Shaping Healthcare through an Academy of Professional Educators

The Shaping Healthcare through an Academy of Professional Educators (SHAPE) at Corewell Health in West Michigan, was established in 2020 with the generous support of the Corewell Health Foundation. There are over 70 institutions across the nation with Academies of Educators that help promote the educational mission of a hospital, health system, or department. With the development of SHAPE, Corewell Health has joined the Academies Collaborative, an affiliate of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

In its first three years, over 70 physicians and educators have joined the SHAPE community to further develop their teaching capabilities and exchange knowledge and best practices in medical education. SHAPE leadership has also become active in the Communities of Practice group at Corewell Health and endeavors to make meaningful connections with other community-led organizations across the system.

The mission of SHAPE is to create a community of physicians and medical educators who promote a culture of educational excellence to improve health care outcomes through teaching expertise. SHAPE provides educators the following:

• Access to mini-grant applications for educational initiatives and scholarship
• Educator innovative scholar awards to provide educators the opportunity to attend a national educational training conference
• Teaching and educational scholarship consultants
• Monthly educational and research colloquium talks
• A system-wide multispecialty community of educators to share best practices in medical education

The SHAPE steering committee and Corewell Health Office of Medical Education would like to thank the philanthropy of the Corewell Health Foundation for their generous support for this initiative.

For more information on the Academies Collaborative, visit their website here.

SHAPE is co-chaired by Justin Triemstra, M.D., and Cassandra Kearney, Ph.D. Please feel free to direct any questions to them at SHAPEmeded@corewellhealth.org

SHAPE’s Steering committee consists of leaders across the medical education community.

New members are always welcome. If you are interested in joining SHAPE, please complete our online application or if would like more information, email SHAPEmeded@corewellhealth.org.

Benefits to members at Corewell Health:

• Recognition for your dedication to medical education and teaching
• Developing individual skills as teacher and researcher
• Enhancing your role in medical education
• Access to mentorship from educational leaders
• Building, creating and participating in faculty development workshops
• Access to scholarship grants and awards to fund educational scholarly projects
• A community of like-minded, passionate clinician educators
• Expanding your professional network
• Tools to work toward promotion and tenure

Click on each title below to learn more about what SHAPE offers to its members.