September 21, 2009:

 

September 16, 2009:

Check out our new Health Care Reform section.  We will regularly update this page with links to local articles as well as videos and pictures from the Forums.

 

August 19, 2009:

It is my pleasure to invite you to the School of Medicine’s 2009 Richard H. Whitehead Lecture on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 12:00 P.M. in 2204 Medical Biomolecular Research Building. This year’s lecturer will be Dr. Arrel D. Toews, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

The title of his lecture will be, "To Make the Best Better-Farm Stories, Deep Thinkers, Good Doctors." Awards to faculty and students will be presented following the lecture and a reception will follow the awards.

I hope you can make a special effort to attend this year’s Whitehead Lecture, awards ceremony, and reception. I look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,

Georgette A. Dent, M.D.

Associate Dean for Student Affairs
 

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August 11, 2009

The Whitehead Medical Society has been invited to speak during orientation.  This will happen on Wednesday, August 11, 2009 from 12 – 1 PM and lunch will be provided. 

PPT of the talk

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Town Hall Meeting Summary
April 24, 2009

1. Study Space for Step 1

·         Dr. Newton has acquired permission for the medical students to have access to Bondurant after-hours, hopefully permanently (not just for this summer).  Details are still being worked out.

·         FYI, there are showers in the basement of Bondurant for those who were interested. 

·         The 4th and 5th floors of Berryhill will be renovated in time for boards studying.

2. Match Outcomes

·         This year, there were 5 seniors that did not match (all were able to scramble).  This puts UNCSOM in the top 25% of medical schools in terms of success in the match.

·         Factors in non-matching:

o    step 1/step 2 failure

o    mismatched expectations

o    geographic restrictions

·         It is our hope that with better advising, these pitfalls can be avoided in the future.  This is of special concern because the match will only get more competitive, with the number of US medical and DO grads increasing faster than the number of residency spots.

3. Berryhill

·         The 4th and 5th floors will be completed fairly soon.

·         The first floor will be addressed in 2 phases:

·         Current lounge will become a "quiet lounge."

·         Osler will be significantly redesigned and should be completed by the end of December, with a kitchen, TV's, a social area, and a wellness center.

4. Lecture Capture

·         This has been a huge success this year.  Through surveys, it seems that most students using the lecture capture use it for individualized targeted review. 

·         We are now looking at technical improvements, and some ideas that have been brought up include Podcasts, downloadable format, transcription of lectures, faster speeds, improved synching, and concerns about length of access. 

·         We would also like to expand the use of lecture capture to the clinical curriculum, especially for consistency among AHEC sites.

5. Asheville Pilot

·         The idea of the Asheville pilot is to emphasize a continuity experience vs a rotational experience, with each student following a set of patients throughout the year.  This approach has been experimented with at Cambridge and has been quite successful there.

·         Four incoming third years have been selected to pilot this program in the coming year.  The program will exist on a year-to-year basis, depending on whether funding is available (~ $50,000/student/year).

  6. AHEC Housing

·         There has been concern that there will be a daily fee for AHEC housing in the coming year.  This will NOT be the case THIS YEAR. 

·         After this coming year, there will be a consistent fee charged to each student (i.e. not daily per use, but one flat fee charged to everyone).  This fee will be covered by financial aid.

Dr. Dent has issued new guidelines for PDA recommendations.

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January 18th, 2008

Student Position Statement Regarding the Clinical Curriculum Proposal

Town Hall Meeting Presentation of Clinical Curriculum Proposal

1. Questionable motivation behind the need for change

• In our opinion there were inadequate data (n = one class) to support changing the curriculum. The decision was based primarily on expert opinions of Clerkship Directors and department chairs. Preliminary data of current curriculum suggests at least equal and possible upward trend on USMLE Step 2CK. There may have been a slight decrease in individual shelf scores, but, again, this was based on data from only one class. Courses which were restructured in previous clinical curriculum redesign failed to adequately adapt to their new format; teaching and exposure to patient care did not change with shortening of clerkships from 6 to 4 weeks. Student feedback revealed that students felt OB/Gyn did need more time to relay their stated course objectives, but Family Medicine and Psychiatry did not.

 

2. If implemented adequately, this proposal likely will be neutral for students.

• What we mean by “neutral is that all students would receive a solid foundation of medical education in this curriculum not significantly better or worse that what students are currently experiencing.

• Our rationale: this proposal allows for 1) an experience in core fields equivalent to what exists currently, 2) exposure to any medical specialty through electives and selective opportunities, 3) adequate unscheduled/flexible time to study for and take board exams, go on away rotations, receive letters of recommendations, life events, and interview for residencies, and 4) no advisor or faculty member we have talked with believe that it will truly hurt students beyond the increased anxiety the change will cause.

 

3. Phase 1 versus Phase 2

• In order to produce a proposal in time for it to be implemented in the 2008/09 academic year, the Clinical Curriculum Committee (CC ¾), the group that created the proposal, chose to split the process of curriculum redesign into two phases: Phase 1 (this current proposal) would be focused on the number of weeks assigned each clerkship. Phase 2 would be focused on key content changes.
• Daniel and I along with your other student representatives have been outspoken that weeks DO NOT equal educational value. Therefore any process centered on weeks (i.e. Phase 1) WILL NOT lead to true curricular improvement. It was the students’ desire from the beginning to focus more heavily on the content-driven Phase 2, but do to time constraints and political realities, committee members produced this proposal and gave a verbal commitment to work on Phase 2 in the future.

 

4. Room for improvement

• As stated above, only by focusing on content can the curriculum be truly improved. Fundamental areas in need of improvement are not addressed by this proposal Daniel and I believe work in these following three categories would lead to the greatest improvement of student learning:
  • Integration of content across curriculum will lead to more efficient use of time and deeper learning experience.
  • Longitudinal experience to both patients and clinical mentors is absent from UNC’s curriculum. A commitment to the introduction of a longitudinal experience would directly address a large curricular gap.
  • Increased medical student responsibility: The medical student is no longer a helpful part of the treatment team. This lack of responsibility is apparent in three key arenas:

• Medical students’ H&P’s and Progress Notes do not “count”. Notes usually go unread by attending physicians and residents, and students rarely receive constructive feedback on performance.
• Medical students cannot write meaningful orders. The CPOE, medical student version which residents can cosign is sloppy and does not represent the full range of order sets which residents frequently use.
• Medical students are not given ample opportunities to perform procedures. IV’s, line placements, ABG’s, etc. are rarely, if ever, performed by 3rd year clerks.

• In summary, the medical student’s responsibility on the treatment team has slowly eroded, weakening the educational experience once gained by taking ownership of a patient’s care. Improvement is possible: institutions, like Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, offer systems that allow and encourage medical students participation in patients’ care. So far UNC has failed to institute the necessary elements to reverse this trend of decreasing student responsibility. This needs to change.

• Aside from the above goals, students have offered many valuable comments and recommendations for improving this proposal and the clinical curriculum in general. A few of the more pertinent and insightful ones follow:

• The items listed by the CC3/4 in their proposal as “essential” currently do not exist and need to be developed. These include advising, two week electives, better communication across courses, and an electronic scheduling system. Currently, there is no advising system in place, 2 week career exploration elective opportunities courses do not exist, minimal cross-clerkship or cross-departmental communication has occurred to reduce unneeded redundancy, and an electronic scheduling system may not be ready for scheduling this year. Without these structural support components in place, successful rollout of the consensus plan by July 2008 appears challenging.
• The proposal does not meet the stated goals of Dr. Pisano’s charge to “fill curricular gaps and reduce unneeded redundancy”.
• Expansion from 4 to 6 weeks of Family Medicine, OB/GYN, and Psychiatry has led to concurrent reduction in possible elective opportunities.
  • As adult learners, students feel their ability to talor their curriculum to their individual needs is being reduced.
  • To minimize the effects of reduced elective time, selective prerequisites must stay to a minimum and the spectrum of specialties in which a student may do a selective must be much broader then currently available.

• In response to many faculties’ opinion that the MS4 year is “soft”, students have responded that increasing the robustness of the MS4 curriculum is not solely accomplished by adding months to curriculum. Rather, restructuring clinical rotations to maximize responsibility and learning efficiency is a more responsible and constructive answer.

• The content delivered in the two weeks of Capstone should be evaluated for its usefulness. Depending on the results of the evaluation, the course should either be reduced to its original one week length or eliminated while incorporating its objectives into other places in the curriculum.

• FAC should be deconstructed into its base elements—Basic Life Support, training in simple procedures, Anesthesia exposure, and Advanced Life Support. BLS and the training in procedures should be accomplished before starting clinical duties. Anesthesia exposure should be incorporated into the core experience either as a structured part of the Surgery clerkship and/or as a new, two week elective. And ACLS training should take place within one year of graduation to fulfill the residency requirements and to eliminate the need for renewal in the fourth year.

• Students need increased accountability of course directors for their use of student time.

• Time is a limited and precious commodity for students and clinicians alike. Wasting students’ time with poorly organized, badly taught material cannot be tolerated. Students need a robust system to deliver feedback to course directors and administrators. Transparent cooperation of course directors to fix flaws must be gained, and students with the support of the Office of Medical Education must have the authority to demand improvement if adequate steps are not taken.

• Standardization across the state’s AHEC system must improve. AHEC experiences vary widely between location and between specialties. Concrete steps must be taken to identify and remediate outliers.

 

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