The REVOLUTIONS Framework: A Blueprint for Socially Accountable Medical Education

By: William Ventres, MD, MA, research professor, Institute for Studies in History, Anthropology, and Archeology, University of El Salvador, and Shafik Dharamsi, PhD, professor and associate dean, School of Osteopathic Medicine, University of the Incarnate Word Several new medical schools are underway in the United States, with more on the horizon. Many more are sprouting up around the world, especially in areas of extreme need, such as Africa. Commonly, the founding deans and administrators of these new institutions indicate that they are starting their medical schools to help address local disparities in health outcomes. Yet, most of these new schools continue to overemphasize the same basic biomedically-focused model that has dominated undergraduate medical education for over 100 years. For all our understanding of how social determinants of health (like poverty, racism, and the lack of universal access to health care) contribute to illness, few medical schools have stepped up to adequately address these issues through significant curricular reform. Nothing changes in the quest to prepare future generations of physicians to be socially responsive. We wrote our AM Last Page, “Socially Accountable Medical Education: The REVOLUTIONS Framework,” to provide medical educators in emerging medical schools with a curricular blueprint to help them realize their vision of creating socially accountable institutions. Social accountability means attending to the priority health need...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Featured Guest Perspective AM Last Page health disparities health outcomes new medical schools socially accountable medical education Source Type: blogs