I am feeling a lot of things right now about #MedEd and the way we give feedback to our professors.

Professors of #MedTwitter and friends of #MedStudentTwitter, can we chat for a second?

Thread

Let's start with a baseline fact that we have to acknowledge:

We're all trying.

Students are trying, professors are trying, administrators used to be both students and professors and in their own way, are trying.

I am a medical student. I love class, learning, and meeting professors. I have some fantastic mentors who are professors themselves.

I'm also a staunch advocate for the way I learn and the way others learn - curricularly.

And for equity and language in medical lectures.

I, like many other med students on here, have found that twitter is a fantastic place to have conversations. And usually, the things we talk about are the things that are going wrong.

Many of you follow me for my disability work, which involves a significant amount of negativity

What I forget too often, though, is that the professors that I am giving feedback to, whether directly or indirectly, are also people.

They also have thoughts. They also are trying.

And we don't, as a field, support them enough.

When I think about the feedback that I give on here about lectures or speeches, and then think about the fact that none of the lectures are paid for? At all?

They've already spent hours making the talk, giving it each year, in a ridiculously competitive tenure environment.

And I'm gonna come on here to ask them to do a whole heck of a lot more work to remake the lecture (again unpaid)?

Yes, of course I will. It's important. But when I give this feedback in a tweet or a form, I sometimes forget that the professors reading my tweets are people too. As horrible as it is to say.

Of course I think of professors as people when I talk to them.

Of course I think of them as close mentors and friends when I meet with them or work with them.

But something happens when we write about medical education broadly. Like in a tweet. Or a course eval.

The injustice of the whole #MedEd system just seems to come crashing down.

SERIOUSLY?! A lecture from 2015?! With slurs/horrible graphics/old data/whatever?!

For $70,000?!!!

But what good does this complaining do when teaching isn't prioritized by academic institutions, promotion, tenure.

When the people who are FABULOUS teachers aren't paid through the nose for their ability to mold outstanding physicians.

When #MedEd isn't seen as a career.

So med students like me yell about the things that make lectures difficult. Too many words. Too few words. More step information. Less step information. Spend more time on racism and ableism. Spend less time on...(well no, that's just dumb.)

And professors feel hurt. And not valued. And they don't know how to make things better.

Do you want more words on slides???? I can give more words.

Do you want less words on slides???? I can do that to.

But tell me, because its 11PM on a Saturday and I'm not getting paid.

I'm ranting right now, and didn't plan this thread out well like a friend told me to too, because I'm feeling this really acutely right now.

We have students craving education. And professors who love donating their energy to provide that education.

But most of the time, we're just screaming past each other.

#MedStudentTwitter - I'd love to hear from you how you think we can do a better job giving our feedback in ways that respect the time and feelings of our fabulous professors.

@traependergrast @londyloo @RJStrodel @sarawallam @NabihahKumte

#MedTwitter - I'd love to hear from professors how we as students can make our feedback more directed and helpful to you since you already spend so much thankless time and effort.

@soupvector @CchristmColleen @jbcarmody @EmmGeezee @rabihmgeha @DxRxEdu

This thread brought to you by the below post and a very very kind anon professor friend who spoke with me about how much I was asking for and how difficult that is to provide without training in education science. https://twitter.com/_HarryPaul_/status/1304524219166982152?s=20