[AAHM_Clio_Project] Clio help - surgeons & history

[Justin Barr]

Dear Colleagues:

tl;dr:  looking for suggestions on how to teach surgeons to write better
history; see link/attached & please add/comment/criticize

I hope this note finds you well and having enjoyed the holidays.  I write
to ask your assistance in helping improve the quality of history authored
by surgeons.

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) has recently made a conscious &
considerable effort to include, explore, and present surgical history.
They now have history panels at their annual meeting, a history of surgery
poster competition for students/residents, articles in their monthly
*Bulletin*, a grant to support history research, and, as many of you know &
have helped with, an effort to incorporate history into "boot camps" for
all graduating medical students.

The history produced has varied in quality from great to terrible.  Much
focuses on heritage and hagiography rather than what we might call
history.  Dr. Ted Pappas (cc-ed) is the incoming chairman of the ACS
Surgical History Group.  He views the next step as elevating the quality of
scholarship.  Certainly, the goal is not to make every surgeon writing
history a PhD historian but rather have them understand the fundamentals of
what makes a quality contribution to history (i.e. argument, what are & how
to access primary sources, basic historiography, etc).  As we have all
noted before, clinicians can bring important, different perspectives to the
table; improving the quality of those contributions helps everyone.

I attach herewith a tentative list of possible ways to help teach surgeons
how to write better history (a list easily adaptable to other
specialties).  I also made it a Google doc HERE
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TYM9Bxxny06PFLg_dP2b8LKJvZD6D5V6SlK6UqZXDYU/edit?usp=sharing>
so people can add/comment collaboratively and simultaneously. (please let
me know if the link does not work)

(1)  I would great appreciate any and all additional suggestions / ideas /
mechanisms.  Open to anything.
(2)  I would be much obliged for commentary on those which I have suggested
- how realistic?  how effective?  how useful?

Happy to discuss via google docs, email, some online chat, or in person in
LA -- whatever people think is best.  Thank you very much for any and all
assistance!

Sincerely,

Justin
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