As an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Shaheen Shaikh, MD knows how to connect with students. “Teaching has to be made fun for the residents,” says Dr. Shaikh, an anesthesiologist and Director of Neuroanesthesia at UMass Memorial Medical Center.

“Sometimes they are with attendings that are stricter and make it like a bootcamp. They don’t enjoy that. Someone in medical school is smart to begin with. They are motivated and dedicated. If they aren’t, they don’t make it this far. They have that motivation and dedication, so they just need the direction.”

Dr. Shaikh believes in hands-on learning and taking the time to explain tasks to her residents when visiting her patients. For example, “When the patients turn prone, I check the belly to make sure that the belly is free. If I just do it myself and check, it doesn’t mean much unless I let the resident know why it is important.”

In addition to her work at UMass Medical Group, Dr. Shaikh works with the NeuroCritical Care Society on their Emergency Neurological Life Support (ENLS) Course. She teaches the course every six months at locations around the world.

With so much experience as an instructor, Dr. Shaikh was excited to be the student for a day at the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS). She participated in a one-day Anesthesia Crisis Resource Management (ACRM) workshop to fulfill her MOCA® credits. As a proponent of making teaching enjoyable, was the course fun? “Yes, but it’s not like you just come here to have fun and then go home…you learn and take a few things back to your hospital to make training better.”

To learn more about the MOCA® and Crisis Resource Management for Practicing Anesthesiologists courses at CMS, please visit: https://harvardmedsim.org/course/moca-and-crm/