The Future Catches Up: A Medical School Curriculum in Health Economics

Abstract Recently, a downward trend is seen in undergraduates wishing to pursue a career in cardiothoracic surgery(CTS). This is partly due to lack of clinical exposure and limited teaching during the undergraduate years; the focus being on cardiac ad vascular pathology. Aim Assess if WETLAB workshop encourages the engagement of medical students in CTS surgery Method We hosted a cardiac WETLAB workshop, led by a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon. Attendees were taught how to carry out an end-to-side anastomosis on animal tissue. We used pre-and -post exposure questionnaires composed of 10 items to assess the ability of the workshop to improve undergraduate interest in cardiothoracic surgery. The questionnaire included questions around students’ interest in the speciality, previous exposure to the speciality and whether students want to pursue a career in the speciality. Results Out of the 12 attendees, 10 completed both questionnaires. The workshop was well received with the overall satisfaction of 9.64 out of 10. It significantly increased respondents’ interest in CTS(z=-0.06, p = 0.01) but did not show any significant difference in encouraging them to pursue surgery. 100% of respondents agreed that specialised practical workshops should be incorporated within the medical school curriculum and that if the opportunity arises, they will attend another in the future. Conclusions Specialised practical workshops have the potential to play a significant role in the medical school curriculum in order to enhance exposure to the field of cardiothoracic surgery. This may lead to a positive impact on the number of doctors wishing to pursue this speciality in the future.

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A developing medical school curriculum by the Learning Outcomes Framework

Korean Association For Learner-Centered Curriculum And Instruction ◽

10.22251/jlcci.2019.19.8.725 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (8) ◽

pp. 725-748

Author(s):

Janghee Park

Keyword(s):

Medical School ◽

Learning Outcomes ◽

School Curriculum ◽

Medical School Curriculum

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Building on Past Experience

10.1093/oso/9780199370818.003.0012 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

J. Donald Boudreau ◽

Eric J. Cassell ◽

Abraham Fuks

Keyword(s):

Medical School ◽

School Curriculum ◽

Past Experience ◽

Medical School Curriculum ◽

Learning Activities ◽

Dual Roles ◽

Medical Program ◽

Mcgill University ◽

Ongoing Development ◽

Renewal Project

This chapter serves to explain the link between a curricular renewal project that has already been completed and one that is envisaged as an aspirational goal and serves as the focus of the book. The Physicianship Curriculum has its origins in courses introduced in 1998 and that evolved over two decades in the undergraduate medical program at McGill University. The innovative modules and learning activities were initially rolled out under the ambit of two distinct conceptual streams: professionalism and healing in medicine. Ongoing development continued using “physicianship” as a new descriptive label. Physicianship refers to the dual roles of the physician: the physician as professional and as healer. The flagship course of the physicianship component of McGill’s medical school curriculum has been a 4-year longitudinal apprenticeship; it is described in detail.

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Culinary Medicine Training in Core Medical School Curriculum Improved Medical Student Nutrition Knowledge and Confidence in Providing Nutrition Counseling

American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine ◽

10.1177/15598276211021749 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 155982762110217

Author(s):

Christopher R. D’Adamo ◽

Kayli Workman ◽

Christine Barnabic ◽

Norman Retener ◽

Bernadette Siaton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Medical Student ◽

Medical Students ◽

Medical School ◽

Patient Care ◽

School Curriculum ◽

Nutrition Knowledge ◽

Medical School Curriculum ◽

Nutrition Counseling ◽

Patient Counseling ◽

Culinary Medicine

Background: Elective culinary medicine education has become popular to help fill important gaps in physician nutrition training. The implementation and outcomes among the inaugural cohort of medical students who received culinary medicine training as a required component of medical school curriculum at the University of Maryland School of Medicine are described. Methods: Following a series of elective pilot sessions, culinary medicine training was provided to all first-year medical students in the 2019-2020 academic year. The 3-hour training included evidence-based nutrition lecture, cooking simple recipes, and group discussion of the application to personal and patient care. Pre-/postsession questionnaires assessed nutrition knowledge, skills, and attitudes as well as nutritional counseling confidence. Paired t-tests estimated mean differences in outcomes pre- and posttraining. Qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis. Results: Overall, 119 of 125 (95.2%) students provided pre- and posttraining outcomes data. All nutritional and patient counseling outcomes improved ( P < .05). Themes of being better prepared to address healthy eating barriers in patient care and personal ability to make healthy dietary changes were noted in qualitative analysis. Conclusion: One session of culinary medicine training in core medical student curriculum was feasible and improved medical student nutrition knowledge, skills, and attitudes and confidence in patient nutrition counseling.

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Teaching Pathology in an Integrated Preclinical Medical School Curriculum and Adaptations to COVID-19 Restrictions

Academic Pathology ◽

10.1177/23742895211015337 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 237428952110153

Author(s):

Matthew D. Krasowski ◽

John L. Blau ◽

Stephanie J. Chen ◽

Karra A. Jones ◽

Thomas J. Schmidt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Medical School ◽

Small Groups ◽

Integrated Curriculum ◽

Sudden Change ◽

Health Professions ◽

School Curriculum ◽

Medical School Curriculum ◽

Professional Schools ◽

Large Group ◽

Virtual Instruction

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a major impact on education at all age levels, including professional schools and health professions programs. We describe the experience of adapting preclinical medical school courses within an integrated curriculum to virtual instruction. A major feature of two of the courses were pathology small groups adapted from pathology courses in the previous medical school curriculum. These small groups were designed to use facilitated groups of 8 to 10 students. With a sudden change to virtual learning, these small groups were shifted to large group virtual sessions. In general, the conversion went well, with ongoing optimization of the format of the large group sessions mainly occurring over the first several sessions. End-of-course student evaluations were generally positive, but with a preference toward returning to live sessions in the future. Scores on 5 multiple choice examinations in the spring 2020 course were essentially identical in mean, standard deviation, and distribution to examinations in the previous 2 years of the course that had similar layout and topic organization. We discuss the challenges and successes of the switch to virtual instruction and of teaching pathology content within an integrated medical school curriculum.

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