. And so that's something that I'm commonly doing with, uh, fourth year students when we're, um,
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00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:39,659
being asked various questions on rounds, um, drug information question, I'm commonly encouraging them.
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See what you can find in an artificial intelligence platform.
415
00:39:43,020 --> 00:39:49,140
Um, it's actually one of the, um, other research projects that I've got, um, planned right now.
416
00:39:49,170 --> 00:40:01,050
Um, as part of our drug information center, they get probably 3 to 600 questions from, uh, medical professionals, kind of across the spectrum of MUSC.
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00:40:01,380 --> 00:40:07,950
Um, and I'm currently taking a sample of these questions and trying to have the same
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question be answered by a couple of different artificial intelligence platforms,
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00:40:12,870 --> 00:40:18,659
and then kind of going back on the back end, grading out, um, how accurate is this?
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00:40:18,660 --> 00:40:29,010
Is this using good resources? Is this a thing that, um, is pulling from drugs.com or a more validated scientific reference?
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00:40:29,010 --> 00:40:35,280
So, um, that's a, a current thing that I'm in the infancy stages right now, but I,
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00:40:35,310 --> 00:40:41,670
I have a perception that we often when we're in asking those types of questions,
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00:40:41,670 --> 00:40:47,670
we are taking, um, everything and just saying, okay, this is how I can apply it without having that.
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00:40:48,010 --> 00:40:51,579
Critical lens always. And being able to kind of break down.
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00:40:51,580 --> 00:40:55,270
Where where is this coming from? Is this a hallucination?
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00:40:55,270 --> 00:40:59,890
Is this based upon the highest quality medical literature, um, or not?
427
00:41:00,010 --> 00:41:06,969
Right. Yeah. So it sounds again, like very much just reflecting on the use of it, making sure that, um, how you're using it, you know, is makes sense.
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00:41:06,970 --> 00:41:11,740
Is it ethical, is it coming from reliable sources? Great. All those things kind of kind of rolled into one.
429
00:41:12,430 --> 00:41:16,059
Awesome. Um, so I want to thank you so much for for being here today.
430
00:41:16,060 --> 00:41:21,820
This is going to be a great conversation. Um, I know I mentioned it in our pre-show chat, but I'd like to have you back at some point to talk about,
431
00:41:22,030 --> 00:41:26,439
uh, the College of Pharmacy curriculum as that continues to evolve, because I love talking about it.
432
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,760
I think it's so interesting. And I think I think a lot of folks, uh, will enjoy hearing about it as well.
433
00:41:30,970 --> 00:41:34,360
So again, yes. Want to thank you, um, for being here. Thank you. Alex, this is fun.
