7. Leadership in Health Professions Education
7aApply knowledge of the administrative aspects of leading educational programs for health professions.
7bDemonstrate leadership in health professions education through innovation, mentorship, and reflective practice.
Artifact 7a-A
Nutritional Success & Liver Transplantation
Reflection
The purpose of this capstone project in HPTT 823 – Leadership in Health Professions Education was to develop a strategic plan with a supporting document and a presentation, taken through formal peer review. The plan proposes screening every liver transplant candidate for vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, zinc and copper deficiency before surgery, with a standardized repletion protocol and post-transplant outcome tracking. I selected this artifact to represent competency 7a because the administrative elements are the substance of the plan: the multidisciplinary working group, the phased implementation pathway, and the post-implementation audit.
The plan is built in three phases. The first forms a multidisciplinary working group of transplant hepatologists, dietitians, pharmacists, advanced practice providers and the transplant hepatology fellow, and writes the protocol. The second integrates the laboratory panel into the existing pre-surgical order set and pilots it on isolated liver transplant recipients while tracking process metrics. The third rolls the protocol out program-wide with an annual audit of adherence. The educational component sits within the second phase, where the fellow collaborates with a biostatistician to collect and analyze the data, presents the findings to the working group, and carries them to publication.
One of the challenges encountered was the peer review itself. My first draft was framed around pre-transplant nutritional optimization, and the reviewed version moved the emphasis to post-transplant outcomes, since length of index stay, wound complications and readmissions are what the program can actually measure. Since completing this capstone project I have taken the first phase through to implementation, as the repletion protocol is written and the order sets are now in routine use. Data collection and analysis follow, with completion planned for 2027.
Download the strategic plan presentation (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
Artifact 7a-B
Orientation and Onboarding Plan
Reflection
The purpose of this assignment in HPTT 840 – Foundations of Clinical Teaching was to design an onboarding and orientation plan for a new clinical teaching activity that I had proposed earlier in the course. My plan covers two third-year medical students on a three-week Hepatology clerkship, preparing for a simulated paracentesis. I selected this artifact to represent competency 7a because orientation comprises administrative work, including decisions about expectations, pre-activity documents, simulation timing and roles that need to be presented to the learner up front.
The plan is written against a specific learner profile, and includes addressing a common clinical misconception, i.e., the belief that an elevated international normalized ratio in chronic liver disease implies increased bleeding risk. Three orientation goals then follow: recalling the components of the serum-ascites albumin gradient and at least two etiologies of ascites, identifying equipment and key anatomical landmarks against a standardized checklist, and recognizing the procedure safety parameters. Onboarding is a single twenty-minute block on the day of the simulation, covering objectives, checklist and case framing, independent review of a one-page guideline summary, and a facilitated question period, ahead of fifteen minutes of simulation per student and a ten-minute debrief.
One of the challenges encountered was compressing the orientation into twenty minutes. The whole activity runs to an hour, so orientation could not expand without taking time from the simulation or debrief, yet three goals across three domains had to be addressed. Over the next one to two years, my aim is to identify funding and work collaboratively with the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) simulation lab to further develop this activity.
Download the orientation and onboarding plan (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
Artifact 7b-A
Portal Hypertension: A Systemic Disease
Reflection
Portal Hypertension: A Systemic Disease is an e-Learning module produced through the University of Nebraska Medical Center E-Learning Awards Program for the 2024–2025 cohort, where I served as Faculty Project Director with funding from the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. This artifact is professional work rather than HPTT coursework. I selected it to represent competency 7b because the leadership lay in directing the project rather than building it, and because it documents my mentorship of two medical student module developers.
The module follows Linda, a patient with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease and cirrhosis, whose clinical condition deteriorates through the development of ascites, esophageal varices and hepatic encephalopathy. Learners work through her transplant evaluation and calculate her Model for End-Stage Liver Disease 3.0 score from her own laboratory results using a calculator built into the module. The inspiration for the module is curricular, based on a need the students identified. The College of Medicine curriculum is organized by organ block, so a disease whose complications are renal, hematologic, neurologic and cardiovascular is taught in fragments. This module was built deliberately across blocks to create connections across organ systems.
One of the challenges encountered was directing the work rather than doing it myself, especially as I had recently completed HPTT 825 – Essentials of E-Module Development and was tempted to be more hands-on during development. Reviewing their drafts let me maintain clinical accuracy while leaving the design choices to them, which mattered because as medical students they would be able to tailor the content to their peers. This module is the model I intend to use when developing future asynchronous content, and when creating an online module series to benefit medical students across multiple schools.
Artifact 7b-B
Combined Medical and Surgical Integrated Track in Liver Transplantation
Reflection
This presentation describes the Combined Medical and Surgical Integrated Track in Liver Transplantation, an Enhanced Medical Education Track within the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine, for which I am Faculty Director alongside core faculty in transplant surgery and transplant hepatology. It is professional work rather than coursework. I selected this artifact to represent competency 7b because I founded the track and now have seven medical students enrolled across three years.
The track comprises four domains in every year: clinical, didactics, scholarly and interprofessional. First-year students tour organ preservation and the blood bank and sit in on a patient selection committee. Second-year students attend a transplant selection committee meeting. Third-year students complete a three-week Hepatology rotation split across outpatient, pre-transplant and post-transplant care, and observe an organ recovery. They also rotate with pharmacists on immunosuppression and with dietitians on nutritional evaluation, and present a journal article to faculty. Fourth-year students complete a sub-internship in transplant surgery and submit a capstone abstract to a national conference. Track completion is recognized in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation.
One of the challenges encountered was sustaining engagement across four years when the capstone does not conclude until the final one. I completed preliminary end-of-year surveys, with reassuring findings, as every respondent reported increased interest in hepatology after participating, from a baseline where most were unsure or not interested. A peer-reviewed paper I co-authored with Kobashigawa and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Transplantation in 2025, names the track as a model educational pathway that could be shared with medical schools as a toolkit. I intend to use that recognition to take the track regional with conversations currently underway at Northwestern University.