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Med Ed Day Marks Progress of Curriculum Reform

Front Page

Med Ed Day Marks Progress of Curriculum Reform

The third annual Medical Education Day, held Oct. 26 at HMS, showcased educational progress made at the School and outlined work remaining in the Medical Education Reform initiative.

The event, sponsored by the Academy at HMS and the Program in Medical Education, provided a forum for displaying work, for sharing ideas across disciplines, departments, and institutions, and for cataloging the initiatives and innovations that Harvard faculty have been engaged in to improve the quality of educational programs.

The third annual Medical Education Day highlighted the key accomplishments of the Medical Education Reform effort and outlined future directions. As part of the day's events, a student poster session was held in the TMEC atrium. (Photo by Graham Ramsey)

The day featured workshops in medical education on topics such as medical simulation and strategies for assessing students, student poster and technology presentations, a plenary session, and a keynote address on professionalism and medical students by Maxine Papadakis, associate dean for student affairs at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine.

Faculty gave presentations on Web-based teaching, the mentored casebook project, the integrated clerkship, and tutor training. Relating their talks to the current Medical Education Reform, HMS dean Joseph Martin said, "We have put

"It is very important over the next four to six months that we look critically at each of the components of what we are exploring [in Medical Education Reform]."

before the community an initial hypothesis about how we might go forward to examine the feasibility of a different approach. It is very important over the next four to six months that we look critically at each of the components of what we are exploring--the pros and the cons, the difficulties and advantages." He added that he is personally committed, with dean for medical education Malcolm Cox, to make sure that the ideas faculty have about the reform are carefully considered.

In her presentation about the integrated clerkship program at Cambridge Hospital, codirector Barbara Ogur relayed student experiences, which she described as "very moving and exciting." One of the first Medical Education Reform pilot programs, the integrated clerkship has eight students spending their third-year clerkship at a single institution, longitudinally following patients through their treatment.

"Our preliminary impressions from the clerkship are that students' investment in learning is accentuated by this contact with patients starting early in their illness and by their continuing ongoing follow-up," said Ogur, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Cambridge Hospital. David Hirsh, HMS instructor in medicine also at Cambridge Hospital, codirects the program.

Another pilot from the Medical Education Reform initiative, the mentored casebook project involves students researching and writing a book about one patient's entire health care experience. The organizers, Nancy Oriol, Robert Stanton, Daniel Tosteson, and Katharine Treadway, initially sought four students to participate, and almost the entire first-year class came forward. Nearly 300 faculty also volunteered their time as mentors; ultimately, 21 faculty and students were chosen for the first year of the project.

"The goals are to enable students to identify all of the circumstances that influence a patient's health care; see the patient as a whole person and not as a disease, so as to make patient-centered decisions; give students an initial self-directed learning experience so they can learn how to learn throughout their professional lives; align students with mentors; develop self-reflection goals; and encourage students to integrate and organize what they learn through writing," said Stanton, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Joslin Diabetes Center and BID.

Additional pilot programs for Medical Education Reform are in the planning stages.

--Leah Gourley