Reuben Arasaratnam is an Infectious Diseases Staff Physician at the Dallas VA Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine (Clinical-Educator Track) at UT Southwestern Medical Center, with additional roles as one of the Associate Program Directors for the ID Fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Medical Education Director for our Medical Services Line at the Dallas VA Medical Center. Additionally, he serves as an Academic Colleges Mentor for medical students, mentoring groups of 5–6 students in professional clinical skills training. He is also currently a member of the Infectious Diseases Item-Writing Task Force with the American Board of Internal Medicine. As far as his medical education interests, they lie primarily in the areas of clinical reasoning, diagnostic excellence, and faculty development, though he does have broader-ranging clinical interests in the diagnosis and management of infections in the immunocompromised host, vaccination, mycobacterial infections, and penicillin allergy.
How did you get interested in medical education?
My interest in medical education was fueled by my own positive experiences and observations during medical school. Bedside teaching rounds at the Oxford University Hospitals were inspirational for me and continue to serve as exemplars of the fundamental clinical skills of history-taking and the physical exam. To this day, I carry forward many of the lessons learned there and strive to embody the same aspirational qualities in my role as mentor. In my final year of medical school, I became an introductory tutor to incoming medical students and developed a learner orientation resource for surgical clerkship, which was awarded the Sir John Ellis Prize by the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME), United Kingdom. Attending the conference to present my work was the first introduction to a community of medical educators. Since that time, I’ve wanted medical education to be part of my Infectious Diseases Career and sought to take advantage of any opportunities presented to me.
How have you integrated medical education into your career?
Clinician-educators have numerous responsibilities, in addition to education that transcend clinical care, administration, quality improvement activities, and research. I seek to involve trainees as much as possible in these activities while helping them understand the unique educational opportunities to be found in these, even if they are not formal lectures or didactics. These include simple measures such as observing interdisciplinary discussions on patient care or talking with a radiology technologist to ensure optimal imaging for a patient. Using these small opportunities to educate trainees is an essential component of my practice.
Secondly, I take advantage of opportunities to deliver large group lectures. Regardless of the topic, my goal is always to bring clarity and, ultimately, change practice and improve patient care. I’ve found great joy working with non-infectious disease audiences to topics that are important to them. These include work with rheumatology and surgical specialists.
Lastly, as an Associate Program Director for the ID Fellowship, I mentor several fellows in both their research efforts and their medical education. I’m excited that our Infectious Diseases Fellowship has recently developed a Medical Educational track that our Fellows can pursue in their second year of fellowship.
How did you transform your interest in medical education into a career?
Early on in my career I took advantages of requests to assist with morning report, small group teaching, and residency didactics. Being invited to be discussant in Clinical-Pathological Conference in my first year on faculty solidified my interest in teaching clinical reasoning, and my reputation grew for large group didactic presentations. After three years of being a junior faculty, I took a formal position at the Dallas VA Medical Center as the Medical Education Director where I am supporting and growing the educational activities of our Medical Services Line.
How have you transformed your medical education work into scholarship?
When beginning any medical educational project, I do try to think about how scholarship can be an integral part of the project. As time is often a limiting factor, it is important to start small and work upwards, taking advantage of every opportunity available. Case reports, editorials, and reviews are important, and can build up to primary research projects. Lastly, as has been iterated previously, building relationships with collaborators (including those outside of your discipline) and engaging with mentees is critical for encouraging a general culture of scholarship. In the last two years there have been seven fellows, either from our Infectious Diseases Division or Rheumatology Division, that have been featured either as primary authors or co-authors in publications where I have been involved.
What are some of the most rewarding aspects of your career as an educator thus far?
Since my arrival at the Dallas VA, I have greatly enjoyed launching several educational initiatives. The first one involved working with several ID Fellows to develop and implement a regular, recurring COVID-19 teaching curriculum for our hospitalist staff. More recently, I worked with several other clinician-educators to deliver a curriculum on Veteran-centric care to our internal medicine residency program, which was warmly received by the participating residents. Attending the Harvard Macy Institute Program for Educators in Health Professions was an important catalyst for developing the Faculty Development Program in Medical Education at our facility. To this day, I have had the privilege of hosting a variety of speakers, from both within and without our institution, which has been a tremendous benefit to our medical education community. Above all, I continue to work with learners across all levels, from students to fellows. Having the opportunity to contribute to the development of their clinical abilities and careers is deeply rewarding and an enduring honor, for which I am eternally grateful.