Great Teacher Award

Fekete, infectious-diseases expert, leads on journey of learning

Fekete

For two decades, Thomas Fekete has brought medicine to life for Temple medical students, residents and fellows in his “one-room schoolhouse,” a euphemism for the patient rooms in the hospital where on daily rounds Fekete engages learners at all levels in the intricacies of science and the importance of humanism in medicine.

It is this unique talent, to enthrall and educate medical students, residents and fellows alike, that has earned him a 2005 Temple University Great Teacher Award, which was recently bestowed at the Faculty Awards Convocation. Fekete is a professor in the department of medicine’s Section of Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine.

While Fekete occasionally lectures in the classroom, 95 percent of his teaching occurs in various settings at the hospital, primarily patient rooms and hospital corridors, but also in the sprawling microbiology laboratory. That’s the location of one of Fekete’s most creative and well-loved teaching tools: microbiology lab rounds.

During microbiology lab rounds, which are held three times a week, medical students, residents and fellows meet with Fekete in the lab and discuss the day’s culture results.

As one student fondly recalls, “We would descend on the lab to peer under microscopes, examine rapidly multiplying cultures and pepper the lab staff with questions. With these illuminating visits came a short lecture on any of an infinite number of topics. The list of microbes we had felt forced to memorize during our preclinical years would grow nuanced and meaningful.”

Fekete came to Temple in 1984 from the University of Chicago, where he completed fellowships in infectious diseases and clinical pharmacology. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Princeton University and his medical degree at Tufts University, and completed his residency training at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.

“Over the years, I found myself gravitating toward teaching,” Fekete said. “When I closed my research lab in 1990, I decided to put a special emphasis on teaching and really started to look at it in a structured way, especially the notion of learning and how people think things through.”

Fekete infuses his teaching with creativity, a quality that attracts so many students that his “Infectious Diseases” elective is often oversubscribed.

“To teach his students to be concise, he restricted the length of our presentations to how long he could hold his breath,” one student recalled. “We wrote haikus. We had candy breaks every Friday afternoon. We had rounds outside.”

And while all university professors are smart, Fekete is considered exceptional, and not just in his area of expertise.

“His breadth of medical and scientific knowledge was equaled by his grasp of current events, world history, music, language, philosophy and almost anything else,” a former student said.

“I always knew I would come away from an interaction with Dr. Fekete full of new facts and those ‘ah-ha’ moments,” another said.

Fekete sees teaching as taking students on a journey.

“It’s fine to learn a fact, but if they can’t get beyond that, all they have is a morass of unrelated details. I have to help them turn a welter of unconnected facts into a beautiful picture,” he said. “Sometimes it happens early on, sometimes it takes a little longer, but you can see when the light goes on for students. It’s one of the greatest rewards. And it is especially thrilling to watch the process occur over and over as a student passes from medical student to resident to faculty member.”

A particularly valuable lesson Fekete imparts to his students is the importance of compassion and respect for patients.

“He conducted rounds at the bedside and taught the art of physical diagnosis. Those who watched his interactions with patients could also learn a great deal about humanism, compassion and other important qualities that cannot be learned in the classroom,” one student said.

“I admired his interactions with patients and their families where he would explain the most complicated case in a clear manner and then answer all of their questions,” another said. “When he would examine an intubated patient, who was often unresponsive, he would approach the bedside, lean over and quietly tell them that he knew they couldn’t speak and would go on to explain what he was doing.”

One couldn’t be such a devoted teacher without having a deep love for the profession.

“Fortunately, for countless young, naïve medical students, Dr. Fekete is eager and willing to help them find their direction in their careers. From writing dean’s letters [a summation of one’s career as a medical student] to meeting with fourth year medical students in his free moments, his entire day revolves around medical education,” a student said.

Fekete’s love of teaching is really a love of teaching at Temple.

“Temple is such a great place to be. If you can survive here, you’re made of tough stuff,” he said. “It’s a down-in-the-trenches kind of place, where you’re expected to play even when hurt. As a result, you learn to deal with discomfort and daily challenges. It’s about being in the moment, being part of a complex, confusing life.”

Fekete has been honored for his teaching numerous times, winning the Lindback Award in 1999 and the American Medical Student Association’s Golden Apple Award twice. In addition to his teaching duties, he serves as a reviewer for several scientific journals, including the Annals of Internal Medicine, and is an associate editor of MKSAP (the Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program), which most internal medicine residents and many attending physicians across the United States use as their guide for the American Board of Internal Medicine accreditation.

- By Eryn Jelesiewicz