Vanderbilt med students receive their white coats in a ceremony. Med school involves many traditions but a new project dubbed “Curriculum 2.0” is meant to modernize the experience. Credit: VUSM via Flickr
Vanderbilt University is trying to rethink nearly every aspect of its medical school curriculum, and the American Medical Association likes where the school is headed.
Last year the AMA doled out million-dollar grants to 11 med schools to modernize the training of doctors. Representatives from those schools gathered in Nashville this week to share their successes.
Vanderbilt’s “Curriculum 2.0” allows for different speeds. For instance, someone who has already trained to be a physical therapist could maybe go through med school in fewer than four years.
“The most important thing is not how much time your doctors spend in medical school but whether or not they’ve learned what they need to know before they move on to residency,” associate dean Bonnie Miller said in a statement.
Vanderbilt has also made it so first year students start working in hospitals and clinics right away, allowing them to get more practical experience. And since the science of medicine changes so rapidly, the med school is focusing more on how to do research and use the findings to treat a patient.
The AMA’s vice president of medical education, Susan Skochelak, says she’s most impressed by a new project that pairs med students with learning coaches who help them identify potential weak spots after leaving medical school. She says most doctors will stay current with what already interests them but not necessarily in the most critical areas.
“All of us, as adult learners, do not always know how to identify what’s most important,” Skochelak says. “So Vanderbilt is teaching people how to be life-long learners in a way that is concrete and measurable, in a way that’s got me excited to say they’re on to something here.”
This post has been updated to clarify the example about a physical therapist going to med school.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM