E-curriculum earns Dr. Liu national recognition

Howard Liu. M.D., director of the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) and assistant vice chancellor for the Office of Faculty Development at UNMC, has been awarded the Creativity in Psychiatric Education Award from the American College of Psychiatrists.

In an image from the e-module on adolescent depression, Dr. Liu (left) sits with former UNO theater student Olivia Sather, playing a teenager fighting depression, and UNO theater professor Cindy Melby Phaneuf, Ph.D., playing a parent.

The award is in recognition of Dr. Liu’s part in the creation of national curriculum for illustrating psychiatric disorders, a curriculum that grew from an e-learning module Dr. Liu created on adolescent depression.

“That was one of the first e-modules in the case library,” Dr. Liu said. “When I founded and co-chaired the Clinical Simulation Initiative national task force at the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP), we realized we needed one to illustrate each major psychiatric diagnosis.”

The national curriculum, hosted by ADMSEP here, is free and peer-reviewed, and was designed to help medical students widen their knowledge of a range of mental health diagnoses.

“Prior to this case library, no peer-reviewed library of psychiatry cases was available to medical students,” Dr. Liu said.

The modules in the national curriculum have been viewed more than 73,000 times over four years, both through the United States and internationally.
“They’re getting good use,” Dr. Liu said.

Dr. Liu said the award is a recognition of collaboration.

“The module I created on adolescent depression used theatre students and faculty from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, UNMC providers, College of Nursing instructional technologists, BHECN funding, and Faculty Development expertise to assemble,” he said. “And on the national level, the case library was built with a dozen colleagues from eight different North American medical schools. It really is a symbol of innovation through collaboration.”

Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dele Davies, M.D., congratulated Dr. Liu and his team on the award.

“Dr. Liu was an early adopter when the e-Learning project was launched at UNMC, and he had the vision to bring in colleagues from across the country to create what is now an impressive suite of just-in-time training modules for psychiatry students,” Dr. Davies said. “It is wonderful to see the national recognition that our faculty are getting as a result of innovation using e-Learning.”

Dr. Liu will receive the award in February in Tampa, Fla., at the American College of Psychiatrists annual meeting.