Decision makers from almost a fifth of all U.S. medical schools met in Hershey, Pennsylvania last week to work on the next phase in a collaborate effort to redesign how the physicians of tomorrow will be trained.
The first phase took place last fall when the American Medical Association (AMA) expanded its Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium. This year, the AMA, Penn State College of Medicine and the 32 medical schools that are part of the Consortium will work on the next step.
In August 2014, Penn State launched its Systems Navigation Curriculum with the help of a $1 million grant from the AMA. A few other medical schools including Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Sophie Davis Biomedical Education/CUNY have plans to implement similar curricula.
Those two schools are among the 21 schools that were recently chosen by the AMA to receive funding and join the expanding Consortium. They were selected based of their proposed projects that will add to Penn State's curriculum.
The AMA's goal is to create the "medical school of the future", which will include the latest technologies, health care reforms, and scientific discoveries that change what physicians have to know to work in the new health care environment.
Along with the other 32 medical schools, Penn State is looking to create a new curriculum that has first-year medical students working as patient navigators in clinical sites throughout central Pennsylvania.
That's a whole new way of approaching training. Most medical students receive their training in hospital settings, even though the majority of patients have chronic conditions and are being treated in outpatient settings.
“The work we’re doing together with these 32 medical schools will directly impact the way that health care will soon be delivered to patients nationwide,” Dr. Susan E. Skochelak, AMA Group Vice President for Medical Education, said in a statement.
AMA will continue to collaborate with even more medical schools, medical education innovators and students to make sure that future physicians are prepared to quickly adapt to the changes, she added.
