Good Teaching Methods Come From the Heart
Vijay K. Rajput, MD, Director, Internal Medicine Residency Program at Cooper University Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has won the prestigious Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award.
In its 10th year, this award recognizes ten program directors from more than 8000 programs in the country, who find innovative ways to teach residents to provide quality health care in a complex, challenging atmosphere, while remaining connected to the initial impulse to care for others in this environment.
“Vijay Rajput is the ultimate master teacher. He has a unique ability to enhance strengths and minimize weaknesses in a student’s knowledge of medicine,” said Joseph E. Parrillo, MD, Chief, Department of Medicine and Director, Cooper Heart Institute. “Dr. Rajput is a major reason why 100% of our Cooper Internal Medicine Residents pass their Boards year after year.”
Dr. Rajput currently serves on the Medical Education committee for Society of Hospital Medicine, Clinical Skills Committee for American College of Physicians, and is the chair of the Ethics Committee at Cooper University Hospital. He has authored more than thirty papers and abstracts and has presented many innovative workshops and seminars related to medical education, ethics and professionalism at national meetings. He also serves as key member for curriculum committee for the new Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. He was inducted into University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Master Educator Guild in 2005. Dr. Rajput has received more than fifteen excellence in teaching awards from students and residents in the last ten years including the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2006.
“Dr. Rajput is truly a master educator and I cannot think of another physician more deserving of this award,” said Douglas Beach, MD, Hematology-Oncology, Fellow, and former chief resident under the tutelage of Dr. Rajput. “Most importantly, and most crucial to the training of young physicians, he focuses on how his residents and students think, as opposed to simply ‘what they know.’”
His main areas of interest include bedside teaching, real-time Evidence Based Medicine, innovative medical curricula, professionalism, ethics and humanism in medicine, as well as problem-based learning and curriculum development. He developed a core ethics curriculum for the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Dr. Rajput will be acknowledged for receiving the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award at a ceremonial luncheon during the ACGME Annual Educational Conference on March 4, 2011, at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee.