Dr. Talmon: ‘Finding a better way’ to teach

Geoffrey Talmon, M.D., has won so many Golden Apple teaching awards, he’s been bumped into the hall of fame and is ineligible for further consideration.

At age 38, Dr. Talmon, an associate professor and the Linder Pathology Residency Director, is still a relatively young guy.

So it goes without saying that he’s on board with all of the changes in education UNMC has seen in recent years and will continue to see as increased emphasis on technology and initiatives like iEXCEL℠ move forward. Right?

Well, yes.

“The data are there,” Dr. Talmon said. “I’m a believer.”

But, Dr. Talmon said, that doesn’t mean that all of this change is any easier for him than it is for anyone else.

“But that’s part of being a teacher,” Dr. Talmon said. “Finding a better way to do what we already do.”

He recognizes that even for those faculty members who are spearheading all these changes in education at UNMC, all of this is easier said than done.

After all, we are human beings. It’s our nature to stick with what is familiar to us, to think that the way things used to be was better than the way things are now. To think that the way we learned is the best way.

After all, we turned out pretty good, right?

“What we need to do as physicians,” Dr. Talmon said, “is apply the same evidence-based strategies to our education as we do to our clinical practices. We need to step out of our world and not simply do something because it’s the way it’s always been done, or it’s what we went through.”

Students help with that. It’s a cliche that students keep teachers young, but it’s also true. Students show you how to teach them.

“Every class is different,” Dr. Talmon said.

And the world has changed. It used to be, health providers had to know a repository of incredible amounts of minutiae. Now, with the click of a mouse (or, the swipe of a phone), anyone — even patients! — can know things. “You can simply ask a question,” Dr. Talmon said, “and get an answer.”

But that has helped health providers, and those who educate them, in this way: “We are becoming more problem-focused,” said Dr. Talmon, “rather than subject-focused.”

So the emphasis becomes not knowing an answer, but, “How to reason, how to make the correct decisions,” Dr. Talmon said.

“You found the fact. Now, what does it mean?”