Enduring values
- The common understanding among patients and teachers that patient welfare comes first, including before students’ own educational needs
- The School of Medicine’s commitment to a learner-centered educational environment that respects students, acts in students’ best interests, protects students from harm and negative experiences, and provides them with meaningful and positive learning experiences
Curriculum Review Committee Report
Using data available from meetings with constituents, interviews across the region, internal data and existing national data sources, the curriculum review committee identified the following curricular strengths and weaknesses of the overall four year curriculum.
Areas of strength identified from existing data include:
- Diversity of clinical offerings
- Quality of clinical instruction
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine course/the Colleges program
- Mentoring/role modeling
Areas of weakness identified from existing data include:
- Poor integration of basic science and clinical medicine in the preclinical curriculum
- Declines in student performance on USMLE scores for Step 1
- Insufficient opportunities and preparation for independent learning
- Inattention to skills for evaluating and thinking critically about medical information in its contemporary forms
- Inadequate standardization of offerings across the WWAMI region in terms of objectives, quality of teaching, and course/elective offerings
- Limited alternatives to large-group lectures as the primary preclinical curriculum approach
Next steps
- Begin a continuous curriculum improvement process including benchmarks and timelines that allow for ongoing quality improvement in the curriculum
- Change the governance structure, with a first step of convening an ongoing “vision” committee that will have the responsibility for oversight of curricular outcomes and the authority to direct the activities of other governance committees
- Develop and define overarching curricular goals, objectives and outcomes
- Adjust and redesign the curriculum to meet these goals, objectives and outcomes
- Focus on a continuum of undergraduate to graduate medical education to lifelong learning, with meaningful transitions, early clinical exposure and incorporation of evidence-based medicine
- Maintain focus on contextual learning opportunities and needs, including the contemporary clinical context, the scientific, interpersonal, cultural and social contexts, and social responsibility
- Incorporate new training foci and modalities into the curriculum, including simulation through ISIS, interprofessional education and information management approaches and systems
- Support faculty through faculty development, funding, sufficient time for teaching and other resources
- Appropriately acknowledge the value of teaching, including in the promotion process