Medical Education
Mission and Goals
Our mission at Stanford University School of Medicine's medical education program is to educate students to become outstanding clinicians with the passion and skills to improve world health through research, innovation, and leadership.
We envision an alignment of our faculty, student body, and curriculum that ensures every student receiving an MD at Stanford has received superb scientific and clinical training, thereby establishing the Stanford program as the standard for excellence in the contemporary biosciences. We seek to enroll independent-thinking students who are committed to the advancement of biomedicine and the application of their training. Through our curriculum, we plan to create a supportive environment for the development of their professional interests.
We support our mission and the fulfillment of this vision by striving toward the following goals:
- Strengthen efforts to recruit and provide ongoing support to students with diverse backgrounds.
- Foster and facilitate excellence in teaching, advising, and mentoring among our faculty.
- Ensure a rigorous and robust curriculum that promotes outstanding clinical skills and scholarship.
- Provide opportunities for community service and patient advocacy.
- Support students through their transition from medical school to a successful career in academic medicine.
Strategic Assessment
The medical school and its medical education programs are already well positioned for success in many respects. Our curriculum is recognized and valued for the opportunities for individual innovation and the cross-disciplinary experience it affords our students. Our admissions process is highly competitive, and we have a high admissions acceptance rate. Our instructional technology and pedagogical programs are strong and supportive of our faculty's commitment to teaching, and students are granted unusually high access to research laboratories and financial support for the pursuit of their research interests. Upon graduation, our students achieve high pass rates on their boards and receive good reports from their residency programs. And, many of our graduates33 percentelect to pursue careers in academic medicine after their residencies and fellowship training, which is an extraordinary record.
However the nature of scientific exploration continues to evolve as once disparate disciplines begin to merge, making it necessary to adapt the current curriculum and to promote active student involvement and problem-solving skills as opposed to rote learning of facts. Therefore, it is imperative that we re-engineer the curriculum to reflect the new sciences by creating scholarly tracks that require students to major in a particular area of interestan approach to medicine that will be unique to Stanford.
In addition, the current core educational and library facilities at the medical school are more than 40 years old and are out of step with the needs of a contemporary medical and biosciences curriculum. As it is becoming increasingly uneconomical to adapt current facilities to meet research needs, we are compelled to pursue the development of a new center for information and learning at the medical school.
Service to the community has always been a core value of the Medical School, and Stanford has a long history of community outreach and service. Our local, regional, national, and international communities have needs for education, personal and public health, and other resources that our students are uniquely positioned to contribute. As a provider of health care and education worldwide, and as a premier member of the world's scientific community, Stanford is well positioned to serve the larger communities through our students.
The further establishment of vital medical student roles within medical school community service programs will significantly advance the quality and diversity of the medical education experience at Stanford and reinforce the charge to serve among our graduates.
Strategic Initiatives
We will pursue our medical education mission and vision through development in the areas of curriculum reform, support for teaching and community service.
To achieve our goal of a rigorous curriculum promoting both clinical skills and scholarship, we will address the following initiatives:
- Revise the current linear structure of the medical curriculum through systematic review and reformation such that:
- Students have exposure to clinical practice and receive training in clinical decision-making early in the curriculum.
- Students continue to explore basic biomedical science throughout their medical training.
- Students have experience with the translation of basic science into its clinical application throughout the duration of training.
- Students identify and pursue a specialized scholarly track as a core element of their training.
The envisioned curriculum will have as its foundation clearly defined components of core knowledge and clinical experience, as well as student performance standards required for an MD at Stanford.
Sample Scholarly Tracks: Clinical Research, Community Service,
Molecular Medicine, BioTechnology, Health Economics
Fig.1 The proposed curriculum will support the core mission of the medical school and will serve to ensure that Stanford University School of Medicine graduates are trained to go on to careers of excellence, distinction, and service in academia, patient care, or research.
Create opportunities for student-elected studies in the form of scholarly tracks based on interdisciplinary programs and key areas of strength at Stanford.
These scholarly tracks will continue throughout the duration of training and, for most students, will include prescribed coursework and directed research. For a smaller number of students, honors research programs within each track will support additional scholarship and, possibly, additional degrees (Fig. 2).
Future Student Body
Fig. 2 Through revisions to the medical curriculum, we envision the transition of our student body from one in which approximately 25 percent pursue honors-level research or Ph.D. programs to one in which 75 percent of our students are so engaged.
To achieve our goal of excellence in teaching, advising, and mentoring, we will address the following initiatives:
- Recognize and support the faculty's roles as educators based on:
- Faculty teaching obligations: A certain level of teaching, advising, and mentorship is integral to and a requirement of a faculty appointment at the School of Medicine.
- The value of teaching: Faculty teaching, as a core mission activity, should be appropriately recognized, honored, and facilitated by the School.
- True costs of teaching: Teaching costs should be accurately established and accounted for, and incorporated into the medical school's resource management strategies.
- Departmental teaching recognition: Departments should recognize courses as essential to the fulfillment of their missions.
- Develop teaching incentives through recognition of faculty excellence
in the following key areas:
- Course quality.
- Course performance.
- Course content.
- Innovative teaching methods.
- Advising and mentorship.
- Develop pedagogical programs to ensure a level of excellence appropriate
to our mission through institutional support for the following areas:
- Development of course content.
- Professional development for teaching and mentorship.
- Development of new teaching technologies.
- Development of course evaluation methods.
- Develop a program for undergraduate education in bioengineering in conjunction with the School of Engineering, under the auspices of the newly formed Joint Department of Bioengineering that was approved by the Board of Trustees in June 2002.
To meet the needs of our educational missions, we will address the following initiatives:
- Develop the following facilities:
- Medical education space to support the new curriculum as well as our students' learning.
- A more functional space for the Office of Student Affairs.
- Space for student life activities.
To achieve our goal of community service, we will address the following initiatives:
- Promote active involvement and leadership of medical students in the medical school's community service programs to achieve the following:
- A curriculum of service for medical and graduate students.
- A lifelong commitment to service in their communities.
- A clearinghouse for service opportunities in international and local health programs; community-based clinics; K-12 education.
- A constructive and progressive forum for community interaction.
- Close coordination with other community service programs across the campus, such as the Haas Center.
Prioritization and Implementation
The further development and implementation of these initiatives are among the highest priorities of the Medical School. Under the direction of the Dean, the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education, and the Medical School Faculty Senate, 8 of the 10 proposed medical education initiatives will begin development in FY2001Ï2002 and FY2002Ï2003.
Curriculum Reform Projects- Revise the curriculum to:
- Identify the core knowledge and skills required for all students.
- Expand the clinical curriculum, particularly in the first years of medical school, to enhance pattern recognition.
- Develop required majors (scholarly tracks) for all students to enhance independent research capabilities.
- Within scholarly tracks, develop a research honors program for a subset of students.
- Develop a system of incentives to promote curricular change.
- Establish the Stanford MD degree as the national standard for excellence in clinical medicine.
- Develop a "pre-differentiation" camp for the early orientation of new students to the opportunities of the reformed curriculum and coordinated graduate biosciences programs.
A reformed medical education curriculum will establish the foundation upon which many other medical education and Medical School initiatives are based. Consequently, the implementation of the curriculum reform initiative is a high priority. This initiative will be pursued through four coordinated projects.
1. Revise the linear curriculum to reflect the new sciences.
A core curriculum committee will define the content of a reformed medical curriculum, including a prioritization of content, recommendations for curriculum sequencing, and recommendations for teaching modalities and teachers.
2. Revise the linear curriculum. (Future, Phase 2)
The core curriculum committee will also develop and implement specific clinical curriculum course offerings based on approved core curriculum committee recommendations.
3. Create scholarly tracks based on interdisciplinary programs and key areas of strength at Stanford.
A scholarly tracks committee will develop recommendations for specific scholarly tracks through a process that defines the elements of a scholarly tracks request for proposals (RFP), distributes the RFP to faculty, receives and reviews proposals, evaluates and recommends proposals for further development and implementation.
4. Create scholarly tracks based on interdisciplinary programs and key areas of strength at Stanford. (Future, Phase 2)
A scholarly tracks review committee will establish methods and conduct periodic reviews of active scholarly tracks. The committee will solicit additional scholarly tracks proposals and develop recommendations for changes.
The first year of the new curriculum will be initiated in the fall of 2003.
The first medical student "pre-differentiation" camp will be initiated in the fall of 2003.
The association of the excellence with the Stanford MD degree will be integral to the definition and successful implementation of the reformed curriculum.
Medical Education Facilities Programming ProjectsUndertake facilities improvements to provide:
- Small group learning spaces.
- Technology-enabled and virtual classrooms.
- Modern library space.
The programming, design and construction of new educational facilities are critical to the successful implementation of a new medical education curriculum as well as planned initiatives in graduate education, postdoctoral training and information resources and technology. As envisioned, the Stanford Medicine Information and Learning Environment (SMILE) will break new ground in the delivery of medical and graduate education and information resources, reflecting the new model of biomedical sciences and emerging new relationships between information and its users.
The SMILE project will be pursued as a joint initiative under the direction of the Dean through a project executive committee consisting of the Senior Associate Deans for Medical Education, Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Training, Information Resources and Technology, and Finance and Administration and including the Chair of the Medical School Faculty Senate.
Preliminary SMILE program recommendations will be ready for Medical School and University leadership review by summer 2003. The project is targeted for completion in time for the 2007-2008 academic year.
Support For Teaching ProjectsDevelop mechanisms to honor, promote and facilitate teaching and create programs for recognition of:
- Improvement in course evaluations.
- Consistently high levels of course evaluations.
- Revising course content to ensure essential material.
- Developing teaching innovations, small group learning opportunities, and bridges between clinical and basic science domains.
Create mechanisms of support for pedagogy in areas of:
- Course content.
- The practice of teaching.
- Innovative teaching technologies.
- Course evaluation processes.
Enhanced student advising and mentoring programs
Concurrent, and in coordination, with the curriculum reform efforts, a teaching support committee under the direction of the Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education will develop and recommend effective and affordable programs of faculty teaching support and recognition. These programs will serve to better align the faculty's teaching activities with the requirements of a reformed curriculum. They will also better align the Medical School's financial and academic incentives with the importance of our education mission.
Initial implementation of these programs will be concurrent with first year of the new curriculum, in the fall of 2003.
Community Service ProjectsDevelop a community service program that includes voluntary and academic elements.
The Medical Schools' community service programs will be developed as a comprehensive initiative under the direction of the Dean and will include the service programs of the medical students.
Academic community service programs may also be developed within a reformed medical education curriculum in coordination with the Medical School service programs.
Community service program recommendations will be ready for discussion by the Medical School leadership at the next annual Strategic Planning Retreat in January 2003.
Projects To-Be ScheduledThe remaining Medical Education strategic initiatives will be pursued, following the activation of the priority initiatives, as resources and opportunities permit. These remaining initiatives include:
Develop mechanisms to measure the "true" teaching costs of a course.
This initiative will be undertaken, as needed, to support the development of teaching incentives programs and other medical school resource allocation projects.
Establish education as an essential element of each department's mission.
This initiative will be undertaken as an element of the proposed departmental-level planning process.