Journal Review in Surgical Education: What We Can Learn From America’s Literacy Crisis

About this episode

The episode discusses the parallels between America's literacy crisis and challenges in surgical education, emphasizing the need for competency-based education.

In this episode, hosts Drs. Maya Hunt, Nicole Santucci, Bryanna Stukes and Zoe Zhou explore the parallels between the literacy crisis in America and current challenges in surgical education, drawing insights from the podcast "Sold a Story." They discuss how both systems advance learners without true competency, blame struggling students rather than examining flawed teaching methods, and look to the promise of competency-based education as a path forward. Beyond surgical training, they examine how declining literacy rates will directly impact how we communicate with and care for our future patients. Episode Hosts: –Dr. Maya Hunt, Indiana University mayahunt@iu.edu -Dr. Nicole Santucci, Washington University in St. Louis snicole@wustl.edu -Dr. Bryanna Stukes, UT Southwestern bryanna.stukes@UTSouthwestern.edu -Dr. Nanruoyi (Zoe) Zhou, Weill Cornell Medicine zhoun1@mskcc.org –CoSEF: @surgedfellows, cosef.org References: 1. Sold A Story: How teaching kids to read went so wrong | podcast. Accessed February 22, 2026. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ . 2. 2024-2025 Literacy Statistics. National Literacy Institute. Accessed February 22, 2026…

People in this episode

Hosts: Dr. Maya Hunt, Dr. Nicole Santucci, Dr. Bryanna Stukes, Dr. Nanruoyi (Zoe) Zhou

Topics covered

• surgical education
• literacy crisis
• competency-based education
• communication in healthcare
• teaching methods
• student performance

Keywords

• surgical education
• literacy crisis
• competency-based education
• teaching methods
• student performance
• healthcare communication
• education challenges

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Indiana University, Washington University in St. Louis, UT Southwestern, Weill Cornell Medicine, National Literacy Institute

Books & works: Sold a Story, JAMA Surg

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