SuccessTypes Medical Education Site

“SuccessTypes” is plural to refer to those students of any personality type who use Deliberate Practice to strengthen their learning style.  Since all personality types can take advantage of this approach, they all can upgrade their learning skills and become a SuccessType.  

Psychologists often confuse personality "types" with personality "traits" because they live in a world that predominantly measures "traits" when studying behavior.  However, trait and type are not the same:

• Trait is measured on a continuum so you can have more of it or less of it, e.g. motivation.
• Type is only a sorting concept that is a declaration of preference or "comfort zone" for thinking. 
• All people use the thinking of all 8 type preferences to fit the situation, but thinking with their preferred type is the easiest.
• When a student has to learn a thinking skill that doesn't match their type preference, it takes more energy and tires them more quickly.

The reliability and validity statistical methods for studying a trait cannot be applied to a type study.  When type is treated as a trait, the thinking breaks down and becomes illogical.  This misapplication of trait analysis to personality type is at the root of many criticisms of type theory.  Another source of criticism of personality type as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can be traced to simply a lack of understanding of the concept.  The relevance to medical education is covered in the SuccessTypes book, a free download at this website.  

Learning style is related to the personality types that have a preference for either giving their attention to facts and details or to relationships that create a "big picture."  Big picture types tend to use the front of their brain more and facts and details types tend to use the back of their brains more - but both types have the ability to use "all" areas of their cortex.  It takes skill development to balance the less preferred region of the brain with the one that is preferred.

A medical education is not a checklist that is completed to prove you are educated.  Nor does a medical curriculum "educate" you.  Until you learn how to educate yourself by using the curriculum as a guide, you will see yourself as a victim.  You can avoid being a victim and control your destiny by understanding your role in it.  This understanding transforms you from a receiver into a producer.

Critical thinking skills develop best when students make their brain physically act on information that they are learning by writing or speaking or both.  However, students often see themselves only as receivers of information, thus limiting their learning to passive reading of assigned learning. 

• Receivers are victims.  They are dependent on the exact wording of exam questions and, in medical practice, they depend on each patient presenting with unambiguous signs and symptoms.
• Producers, by contrast, are in charge.  They learn by producing a re-organization of information from relationships and patterns.  Their interlocking "big picture" prevents most surprises on exams and allows ruling out of incorrect answers just as they will rule out incorrect diagnoses with their patients.

Anyone who so desires can learn to be a producer because it is a skill that can be practiced and developed.

There is a difference between smart and skilled.  The traditional way to view a student is that they are smart enough or they are not.  However, results from cognitive science research indicate that the attribute of "skilled or less skilled" is more reliable.  Emphasizing thinking as a skill is also more encouraging because skills can be increased with practice.

• The question is not "are you smart enough?"  If you were offered admission to medical school, you are more than likely "smart" enough.  That only means you are qualified to begin your medical education, not necessarily that you are "prepared."  Regardless of the efforts of medical schools to select those most qualified, there is still no way to predict with certainty that each student is prepared to adjust and learn how to educate themselves. 
• The better question is, "are you skilled enough?"  The fundamental "skill" that is needed in medical education is the ability to deliberately seek out integrative relationships for every concept learned.  This results in a thinking process that both both develops long-term memory and also develops critical thinking skills for solving clinical problems.  Even though this skill may be present in many entering medical students, they generally do not know how to make it stronger. 

The Expert Skills Program has been developed to teach all students how to make all skill areas in their brain cortex stronger. 

The ESP is a coordinated, stepwise application of evidence-based concepts in brain performance and learning.  These concepts were adopted over a thirty year period as the SuccessTypes learning system evolved from experience.

1. Growth Mindset is a concept that grew out of research on metacognition that correlated higher academic achievement in students who were motivated to "grow" their intelligence.
2. Deliberate Practice has become well known as the secret to becoming an expert in any skill area.  It has replaced "talent" as the explanation for development of superior performers.
3. Personality type as a learning style provides an opportunity apply deliberate practice to different ways of learning and understanding.
4. The role of sleep in learning further explores and exploits the biology of the brain to optimize the use of limited learning time in the medical curriculum.  The brain is always hard at work during sleep replaying events of the previous day, but it will only hold on to information that is associated with emotion.
5. Emotion is an outcome of the Experiential Learning Cycle, another key concept employed in the ESP. It is equally effective during individual study and when working in groups.

You can navigate to the ESP home page from anywhere in the SuccessTypes Medical Education Site. 

The most prestigious credential supporting the Expert Skills Program has been the awarding of the Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010 to its creator, Dr. John Pelley.  Alpha Omega Alpha is the national medical honor society dedicated to the improvement of health care through high academic achievement and gifted teaching.  The work receiving the award is reviewed by a national selection committee of medical educators for its contribution to medical education.

Additional credentials:

Invited keynote addresses for the following educational meetings:

• American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, 2010
• American College of Osteopathic Internists, 2010
• American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, 2011
• International Association of Medical Science Educators, 2014
• American Association of Anatomists, 2015

Other invited presentations:

• Alpha Omega Alpha Visiting Professor, 5 times (2008-2014)
• TEDx Talk, Bodybuilding for the Brain, 2014
• Presentations at 45 medical schools, over 30% repeat visits

Additional credentials can be obtained from the biosketch for Dr. Pelley linked below.

TTUHSC ESP link.