Your Voice Matters!

Explain how the school prevents mistreatment of students by educators.

 

The school’s key prevention activities are:

 

(1) Accountability: Joint responsibility of school and department leaders to respond to incident reports.

(2) Monitoring: OLE monitors to ensure that interventions are conducted as planned and that recurrent concerns lead to escalated interventions.

(3) Educator training: Professionalism trainings of individuals and groups.

(4) Recognition: Promoting a culture of professionalism by highlighting positive behaviors through Professionalism Accolades (https://www.ole.pitt.edu/accolades/recent).

Explain how we know that mistreatment prevention activities are effective.

Indicators that show the school’s prevention activities are working:

 

(1) Pitt Med students observe professional behaviors by faculty significantly more often and experience consistently fewer negative behaviors (per recent annual Graduation Questionnaire data).

(2) Professionalism items on educator evaluations are consistently high across the curricular phases.

(3) The number of educators who receive subsequent reports following an intervention (recurrence rate) dropped from 17% in 2023-24 to 5% in 2025-26.

Share outcomes of the school’s investigation of learning environment reports about educators.

The Office of the Learning Environment (OLE) publishes aggregate data about the types of reports received and the actions taken. These data can be viewed anytime on the OLE’s active data webpage (www.ole.pitt.edu/data).

 

Outcomes match the severity and recurrence of the incidents reported.

 

In 2025, the most common investigation outcome (83%) was educator professionalism training. Less common outcomes are formal remediation and removal/reassignment of teaching roles.

Better inform students about how the school is identifying, investigating, and preventing mistreatment and other learning environment concerns.

The OLE deans are giving more frequent presentations to each class.

 

The Student ELEAP Communications Chair disseminates the annual data summary to students via class secretaries.

 

Learning environment information is now added to the Your Voice Matters page! 

Flex Weeks: Students on two clinical activities experienced scheduling errors and/or poor communicatio

OMED is providing additional guidance to experience directors

Flex Weeks: Slots for high-demand shadowing experience are limiting

We hope that over the course of 6 flex weeks that students will be able to join their top choice experiences.

 

(1) We are encouraging clinical experience directors to expand slots or add dates. Specific example: Mapping the Mind: A Survey of Neurology Subspecialties added new slots this fall (now up to 15) and is planning further expansion

(2) Students are also encouraged to reach out to their coaches, Course Directors, CSPs, LEs, or your Deans for support in connecting with clinicians in your areas of interest

(3) Different models of sign up being considered (ex. lottery, rank-choice, priority rotation)

Anatomy: Speakers are hard to hear in the gross Anatomy Lab

For the upcoming Anatomy sessions in KF (Down Syndrome case) and Spring Organ Systems courses (Cardio, Pulm, Nephro and Rheumatology), we'll coordinate for our speakers to engage you in the main classroom rather than the lab as much as possible

Anatomy: Unclear expectations for independent learning content, particularly radiology

We appreciate you letting us know. We will re-evaluate the VPSim cases and further integrate radiology with in-class content

Anatomy: Inconsistent/unclear anatomy pre-learning material

Several students felt that the pre-learning videos and note packets didn't align well or lacked diagrams.

 

Students suggested that all videos be made using Complete Anatomy and that a notes packet be provided for all neuro content, especially autonomics.

 

Repro: Cold calling in LG can be uncomfortable for some students

We will consider complementary approaches to keeping our learning sessions active and interactive.

Repro: Dense course immediately preceding a Tri-Summative

We had a similar concern for the Psych/Onc/PPS Tri-Summative in Fall M2 of prior years, and this exam triad is for your class year is now broken up into a Psych/PPS Di-Summative + a stand-alone Hem-Onc Summative. We are exploring the possibilities of doing the same for Endo/MSK/Repro.

Repro/KF: Marathon Thursday makeup for Labor Day

We will strategize about how best to create a more generative learning sessions in years where we lose a day to Labor Day.

Derm/Endo: Align Summative/Formative in degree of difficulty

Derm generated entirely new questions across all assessments this year and we will use your feedback to bring the questions into better alignment.  We will also consult with the Assessments Committee (which includes more senior students) to ensure the Formatives and Summatives have a similar level of difficulty

Derm: Expand Anatomy content

We completely agree and already plan to 1) expand the anatomy lab laboratory sessions for greater content depth and 2) develop an anatomy lab practical that will be part of a student’s grade

Derm: Add a Pre-Summative review session

We appreciate the feedback and will consider best approaches for arranging a supplemental review session in addition to the review session at the end of the course.

Endo: Make Content Guide more Step 1 high-yield

We will strategize how to better prioritize content that is relevant to Step 1 while continuing to include content that will be a resource to you in Clerkships.

Endo: Add new practice questions at the final review

We are partnering with Med Ed elective students to generate more practice questions for you!

Can VHA and review sessions be recorded?

In AY27, we changed the structure of VHA so that the sessions are integrated into organ systems, meaning that they will be recorded.  In KF, they remain optional, and optional sessions are not recorded.  Why?  In part because when optional sessions are recorded, attendance plummets, which limits the utility and reduces the faculty's ability to conduct an effective teaching session.  When optional sessions like review sessions are recorded, it also reduces synchronous student participation (people feel more uncomfortable to ask questions), which again lowers quality and/or raises student anxiety.

 

Mandatory sessions during the school day are recorded, but optional sessions are not.  Courses like neuroscience that do reviews during the regular daily hours won't record those reviews.  Students who do not attend can instead go to office hours, which are held weekly, if they wish.

 

Students still get all curricular material for VHA and review sessions, even if it's not recorded, and students can review that material after sessions to enhance their learning.  

Formatives: Can we minimize distractions?

We'll be working with our proctoring team on more consistent monitoring for formatives—it's also a responsibility of everyone in the community to be mindful of noise levels.

AI use in the curriculum: Disclose?

AI use (e.g., summarizing evals, creating prework) should always be disclosed by staff and faculty, who are ultimately responsible for quality.  We will remind everyone about expectations and do spot checks on quality.  And just a reminder—although we use AI to summarize evals, multiple faculty and staff read EVERY full eval of every course—every comment is reviewed.

SG Facilitators encouraged to name uncertainty openly

We agree, and our facilitators do too. We all recognize that it can be hard to share our uncertainties, especially when we want to provide a firm and reassuring answer during an educational session. We'll keep encouraging our LEs to model the professional habit they wish to cultivate in you, namely, it’s okay to say “I’m unsure, let me check and I’ll get back to you”.

SG: Pacing--Maintain focus on content

We are working closely with LEs to improve time allocation and to ensure that your discussions focus on prioritized content during the upcoming KF sessions. 

KF: Faculty use of AI in KF pre-work may may distance students from faculty expertise

Dr. Schmidt, Dr. Borghesi and Dr. Rosenstock are reviewing the KF content for transparency, accuracy, and appropriate scope of application for AI usage by faculty.

CSP: More constructive/critical feedback

Positive feedback, as well as constructive feedback, is an identified priority for our program. We are mentoring facilitators to help strike that balance consistently across sessions.

PCC block: Tighter connection to the grading checklist
(CIA) requirements

Looking ahead to advanced medical interviewing in ICM2 this coming Spring, we will put in place methods for standardizing clinical checklists across CSP groups.

CSP: Consistency of facilitator assignment 

We understand the concern. Some students feel more comfortable having a single CSP and other students appreciate broader exposure to CSPs for diversity of perspective and connections to different shadowing opportunities. CSP leads are working to maintain regular attendance of faculty.

Add secure storage for individual student use

Locks purchased and are being distributed across clinical sites, with lockers, drawers, and other individual spaces being reserved for student use where it wasn't before.  Information will be in syllabus/orientation.