28 February 2007
Selection Committee for the Glenda Garvey Teaching Academy
RE: Martin V. Pusic MD
Dr. Pusic has asked that I document his involvement with teaching the pediatric residents in the Columbia University Dept of Pediatrics. He has shown considerable initiative in creating a number of new teaching rounds. He joined our faculty in October 2004.
1. Coordination of Teaching Program for Pediatric Residents on Rotation in the Pediatric Emergency Dept (PED). Shortly after arriving Dr. Pusic took ownership of creating a didactic program for our residents. Where previous programs had failed because of logistic difficulties, he has succeeded in creating a successful and effective program. In the first year he introduced a weekly Mock Code teaching session. In this session, using a mannequin in the actual trauma room, the instructor simulates a critical care case in which the resident role plays the team leader with other residents and medical students in support roles (anesthesiologist, nurse etc). He successfully established the teaching session and taught our PEM Fellows how to effectively lead the sessions thus creating a secondary benefit to the sessions of teaching out trainees how to teach.
2. Evidence-based Practice in the Pediatric Residency Program. A year later, he turned his attention to improving the learning of the principles of Evidence-based Practice (EBP) by our residents. In partnership with Dr. Maria Kwok, he did this in two ways: establishing a weekly course for all ward teams in the hospital and a second minitutorial for residents on rotation in the PED. The ward team round was a one-hour small group seminar done at the time of morning report. Using literature examples relevant to their practice, he lead the residents through the general principles of EBP. He and Dr. Kwok trained our Chief Residents in this methodology so that this year our Chiefs have been leading the rounds with their support. We will be presenting this work as a workshop at the Association of Pediatric Program Directors annual meeting in Toronto this fall. In the second EBP teaching intervention, the ED Mini-round he would gather the residents after sign-out rounds in the PED and then would have the residents use one of their cases to demonstrate skills of information retrieval using relevant knowledge resources.

Further on this EBP theme, he helped develop a program wherein we have encouraged our residents to inject EBP principles into their third-year Chief of Service presentations. He has mentored a number of residents individually as they prepared their presentations with excellent effect. The rounds have become considerably more grounded in clinical science since the program was established over a year ago.

3. Computer Resources for Residents. Dr. Pusic has prepared 16 computer tutorials for use by our residents and the medical students of the University. The tutorials are well used by the residents and have proved to be very popular. He has also contributed online tutorials in the area of Evidence-based Practice to our Web-Based Curriculum, an online learning resource we maintain for our residents.

4. Attending Physician in the PED. Dr. Pusic is an active clinical attending in the PED where he takes care to teach our residents using recognized ambulatory teaching models such as the “One-Minute Preceptor”. He has taken on a faculty development role with the other PED Attendings to ensure that they too use evidence-based teaching techniques. He has contributed to our Chief of Service rounds, our noon conference for residents and resident orientation.

In summary, Dr. Pusic has been a committed, innovative teacher in the Pediatric Residency program. Membership in the GlendaGarveyTeachingAcademy would support his already excellent work. I am confident that the GGTA would, in turn, benefit from his experience, skill and enthusiasm. I whole heartedly recommend Dr. Pusic for membership.

Sincerely……