Becoming a master in med school takes on new meaning

Tackling a master’s degree during medical school—usually in public health or business—has become increasingly popular among students as they prepare for the rigors of the profession. Many schools now are focused on developing a mastery of learning that is essential for physicians’ entire careers—but it doesn’t involve an additional degree. The AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium—working to modernize and reshape the way physicians are trained—brings schools together to share ideas and experiences with new programs designed to improve competency, leadership and patient care through innovations that prepare students to thrive in an evolving care delivery system. A priority area for many of the schools is training students to become lifelong learners, also known as “master adaptive learners.” Pathways at Harvard Harvard Medical School, which joined the consortium this year, created the Pathways Curriculum and implemented it in August 2015. The program aims to create master adaptive leaners who are self-directed, reflective, curious, cognitively flexible, and capable of embracing uncertainty and dealing with complexity. To foster that, the school has moved to a 14-month pre-clerkship curriculum and then returns students to integrated classroom/clinical experiences after their core clerkships. Among other changes, three Professional Development Weeks provide students with feedback about their evolving skills, and students meet reg...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news