ChangeMedEd Initiative

Universal Outcomes

3 MIN READ

The handbook was developed to offer best practices and recommendations for medical and health professions faculty who provide training for physicians-in-training and other clinicians. 

Read a commentary that makes the case for medical schools to be circumspect as they redesign the curricula for undergraduate medical education—at least as first steps and perhaps as ultimate solutions.

While the authors focus primarily on the changes made at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University (AMS), they believe that the insights gained are generalizable to other medical schools attempting other innovations.

The authors describe the implementation of the Primary Care – Population Medicine track at AMS as an example of circumscribed rather than global change. They discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this approach to curriculum transformation.

Read a paper providing the perspectives of 8 MD-granting medical schools that have moved Step 1 after the core clerkships, describing their rationale, logistics of the change, outcomes and lessons learned.

The primary reasons these institutions cite for moving Step 1 after clerkships are to foster more enduring and integrated basic science learning connected to clinical care and to better prepare students for the increasingly clinical focus of Step 1.

Each school provides key features of the preclerkship and clinical curricula and details concerning taking Steps 1 and 2, to allow other schools contemplating change to understand the landscape. Most schools report an increase in aggregate Step 1 scores after the change.

Despite early positive outcomes, there may be unintended consequences to later scheduling of Step 1, including relatively late student reevaluations of their career choice if Step 1 scores are not competitive in the specialty area of their choice.

Although the optimal timing of Step 1 has yet to be determined, this article summarizes the perspectives of 8 schools that changed Step 1 timing, filling a gap in the literature on this important topic.

Access project abstracts (PDF) of students who were asked to turn med ed on its head by envisioning new solutions to education challenges.

Access video submissions of students who were asked to think big, think broad and think beyond the status quo. Innovation challenge winners received cash awards and had the opportunity to present their vision for the medical school of the future to medical education leaders.

Considerations for Medical Students and Advisors After an Unsuccessful Match

An article from Academic Medicine

SXSW 2016 Panel: Revolutionizing Med Education to Transform Health

A video from SXSW 2016

Transforming Medical Education is the Key to Meeting North Carolina's Physician Workforce Needs

An article from North Carolina Medical Journal

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