The Marquette University School of Medicine Aids America in the Time of War

From the 5/28/2021 newsletter

Medical School History 

 

The Marquette University School of Medicine Aids America in the Time of War

 

Richard Katschke, MA

 

In this excerpt from his book, Knowledge Changing Life: A History of the Medical College of Wisconsin, 1893-2019, MCW Chief Historian Richard N. Katschke explains how MCW’s predecessor institution, the Marquette University School of Medicine, responded to the national call to action during World War II …

 

As Europe was embroiled in conflict in the late 1930s, the possibility of the United States’ participation in the war effort impacted the Marquette University School of Medicine and other medical schools nationwide. Beginning in 1940, the Marquette medical school responded to a request from U.S. Surgeon General James C. Magee to sponsor an army surgical hospital. Eben J. Carey, MD, PhD, dean of the medical school, appointed twenty Marquette medical school faculty and staff members to provide administrative and technical assistance to Surgical Hospital #42, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Also, in 1940, Marquette University – including the medical school – was one of twelve colleges nationwide selected to sponsor a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Following the attack at Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war against Japan on December 8, 1941. Four days later, Germany and the United States went to war. The world conflict triggered significant changes at the medical school. Beginning in July 1942, all teaching activities at the Marquette medical school were accelerated so that medical students could become physicians more quickly and provide medical care on the front lines. Vacations were shortened or suspended. Courses were abbreviated, and electives were dropped. Walter Zeit, PhD, ’39, recalled, “There were several instances where one academic year ended on a Friday and the next one started the following Monday.” Graduation ceremonies were conducted in May and November. Because of the demand for physicians during wartime, the medical school – unlike many other academic programs at Marquette – maintained a strong enrollment.

Norman Engbring, MD, ’51, noted in his book An Anchor forthe Future that the accelerated wartime curriculum placed an additional financial stress on the medical students. In 1942, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided $15,000 to the medical school to create a student loan fund. The Kellogg Foundation awarded similar grants to other medical schools nationwide.

Another change that occurred in September 1942 was that the fifth year of medical school - the internship year - was abolished. The requirement had been in place since 1920. Dr. Engbring explained that the fifth year was dropped so that junior medical students could qualify for federal loans that placed a four-year limit on the number of years a student could remain in school. By the end of 1942, only nine of the nation’s sixty-seven medical schools still required the completion of an internship year before medical school graduation. The Army and Navy gave medical students provisional commissions which enabled the students to avoid the draft and stay in school. For example, the Army Student Training Corps and the Navy’s V-12 program were organized, and medical student recruits received a base pay of $50 per month from the military.

“Khaki is now in evidence in the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry as 320 members of the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps in these schools were recently called to active duty by the order of the War Department,” reported the Marquette Tribune on July 15, 1943. “Within the last weeks these Meds and Dents were sent to Camp Grant, Illinois, where they were inducted, issued uniforms, and immediately ordered back to Marquette to continue their education. Roll call at 7:45 am either on the parade grounds or for senior medics, at the hospital, begins the day of the trainees.” Anthony Pisciotta, MD, ’44, recalled that the Army students were organized into the 3665^th service corps under the command of Major Joseph Plodowski, who was based at the medical school. The medical student soldiers became known as “Plodowski’s Raiders” and the “Fighting 3665^th.”

The Marquette Tribune reported that of the 334 male students enrolled in the medical school, 176 were commissioned as 2^nd lieutenants in the army, 104 received navy commissions, thirty-six had applications pending, and eighteen were ineligible for commissions because they were either non-citizens or had a medical disability. Earl Thayer wrote in Seeking to Serve: A History of the Medical Society of Milwaukee County, that nearly fifty faculty members saw active service, as well as a large percentage of alumni.

One alumnus, Lt. William Henry Millmann, MD, ’43, was killed on February 21, 1945, while caring for war casualties in Italy. The Millmann Award, the Medical College of Wisconsin’s highest honor for graduating medical students, was named in his memory. The first recipient of this award was Marjorie E. Tweedt Brown in 1948. John Erbes, MD, who joined the medical school’s surgical faculty in the late 1940s, was the most highly decorated U.S. physician in World War II. As a battalion surgeon, he saw front-line duty in Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium, and Germany.

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Excerpted from Knowledge Changing Life: A History of the Medical College of Wisconsin, 1893-2019, by MCW Chief Historian Richard N. Katschke, MA. The book is available for online purchase here.

 

 

Richard N. Katschke, MA is the Chief Historian of the Medical College of Wisconsin. He joined MCW as Director of Public Affairs in 1985 and served as the Senior Associate Vice President for Communications. He received MCW’s Distinguished Service Award in 2015 and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by MCW at the 2021 commencement ceremony.

Holding a Virtual Storytelling Event: MCW’s MedMoth

From the 4/16/2021 newsletter

Holding a Virtual Storytelling Event: MCW’s MedMoth

Scott Lamm - MCW-Milwaukee Class of 2022

Mr. Lamm is one of the student leaders of MCW’s MedMoth, a live storytelling event inspired by The Moth and Milwaukee’s Ex Fabula. He reviews the most recent gathering and looks toward the future … 

One year ago, I had no idea how we could make MCW’s MedMoth storytelling event virtual. While yes, storytelling can be accomplished on various platforms, I struggled to grasp how we could take an intimate night of face-to-face interaction and connection and build the same atmosphere from the comfort of one’s home. It was a task, though, that the MedMoth team was prepared to undertake to continue the program.

In the runup to the main event, we held two virtual workshops facilitated by staff at Ex Fabula, a Milwaukee-based storytelling community. Working with other participants, our storytellers developed their narratives and honed their presentation skills. 

What we witnessed on April 8, 2021 was a celebration of stories connecting faculty, residents, staff, and students alike in ways we couldn’t have even imagined. We had eight wonderful storytellers sharing accounts ranging from how they bonded with the supply robots at Children’s to responding to a horrific trauma event as an EMT. Each storyteller brought their own experience and vulnerability on journeys that were both familiar and astonishing. 

About sixty people were in attendance from all aspects of healthcare and all points of the training spectrum. It was absolutely incredible to see a virtual group so engaged in everyone’s stories and, hopefully, they left wanting more. As we believe that there is intrinsic value to these types of narrative opportunities, we gathered data from both the participants and the audience on their experiences. 

As we continue to build the MedMoth program, we hope we can inspire more storytellers and listeners as each of us have a story to tell. It’s just a matter of when will you share it.

Please feel free to follow MCW MedMoth on Instagram (@mcwmedmoth) for updates on future events. We will be back in the Fall with more workshops and storytelling events. If you have any questions or would like to join our team, please feel free to reach out to me (Scott Lamm) at slamm@mcw.edu.

MedMoth is graciously sponsored by the Kern Institute. We would like to thank the entire institute for its continued support.

Scott Lamm is a third-year medical student at MCW-Milwaukee. 

"At the Most Important Crossroads in our Life there are No Signs"

 From the 3/5/2021 newsletter

Perspective/Opinion

"At the Most Important Crossroads in our Life there are No Signs"

 

by Linda Menck, MA

 

Linda Menck, a faculty member in the Kern Institute’s KINETIC3 program, talks about how she employed the entrepreneurial mindset to recast a communications course at Marquette from a tired offering to a creativity powerhouse…

 

After seventeen years of teaching at Marquette University I found myself at the crossroads. My teaching career felt like the plot of the film Groundhog Day. 

 

As a professional faculty member in the Diederich College of Communication, I was assigned to teach the same classes every semester. It was like eating the same breakfast cereal every morning. While students in my classrooms changed, course content remained the same. 

A course I regularly taught was Introduction to Visual Communication (COMM 2100). This was a required course for all majors in the College of Communication but was demoted to an elective after a college core curriculum review. 

I remember thinking this course was destined to die, and the cause of death would be low enrollment. Students with majors in engineering, the sciences, and business administration had no desire or need to learn theories of visual communication or memorize dates and definitions of major art movements. 

This became a personal and professional prefect storm that ultimately motivated me to disrupt and transform my teaching. Consistent with my character, I didn’t ask for permission, but I knew it was time to redesign COMM 2100, and the redesign would need to be of epic proportion. At the foundation of the redesign would be personal passions, what I knew best, and essential skills research indicated our students needed to practice and become capable of applying.

I gathered my markers and faced the whiteboard to mind map my new course. “Mind mapping” is a visualization method I use and teach to promote and practice divergent and disruptive thinking. The central topic of my mind map was COMM 2100 REDESIGN and the initial major branches or connections were creativity, communication, and innovation. 

From the initial branches, twigs began to grow fast and furious. They included entrepreneurial mindset, defining and exploring creativity, building creative confidence, methods for creative problem solving, human-centered design research methods, inclusive and design thinking, disruptive innovation, and the power of storytelling and visualization to present innovative ideas and solutions. 

There were other crucial components to ensure the course would work. It had to be hands-on and grounded in active learning. This meant identifying an environment designed to untether learners from desks. The course needed to be experiential and focused on challenges in our community and the world. Finally, the content had to be collaborative in nature and applicable to students from diverse majors with a variety of skillsets. While planning it became evident this was a red-hot challenge with a whole mess of opportunity. Flying under the administrative radar screen, I created  content, rewrote the course description, objectives, and learning outcomes, and then settled on a new name for the course. Finally, it was time for the reveal. In the Fall of 2014 my new Creativity, Communication, and Innovation course was ready to be put to the ultimate test and judged by the harshest critics, our students. This was my field of dreams. I built it, but would they come? 

Course registration for the semester began and I waited and watched. The result was shock and awe. Within the first two days of registration both sections of the course filled to capacity.

The course continues to thrive and grow. Over time, it has evolved into a course that fulfills a requirement in our University’s new core of common studies, continues to push students out of their comfort zones, and builds their creative confidence. 

When I arrived at the crossroads, I chose to take the transformative route but I never traveled alone. My journey took me across campus to the Opus College of Engineering and the Kern Engineering Entrepreneurial Network (KEEN). I was welcomed, supported, and taught how to integrate entrepreneurial minded learning into my courses with a framework grounded in curiosity, connections, and creating value. 

Continuing on the road led me to MCW and the KINECTIC3 Teaching Academy. You, too, welcomed me. Collaborating with members of the KINETIC3 Advisory Committee to design and teach bootcamp workshops is an exciting new challenge. Your ongoing support transforms me with character, caring, and competence and keeps me from returning to the crossroads. 

The title of this piece is from a quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway. 

Linda E. Menck, MA, is a Professional in Residence in Strategic Communication in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University. She is a member of the KINETIC3 faculty. 

Creating Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Students

 From the 3/5/2021 newsletter

Perspective/Opinion

Creating Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Students

Jill C. Kuester, MSN, RN, CPNP-AC, Katie McDermott, MSN, RN, CPNP-AC, Jennifer K. Pfister, MSN, RN, CPNP-AC, C-NPT, Christine Schindler, PhD, CPNP, and Leslie Talbert, DNP, RN, CPNP-AC/PC

 

EPAs are widely used in measuring the progress of residents in graduate medical education. The members of the Marquette team describe their KINETIC3 capstone in which they adopted an EPA approach to graduate nursing education…

Nursing and medicine go together like peanut butter and jelly. Although distinct, we complement one another. As interdisciplinary teams improve at working together, we have found the ability to gain insights from the more traditional pathways of each other’s endeavors.

The Kern Institute holds a yearlong program known as the KINETIC³ Teaching Academy where the goal is to improve medical education. Character, caring, and competence in medical education are at the center of the program with each participant or group focused on completing a project incorporating these traits.

The five core faculty members from Marquette University’s Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (MU ACPNP) program completed a capstone project focused on creating Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs). Guided by the Code of Ethics published by the American Nurses Association which explicitly states that nurses have compassion and respect for their patients and families, nurses already have a strong reputation for caring. We knew that the KINETIC³ program might offer a different perspective to build upon this foundation.

As nursing has been named the most trusted profession for nineteen years in a row (Gallup), we wondered how this could be operationalized into our graduate level curriculum. EPAs have been widely used in medical education but remain a novel concept in nursing education. The MU ACPNP faculty believed the act of entrustment was well suited to our nurse practitioner students. 

Utilizing this concept from medical education and knowledge gained through the KINETIC3 courses, our group conducted a systematic literature search, synthesized that literature, and created a template to guide development of the individual EPAs. Each member then focused on one of five EPA topics: 

• Reflective practice 
• Leadership identity 
• Holism 
• Social justice 
• Magis - the concept of using talents to strive for excellence 

Each project team member was the designated lead on an individual EPA and drafted the EPA using the template. Iterative cycles of reflection, collaborative review, feedback, and revision were conducted to ensure consensus regarding content, outcomes, and assessment sources. These collaborative sessions were held synchronously, both in-person and virtually, to promote clarity in communication. The final stage of revisions included alignment of language and descriptors used across all five EPAs to promote continuity of content and universality of tone. 

Each EPA includes a succinct action-oriented title followed by a more robust description linked to key literature, as well as a justification statement calling out its significance and impact beyond the walls of Marquette. Each EPA encompassed several nurse practitioner competency domains and described the required knowledge, skills, and attitudes the students must possess for success. Some of the methods of assessment we will use include, but are not limited to, direct observation, critical review and evaluation of projects, reflective journaling, and exit interviews.

As graduate students move into professional practice, our goal is for them to embody the values we espouse as a faculty in alignment with MU’s mission, vision, and core values. EPAs hold the promise of operationalizing the transformation to a competency-based education framework for PNPs by defining a pathway with a common language and clearly articulated ideal outcomes. The KINETIC3 program afforded us the opportunity to learn and work as a team to intentionally develop key strategies to enhance the development of the competent and compassionate nurse practitioner.

Jennifer K. Pfister MSN, CPNP-AC, C-NPT, is a Pediatric Critical Care Nurse Practitioner at MCW/Children’s Wisconsin and a Transport Team Clinical Educator at Children's Wisconsin. She also has a joint appointment at Marquette University where she is part-time faculty within the Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program. 

Christine Schindler, PhD, CPNP, is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Practice Provider Director for Critical Care/Palliative Care At MCW/Children’s WI. She has a joint appointment at Marquette University where she serves as a Clinical Associate Professor and director of the Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program. 

Leslie Talbert, DNP, is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at MCW/Children’s Wisconsin. 

Katie McDermott, MSN, RN, CPNP-AC, is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner for Critical Care at MCW/Children’s Wisconsin and has a joint appointment at Marquette University where she is part-time faculty within the Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program. She also serves as the Program Director at the Dairy Cares Simulation Lab at Children's Wisconsin. 

Jill C. Kuester, MSN, RN, CPNP-AC, is a Pediatric Critical Care Nurse Practitioner at MCW/Children’s Wisconsin. She has a joint appointment at Marquette University where she serves as Part-time Faculty in the Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program.