Elizabeth McAlister

Author: emcalist

  • Program Coordinator Onboarding Curriculum

    2018-2020: With the Program Administrators and Coordinators Leadership Team, developed a 6-month rolling curriculum for onboarding new Program Coordinators in Graduate Medical Education (GME). Sessions cover six topic areas: Getting Started, Accreditation, GME Requirements and Processes, Onboarding/Offboarding, Recruitment, and Professional Development. Each team member is able to co-present on any given session but have specific assignments based on area of expertise.

    2020-present: Because of COVID, the in-person sessions were stopped. Additionally, because we all had to learn how to do our jobs remotely and via Zoom, the onboarding curriculum was essentially put on hold. In March 2021, the GME Education Coordinator and I became Power-Users in UAB’s Campus Learning LMS (Docebo) and are working with two other members who are passionate about education to move the curriculum into a self-paced format. 

    The initial project was written up, submitted, and accepted as a poster presentation for the 2019 Association of Hospital Medical Education conference.

    Craft J, Fleming R, Pickens T, Freiger B, Butler K, Chandler R, Chambless S, McAlister E, Millette N, Veazey M, Whitehead J. (2019). Program Coordinators Onboarding—It Takes a Village to Be Successful. Association for Hospital Medical Education 2019 AHME Institute; Savannah, GA.

    Abstract. In AY 2013, a Program Administrator and Coordinator Leadership Team (PACLT) was established to provide mentoring to Program Coordinators (PC). PACLT members are experienced in GME and represent residency and fellowship programs. Members routinely present best practices at the monthly institution-wide PC meetings and meet regularly with the GME Director (GMED) to identify quality improvement activities. Through collaboration, a GME PC Manual (PCM) was developed. Recognizing that the ACGME Next Accreditation System is continuously evolving, there is need to frequently create new institution-level processes. With an average of one new PC per month, the group determined that a standardized and comprehensive program was needed to effectively prepare PC for internal and external requests.

    The objective of this activity was to develop a comprehensive PC Onboarding Program (PCOP) to prepare new PC for their important role.  Key components were to include: 1) monthly learning sessions (LS); 2) individualized training meetings with the GME Education Coordinator (GMEEC); 3) a listing of institutional resources; 4) a calendar of GME deadlines; and 5) opportunities for professional development.

  • Presentation: Emotional Intelligence: What’s DISC got to do with it?

    Presented Oct 2018 to a group of subspecialty fellowship coordinators. The goal of the presentation was to explain what Emotional Intelligence is and how it ties in with our communication styles (we had recently taken the DISC assessment).

    [pdf-embedder url=”https://www.elizabethmcalister.net/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2020/05/Emotional-Intelligence-1.pdf” title=”Emotional Intelligence”]

  • Presentation: Explaining ACGME Work Hours

    In 2018, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) changed a section of the Common Program Requirements. This presentation was given to a group of coordinators studying for a national certificate for Program Coordinators in Graduate Medical Education and focused on Resident Work Hours.

    [pdf-embedder url=”https://www.elizabethmcalister.net/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2020/05/ACGME-Work-Hours-1.pdf” title=”ACGME Work Hours”]

  • Book Cover Design

    Book Cover Design

    Created cover art for his first book, All Nighter at L&L Pub (I was also a reader/editor). The image he had in his head was something like a pub you might find in The Hobbit and he wanted the title to include the pub’s signage.

    The original image is from Ingo Jakubke on Pixabay (creative commons licensing; the image I’ve uploaded here is smaller/low-res). Using photoshop, I cleaned up various business-related stickers that were in the windows, removed the goldschmiede atelier signage, moved the Nürtinger Keller sign to the doorpost, removed the ornamentation that had been on top of the sign-post and the business’s name, then added L&L Pub. I would have loved to have kept the ornamentation on that signpost, but enough of it was cut out of the picture that including it would have been a challenge.

    According to the photographer, this is in Tuscany, which confused me since the signage is German (though I did find a couple 2007 stories about a German travel company buying a Tuscan village, so… maybe??)

    After the ministry’s name change, the cover was updated again to add the new name, logo, and website.

  • Logo “Refurb”

     

    Logo “Refurb”

    Recreated original logo for Storytelling Apologetics Ministry (now Echoed Calls). The image the author was using was originally done in MS Paint (I know!) and quality had degraded with use. I was able to match all of the original elements, making it almost identical to his original. 

  • Logo Design: Echoed Calls

     

    Original image used for logo
    Original Image “Mountain Hut” – by Felix Mittermeier on Pixabay

    echoedcalls.com

    The author’s request was to focus on the cabin with the trees in the background – he requested having it B&W. Make the image a circle, add a blue outer ring that would compliment 007147 (dark/forest green). Inside the ring put 4 items: (a) Echoed at the top [at 12 o’clock], (b) Calls at the bottom [at 6 o’clock], (c) A small cross at both left and right [so 9 o’clock & 3 o’clock] – no preference on font or font color. The final product has a transparent background so he can use it on any materials needed (web or print).

     

  • Course Reflection – Human Performance Technology

    What was the most challenging part of this course for you personally?  

    Honestly? Getting started. I suspect a combination of burnout from the first half of the semester (course involving the service learning project) and a distaste for the textbook: walls of text, heading levels that weren’t used the same, and pixelated images. Once I got past the presentation of the information, I was able to do more, but still had difficulty reading it. (Edit to add: I had a pdf / ebook version of the textbook. The print version was reportedly better.)

    What was the most rewarding part of this course for you personally?  

    Finishing? Kidding. Mostly. Probably reading the case studies, deciding what I would do, then reading the solutions and spotting areas in which they did what I would’ve done. Of course, they also did things I hadn’t thought of, which is why I’m here. 🙂

    What was the most interesting thing you learned in this course that you will take with you as you move into the IDD field?

    The realization that formative and summative evaluations in IDD don’t mean the same thing in Graduate Medical Education (GME). Or at least it’s a stretch to tie the two together. In GME, evaluations done on learners throughout their training are the formative evaluations (helps inFORM what areas we need to address) and the final evaluation, which evaluates their progress over the duration of their training, is the summative (a summation of their training progress). In IDD, formative evaluation takes place during an intervention to gauge whether or not it’s accomplishing what we intended it to accomplish. I can tie that easily into GME’s formative – is our trainee progressing the way they need to be progressing? Summative, though, is more of a stretch for me. IDD: It’s done at the end of an intervention to assess the immediate impact and answer whether or not the intervention closed the gap we were trying to close. I could say that the GME summative evaluation is looking at “the immediate impact” of our training program, but the GME summative evaluation is an evaluation of the learner, not the program and that’s where my tie-ins fall apart. TL;DR (too long; didn’t read): What might mean one thing in IDD, may mean something else in another industry. It’s good for me to be aware of this potential “double-meaning” in order to avoid confusion with my future clients.

  • Intervention Evaluation

    Course: Performance System Technology. Spring 2020

    Assignment: Create an infographic to teach the most important information about intervention evaluation—overview, planning, and implementing—and provide my rationale.

    Response: Evaluation is the foundation of a successful Performance Improvement Intervention. The three main types (formative, summative, and confirmative) form one  part of the support. Underneath that is Meta Evaluation 

    which supports the overall evaluation process by confirming the validity of the other evaluations, and thus, the value of the intervention itself.

    I believe it would be valuable to someone on-the-job primarily because it gives a basic and concise explanation of each evaluation type, its purpose, when it’s typically done in the life cycle of an intervention, and what is involved in the implementation of each evaluation type. For a practitioner, this could provide enough information for them to decide the type of evaluation needed and provides sufficient information for them to dig deeper should they need or want to do so.

  • Successful Intervention Implementation and Maintenance

    Course: Performance System Technology. Spring 2020

    Assignment: The text for this course (Van Tiem, Moseley, & Dessinger, 2012) presented 8 techniques as it applies to successful intervention implementation and maintenance:

    1. Partnering, networking, and alliance building,
    2. Process consulting,
    3. Employee development,
    4. Communication to develop support,
    5. Change management,
    6. Project management,
    7. Feasibility, and
    8. Sustainability.

    We were asked to compare and contrast them and then determine which we felt is the most valuable tool to have in our tool-belt as an instructional designer and explain why.  

    After reading over the 8 techniques for successful intervention implementation and management, what struck me is that they are all interconnected. An organization identifies a problem and partners with a performance practitioner who begins with process consulting, then is part of the Project Management team. The project management team looks at the feasibility of a project, communicates with employees and other stakeholders in order to develop support (which will aid sustainability), and encourages employee development to ensure a smooth transition (change management). 

    The primary difference among these eight concepts is how individuals within an organization are involved. Feasibility studies, sustainability, project management, change management, and process consulting primarily involve the performance practitioner and management or a small group of individuals who would represent the organization as a whole. The remainder (partnering, networking, and alliance building; employee development; and communication) can be the actions of an organization or an individual (large-scale to small scale).

    Examples of partnering, networking, and alliance building from large-scale to smaller-scale include the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine which represents U.S. Internal Medicine physicians and works to improve medical education and health care in general; slightly smaller, but still large would include subspecialties within internal and family medicine. Going smaller, within Birmingham there are partnerships with COA, UAB, and the VA which ensure a broader experience for medical students and residents. On an even smaller scale, within UAB, I’m part of a group of program coordinators in Graduate Medical Education. Widen that scale back out just a touch and, through a private facebook group, I network with other coordinators across the country and from different specialties.

    Employee development can be an endeavor that the individual employee takes on or something required by the organization due to a change. UAB encourages employee development, but not everyone takes advantage of it and, sadly, I suspect many don’t realize just how much is out there! Likewise, when the Department of Medicine switched to a new Resident Management System, we all had to take part in training (development) in order to learn the new system.

    Last but not least, communication happens everyday between individuals, between the C-suite and employees, Deans and students, between departments, and across campus.

    Of course, the common thread is people. Considering the name of this class, this isn’t a surprise. But as a performance practitioner, I feel that project management would be the most important one to have in my tool belt. 

    Alvarenga et al (2019) completed a literature review and identified 28 traditional competencies. They then asked project managers to rate these competencies “on a 5-point Likert scale from scarcely important to extremely important to project success” (281). Two hundred fifty-seven project managers responded and identified communication, commitment and leadership as being the most important to project success (283). The authors also examined these “traditional . . . competencies according to project managers and the underlying groups of competencies” (281) and “identified seven groups of competencies: self-management, interpersonal, communication, technical, productivity, managerial and leadership” (287).

    My takeaway from this article and chapter is that a successful Project Manager has a network of other performance practitioners and partners with organizations to identify problems, plan solutions (process consulting, feasibility), and plan implementation (communication, employee development, change management, sustainability).

     Resources: 

    Alvarenga, J., Branco, R., Guedes, A., Soares, C. and Silva, W. (2019), “The project manager core competencies to project success”, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 277-292. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-12-2018-0274

    Van Tiem, D.M., Moseley, J.L., & Dessinger, J.C. (2012). Fundamentals of performance improvement: Optimizing results through people, process, and organizations (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

  • Organizational Communication Intervention

    March 2020: Partnered project to create a website to teach classmates about Organizational Communication Interventions (Chapter 15 of our textbook) using Google Sites. Video was made using Adobe Spark. All graphics came from Pixabay (royalty-free/creative commons licensed images). Created chalkboard and caution signs using Photoshop. In order to embed video, I had to create a YouTube channel and upload from there. Rotating “take-aways” at the bottom of the site were done in Google Slides by my project partner, Andrew Sparks. We worked together to tweak the timing and autoplay. Layout was his idea and we worked together to make the sections cohesive and informative.

    Source: Van Tiem, D.M., Moseley, J.L., & Dessinger, J.C. (2012). Fundamentals of performance improvement: Optimizing results through people, process, and organizations (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

    Website: Organizational Communication Interventions

    YouTube Video