Dr. Drusin said:
January 16, 2007
I want to bring you up to date on the project to review the P&S curriculum and to plan a new and innovative curriculum that will enhance the learning and teaching environment for P&S students and faculty for the future.
Although the curriculum has changed significantly each academic year based on new information, innovative teaching techniques and feedback from students, the structure of the curriculum has not changed since the early 1990s. First and second years function independently and are not well integrated. The third year clerkship schedule is dense and fully scheduled. At present there is no flexibility before the fourth year for students to explore aspects of medicine in depth that interest them before making a career decision.
In 2005, Dean Fischbach asked the faculty to begin a review of the four-year curriculum and to recommend changes that would take advantage of new teaching and learning technologies to improve the education programs at Columbia for students and faculty. He asked that we look at changes in our peer schools and to develop a new curriculum that preserved our strengths but would be flexible enough to allow students to explore aspects of medicine that excited them. The charge is to develop a creative, innovative learning environment that would keep P&S among the very best of American medical schools, leading the way for other schools. In the review process we shall identify our strengths and preserve them in the new design, building on these strengths to create a better teaching and learning environment for the future.
The process began during the fall of 2005 but slowed during the transition to new leadership under Dean Goldman, who has endorsed the plan for review and change, bringing with him experience as Chair of Medicine and Associate Dean at UCSF. The ideas he has brought are very much in concert with the thinking of the faculty and students who have participated in the Task Force on Education. The planning process has now accelerated with his support and participation.
We are hoping to have a plan completed for the new curriculum by the end of summer, to allow the faculty to spend next year preparing the teaching materials. Thus the first class that will experience these changes will enter in the fall of 2008. In recruiting students to this class we must be able to show them the detailed outline of their education programs over four years. The changes will not affect currently enrolled students or students entering in the fall of 2007. Thus, the class entering in 2008 will be the first class affected by change. The curriculum will be phased in with each successive class.
The faculty committees are beginning to work on the plan. Dr. Garrett, Dr. Barasch and Dr. Spitalnik have agreed to lead the planning on preclinical science education. Dr. Nickerson will chair the working group on clinical education. Members of these working groups will be drawn from the teaching faculty who understand and value our teaching programs and from you the students who know the strengths and weaknesses of our curriculum compared to other schools.
One principle in the change will be to ask each student to do a focused academic project while an undergraduate medical student. Students will select a project and mentor in areas of medicine such as basic research, clinical research, population research, community service, global health, medical ethics, medical education, etc. I am forming faculty groups who will help to define the expectations for these projects and to craft opportunities to acquire skills and knowledge that will help a student with his/her project. I can report that the faculty members who I have approached to serve on these committees have agreed with great enthusiasm for the concept and the opportunity to mentor students. The faculty for these committees is drawn from all schools at CUMC.
We shall preserve the summer off between first and second year. It may be possible to begin work on the required academic project during that summer, or not.
In conjunction with the planning for a new curriculum, we shall have new, modern classrooms in the lower levels of the library, equipped to bring technology into the classroom which will allow the faculty to use more images in our small group teaching and to do more problem solving exercises in class. These classrooms will replace the classrooms on PH17, which are to become research labs. They will provide students with first-rate learning and studying facilities in Hammer, lacking the transit time to the 17th floor of Presbyterian Hospital after a lecture. I have asked for students who are interested to volunteer to work with the architects designing the facilities to ensure that the new classrooms meet student needs.
I want to assure all of you that the goals of the curriculum review and changes are to improve the learning and teaching environment and to keep P&S at the very top of U.S. medical schools so that in the future outstanding students like you will continue to select P&S as their first choice for undergraduate medical education.
Ronald E. Drusin, MD
Interim Senior Associate Dean for Education
