AAD education: A crash course
DermWorld highlights the Academy’s educational development strategy.
Feature
By Matthew Walsh, Member Communications Specialist, November 1, 2024
“Our vision is for the Academy to be recognized as the gold standard source of education for dermatologists,” said Amit Garg, MD, FAAD, chair of the Academy’s Council on Education. “Maintaining this vision has necessitated a deliberate and thoughtful effort premised around specific educational deliverables and the operations required to execute the strategy.”
The Academy strives to continually support its members with their learning needs. Earlier this year, the Board of Directors approved a new education strategy that will only further strengthen this key pillar.
The Academy’s new education strategy has four main drivers:
To deliver educational offerings that are relevant, current, innovative, and evidence-based to meet members’ learning needs and preferences.
To elevate members’ education experiences through year-round engagement and value.
To continuously innovate the design and delivery of education through the integration and utilization of data and technology.
To optimize the resources, tools, and processes to support the design, development, delivery, evaluation, and awareness of education activities effectively and efficiently.
The Academy’s educational offerings are delivered through two main sources: AAD digital learning and in-person sessions at the Annual Meeting and Innovation Academy. Each format has a dedicated committee, editorial board, task force, or work group responsible for overseeing content development.
“Everyone who is involved in AAD educational programs is committed to providing the best, most up-to-date, and most exciting educational programs possible,” said Kathryn Schwarzenberger, MD, FAAD, physician editor of DermWorld and chair of the Academy’s Scientific Assembly Committee (SAC). “We actively engage with membership to understand their educational needs and try to respond by providing education in a variety of formats that allow our members to learn however they learn best.”
The planning committees are each given data to help identify topics of educational need for dermatologists to assist with planning, and each committee has its own planning process from start to finish.
“The Council on Education then ensures that the learning programs and its content, the products, and the educational services provided are consistent with the Academy’s vision and values for education,” said Dr. Garg.
Meetings
Planning for the education sessions at any given year’s Annual Meeting or Innovation Academy starts approximately one month prior to the previous year’s meeting, when the application window opens. That window remains open for about four to six weeks after the meeting’s close, at which point the Scientific Assembly Committee reviews the applications.
“The Scientific Assembly Committee plans the Annual Meeting and the Innovation Academy with the goals of ensuring we deliver current, evidence-based content that supports knowledge, competencies, and practices for our members,” said Dr. Garg. “To achieve this, we engage speakers who have demonstrated content expertise, as well as those who are recognized for their emergent talent as skilled clinicians, researchers, patient advocates, and leaders. We always aim to recruit an engaging and diverse cohort of speakers for our education programming.”
The program of sessions at a given meeting consists of a mixture of sessions from prior meetings as well as new sessions that were developed via the application process.
“Any AAD member can apply to chair a session, and AAD Councils, Committees, and Task Forces can also submit applications with a memo of support,” said Dr. Schwarzenberger. “Submissions are distributed to members of the Scientific Assembly Committee for review, and the committee members grade each submission using a variety of criteria, foremost among which is whether the topic and session as described promises to address the needs of both dermatologists and patients.” The graded scores are collated by AAD staff and rank ordered.
“The SAC goes over all of these again during an in-person, two-day meeting, during which we review both the prior year’s sessions as well as the new submissions,” Dr. Schwarzenberger continued. “Using an educational gap analysis developed from our members’ identified needs as our guide, we create the new program using a mixture of old and new sessions. In general, the most highly ranked submissions are those accepted. However, the SAC does consider the session topics to try to ensure that all our disciplines are covered and that we don’t have many sessions that duplicate the same topic.”
“We always aim to recruit an engaging and diverse cohort of speakers for our education programming.”
Over the past few years, the Academy has received between 150-400 applications for new sessions, and around 15-20% of the sessions during a given meeting come from new submissions. The number of sessions is dependent on the available space at that year’s convention center, and there is no set number of sessions allocated to any one topic. Sessions are selected based on evaluation score, attendance during previous years, and perceived member importance.
The SAC reserves the right to ask session directors to rotate off or bring in a successor, which occurs whenever the committee believes that a course could be refreshed or strengthened. “We very much appreciate those who are willing to run sessions, and we also want to ensure that we do not limit opportunities for our upcoming and younger members to speak,” Dr. Schwarzenberger said. “The SAC will be asking members to limit the number of talks they give during a single meeting to four.”
There currently is no limit on the number of sessions a speaker can participate in. The Annual Meeting averages over 1,100 speakers giving more than 1,600 presentations in approximately 300 sessions. There are some speakers who appear on the program multiple times, but generally, most speakers give only one or two presentations. The SAC encourages session directors to invite and develop new speakers in their sessions where appropriate.
Once completed, all sessions are evaluated to assess if the stated learning objectives were met, and attendees are asked to report what changes in practice they will implement based on what they learned during the session. This evaluation data is then reviewed by SAC for the next planning meeting.
Members interested in submitting applications to run a session can improve their chances of approval by following several guidelines, such as:
Clearly identifying why the topic is important to practicing dermatologists;
Submitting well-written applications that contain all components, including preferred faculty;
Including practical pearls that attendees can immediately incorporate into their practice; and
Suggesting topic content that addresses new therapies, hot topics, or what’s new in the specialty.
Digital learning
While it is difficult to understate the vast variety of educational content available at Academy meetings, not every member is able to attend in-person sessions, and so the AAD also develops robust digital learning and journal-based CME content, providing self-paced educational opportunities. The Academy’s digital learning activities are overseen by the Learning Resource Committee, and Chair Lorraine Rosamilia, MD, FAAD, said she is grateful for this particular aspect of the AAD.
“I appreciate, both as an AAD member and as part of the leadership of AAD Councils, Committees, and Task Forces, that the AAD connects with its membership to assess the learning tools that physicians in all levels of training and clinical practice may need,” she explained. “Some members may not be interested or able to attend in-person conferences but still want to engage in digital learning through, for example, Question of the Week or on-demand online courses. On the AAD webpage, members can click ‘Meetings and Education’ and then ‘Professional Education’ to access countless ways to enhance their clinical and practice management skills. That is the definition of what the gold standard should be for a specialty’s educational needs.”
The Learning Resource Committee is directly responsible for overseeing on-demand courses and has oversight of the task forces and workgroups that develop some of the Academy’s other popular educational activities, such as Question of the Week and Dialogues in Dermatology. The AAD’s digital activities provide a convenient way to stay up to date from anywhere, which is why they are popular with members.
Similar to in-person sessions, members have the opportunity to present digital courses to their colleagues. “The AAD provides avenues for members to participate in these programs as authors and leaders,” Dr. Rosamilia said. “Each year, there is a nomination and application process for committees, but there are also workgroups and task forces that draw from resident, fellow, active clinical, and any other member groups to volunteer and author, for example, a Question of the Week question or a Board Prep Plus section quiz.”
Authors for all digital education courses are vetted to ensure that they have expertise in the respective topic and are invited and approved by the respective planning group such as the Question of the Week Workgroup, the Dialogues in Dermatology Editorial Board, or the Learning Resources Committee.
Future
The AAD is committed to continuous evaluation and improvement of its education program to ensure that its members are always getting the best educational assistance that they can.
“In my opinion, the greatest value in the dues we pay each year lies in the AAD’s educational content,” said Dr. Rosamilia. “For instance, a novel member benefit in 2025 will be access to Dialogues in Dermatology without an extra subscription fee. Optimizing exposure to these painstakingly curated interviews and cutting-edge developments in our field will lead to even more members discussing and implementing the pearls offered in the content. Members will be able to conveniently access the podcast on the way to work, during a workout, or while conducting household activities, for instance.”
As the specialty evolves, new information on skin diseases is discovered, and new treatments are planned, the Academy is committed to ensuring that no member is lacking the information they require to treat their patients.
“Now, and over the next few years, we will have a renewed emphasis on innovation in education and the member experience, both of which will further advance our educational objectives on behalf of our members,” said Dr. Garg.
