Medical Schools

Med schools focus on team-based care, stewardship

Now more than ever, medical educators need to consider the changing landscape of health care and adjust medical education to reflect real-world practice. Two recent trends garnering significant attention are education in team-based care models along with stewardship of limited resources and better awareness of the costs of health care.

Interprofessional training is offered (or in development) at several medical schools nationwide, with medical students joining students in other disciplines, including nursing, pharmacy and health administration, reports American Medical News. In addition, six national associations of health professionals—representing allopathic and osteopathic medicine, nursing, public health, pharmacy and dentistry—have formed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative.

Meanwhile, as "bending the cost curve" continues to be a major focus in health care, medical educators have made their own interprofessional linkages with health care economists. The Teaching Value Project, for example, which was featured in the New York Times, offers a series of videos and educational materials "to help medical students and doctors-in-training learn to make clinical decisions that optimize both quality of care and cost." One video offers a humorous take on the question, "What if your hotel bill was like your hospital bill?"

AMA policy "recognizes that interprofessional education and partnerships are a priority of the American medical education system." In addition, policy supports education in socioeconomic factors and "cost effective use of diagnostic and treatment services" as a way to help physicians "fulfill . . . their professional obligation to patients and society in an efficient, ethical, and cost-effective manner."

Finally, the author of an interesting viewpoint in the Harvard Business Review considers what the U.S. could learn from other (poorer) countries about innovation in health care, and notes, "[Cost] constraints need not be limiting, they can actually be liberating."

What do you think? Discuss this article now via the AMA's New Horizons in Medical Education online community.

Register for AMA Section on Medical Schools meeting

Register today to attend the AMA Section on Medical Schools (SMS) meeting, June 15–17 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. You can register online and view more details about the meeting.

The meeting will feature two education programs. The panel presentation will focus on understanding the culture and learning environment in academic health centers from the perspective of medical students, residents and practicing physicians. Participants will examine ways to ensure that the "hidden curriculum" does not subvert the formal curriculum and the medical school's mission and values, and lead to a decline in medical student professionalism, empathy and ethics. In addition, data will be presented from the AMA-convened Innovative Strategies for Transforming the Education of Physicians (ISTEP) research collaborative.

In the second education session, we will examine emerging issues and challenges facing medical schools and discuss innovative changes, such as model programs to monitor the learning environment to ensure that standards of professional behavior are always maintained.

If you have questions about the meeting, contact Jackie Drake of the AMA via email or at (312) 464-4389.

News and notes

• AMA: Increase in medical school, graduate medical education slots needed to meet country's medical needs (Wall Street Journal).
• Enrollment in MD/PhD, MD/JD and MD/MBA joint programs up more than one third since 2002; health system changes seen as key driver of this trend (American Medical News).
• Post-baccalaureate pre-med programs on the rise—particularly among older medical school applicants (New York Times).
• New report on the future of the academic medical center cites "multiple challenges" to AMCs (Health Research Institute of PwC).