AMA’s Virtual Mentor

Posted on | July 2, 2008 | Comments Off on AMA’s Virtual Mentor

A valuable resource for both teachers and students

Three things are happening to health education information these days. First, it’s going electronic and virtual. Second, it’s uniting various audiences, bringing them together, often in new and interactive ways, to inform, educate and bridge. Third, it’s changing the power equation, emphasizing that we are all teachers and we are all students.

Case in point: The AMA’s "Virtual Mentor"

What is it?

"Virtual Mentor is the American Medical Association’s online ethics journal. The journal is open-access and advertisement-free… Founded in 1999, Virtual Mentor (VM) explores the ethical issues and challenges that students, residents, and other physicians are likely to confront in their training and daily practice."

For whom?

"… the journal is a valuable teaching resource for medical educators at all levels as well as for doctors and doctors-to-be. Each monthly issue of VM contains original articles and commentary on a given theme — e.g., access to care; quality-of-life considerations in clinical decision making, public roles of physicians, ethical issues in endocrinology, conflict of values in the clinic."

Who directs it?

"Virtual Mentor is student- and resident-driven. Theme-issue editors are selected in November of each year through a competitive process from among medical students and resident physicians who seek to broaden and deepen their education by taking the time to examine medicine’s ever-increasing ethical challenges. The issue editors meet annually with VM editorial staff in Chicago, where we discuss potential topics for the upcoming year. Each editor identifies a theme and month of publication for his or her issue and then solicits articles and case commentary from experienced physicians and other experts in the field who can help VM readers think productively about the topic under discussion. The application process for theme issue editors is announced in VM each September."

I was especially drawn to the June, 2008 issue on Quality of Life for Older Americans exploring "the ethical challenges physicians face in preserving health and well-being in the elderly." Here’s the lineup:

Jeanee Lee MD, PGY2 from Duke explores "Autonomy and Quality of Life for Elderly Patients" answering the question:"Why is it that the important problems of older persons are often not the ones that we know how to help?"

Muriel Gillick, MD, a clinical professor of ambulatory care and prevention at Harvard Medical School in Boston who practices palliative care and geriatrics with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, comments on "Family-Centered Decision Making" explaining how "the clinical staff’s frustration with their inability to cure and locate a patient’s infection can influence how they interpret treatment goals expressed by the patient and patient’s family."

Mitchell T. Heflin, MD, MHS, an assistant professor of medicine and geriatrics, and the medical director of the Geriatric Evaluation and Treatment (GET) Clinic at Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, explores "When Home Care Is Not Enough" and the health professional’s "obligation to counsel a family that wants to care for an older relative in the home but may not be able to ensure the appropriate level of care and safety for the relative."

Daniel Callahan, co-founder of the Hastings Center and Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School and Kenneth Prager, MD, clinical professor of medicine at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and director of clinical ethics and chairman of the hospital’s medical ethics committee sort out "Medical Care for the Elderly: Should Limits Be Set?", taking a close look at the future of Medicare’s dwindling resources.