Image: Steve Lipofsky
Martin Pusic and Krisztina Fischer have been selected to serve as the next faculty co-directors of Harvard Medical School’s master of medical sciences in medical education program by the HMS Office for Graduate Education.
Pusic has extensive experience in medical education research and clinical practice in pediatric emergency medicine. He is currently an HMS associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and is scholar in residence in the Brigham Education Institute.
"It's an exciting time to be in education research, given both the School’s higher ambitions for competency assessment, inclusiveness, societal impact, and our new tools, such as learning analytics, virtualized education, and the flowering of qualitative methods," Pusic said. “We have an opportunity to really have an impact locally and internationally."
Pusic earned his medical degree from the University of British Columbia and a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at McGill University. He received a master’s in clinical informatics and a PhD in human cognition from Columbia University.
He is also a co-investigator of an American Medical Association-funded project, Promotion in Place, where a competency-based advancement model is used for residents-in-training programs at Mass General Brigham.
Pusic has published over 100 research papers and is currently president of the Society of Directors of Research in Medical Education.
Fischer has served as the interim faculty director of the program during this past year and, under her leadership, the program thrived in a virtual environment. She is an HMS assistant professor of radiology, part-time, and a medical education researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
She said that in health care education rigorous research outcomes are increasingly relevant in decision-making.
“Our goal for the next three years is to support faculty and students in finding shared interests and work they can do together on research project selection, design, and implementation, with the goal of making a difference at the local, national, and international health care education levels,” Fischer said.
Fischer’s research includes multiple topics in medical education, including critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and online medical education. She has extensive experience teaching in the medical education program, including the foundational course Quantitative Research in Medical Education.
She currently serves as associate director of anatomy curriculum development at HMS, as a member of the Radiology Education Committee at Brigham and Women’s and as an editorial board member at Academic Medicine.
Fischer obtained her medical degree from Semmelweis Medical School. She completed her PhD studies at the radiology department at Brigham and Women’s and completed her MMSc in medical education at HMS.
Ayres Heller will continue in her role as associate director of the program, having provided the administrative leadership to found it and having years of experience working in higher education at Harvard University creating new initiatives and in leading academic programs.
Heller obtained a master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, now a partner program of the HMS MMSc in medical education.
The MMSc in medical education program was launched in 2014 under the leadership of Jennifer Kesselheim and Heller. Kesselheim stepped down in 2021 to become the designated institutional official for Boston Children's Hospital, where she now oversees graduate medical programs.
