Distinguished Teacher: Terry Mengert: Teaching and learning in the ER

Terry Mengert

How do you teach a classroom full of medical students to cope with a hypothetical patient arriving at the emergency room with heart attack symptoms? If you're Dr. Terry Mengert, you might challenge them to a spirited game of "Myocardial Infarction Jeopardy."

Mengert's use of non-traditional teaching techniques exemplifies the creativity and compassion that led his colleagues and students to nominate him for the UW's Distinguished Teaching Award, an honor he receives this June. They consider him an outstanding ER doc whose dedication to patient care is matched by his love of teaching.

Despite having completed two UW bachelor's degrees (zoology and forest resources), a UW medical degree, a residency in internal medicine in UW-affiliated hospitals, and 11 years as a UW emergency-room physician and medical school faculty member, Mengert says he's still learning.

"Teaching is the best way to learn," he says. "The questions and issues that the students and housestaff raise teach me; in fact, I think I learn more from them than they do from me. We're all in this process together, training each other."

"Ultimately, what has been most impressive about Terry has been the rigor with which he approaches his own continuing education as a physician," says Dr. Russell McMullen, associate director of UW Medical Center's Emergency Medicine Service. "He serves as a model for his colleagues as well as for students and resident housestaff. He is an important link in our educational efforts in the community and the region."

Mengert advocates learning by doing, and likens learning a medical skill to mastering a tennis stroke. "You don't get good by reading or hearing about how to hit a backhand, you get good by doing it. The same is true of learning to be a doctor.

"In teaching medicine, we've often made the mistake of being too passive," he says. "I've tried to make it more active, by presenting students with clinical cases, asking a lot of questions and expecting answers."

"Terry's teaching occurs at the bedside and in the hallway more than in a traditional lecture hall," says Dr. Mickey Eisenberg, director of the Emergency Medicine Service at UW Medical Center. "The bulk of his teaching occurs in a unique and demanding setting: a busy emergency department. I have never known anyone who has achieved such outstanding evaluations. I consider him a master teacher of clinical medicine."

"He can hardly glance at a patient without seeing something worth sharing with medical students and housestaff," says Dr. Richard Cummins, also an associate director of the Emergency Medicine Service. "He doesn't limit his teaching to conveying didactic information, but also to conveying a philosophy of practice and caring."

"In an area of medicine that moves at a fast and even intimidating pace, he has the ability to make the emergency department a comfortable and enjoyable learning environment," medical student Janet Shotwell wrote in nominating Mengert for the award. "Every question is pertinent and worthy of an answer. He obviously loves working as a physician and passing his knowledge on to his students."

Mengert is lead author (with Eisenberg and Dr. Michael Copass) of Emergency Medical Therapy, a popular book with medical students and residents. He is also author of clinical protocols for managing care of critically ill patients. "Many students have commented to me how valuable these protocols are," says Eisenberg.

The UW award is the latest in a string of teaching awards for Mengert. He was named a designated role model by fourth-year medical students, received the Beeson Award voted by medical students for the best clinical teacher in the Department of Medicine, and has received the "Golden Apple" award from students in the Medex Northwest physician assistant training program in each of the last three years.

Mengert, 42, and his wife Carin, Kirkland residents, are the parents of 14-year-old Dan and 10-year-old Hollie. He is an avid hiker and reader of Eastern philosophy. ¶

Laurie McHale