RESUMEN
Problem: U.S. medical schools are searching for ways to address issues of health justice in undergraduate medical education. Physicians have not typically received training in how to be effective advocates for systemic change and individuals in policy fields are not usually equipped to understand the complex issues of health science and their intersection with the health system and society. To address this gap, medical school faculty partnered with school of public policy faculty on a collaborative learning model that engaged MD and Master of Public Policy students together to strengthen their collective knowledge of the healthcare landscape, and to build skills to work for health justice. Intervention: We hypothesized that pairing medical students with public policy students to learn about the intersections of health justice and advocacy could enhance the efficacy of each group and provide a new model of collaboration between medical and policy professionals. The students collaborated on a health justice advocacy project through which they provided consultation to an established community organization. Context: The 8-week course took place in the spring of 2021 in Los Angeles, California. Due to Covid-19 the course was taught online and included asynchronous learning modules and live Zoom sessions. The project also served as a pilot for the post-clerkship phase of a new longitudinal health justice curriculum for MD students that launched in August 2021. Impact: Analysis of student work products, course evaluations, partner interviews, and student focus groups showed that students valued learning through their interdisciplinary collaborative work which gave them new perspectives on health justice issues. The community partners indicated that the students consultative work products were useful for their initiatives, and that they found working with MD and MPP students to be a valuable way to think about how to build stronger and more inclusive coalitions to advocate for health justice. This project has the potential for national impact as it aligns with the Association of American Medical Colleges' renewed focus on the responsibility of academic medicine to partner with communities for health justice. The project also contributed to the national conversation on how to align health systems science education with the aims of health justice through our participation in the American Medical Association Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium. Lessons Learned: Leveraging faculty relationships with community partners was crucial for developing meaningful projects for students. Cultivating and expanding community partner networks is necessary to sustain and scale up this type of intervention. Centering the needs of communities and supporting their on-going work for health justice is essential for becoming an effective advocate. Learning communities that bring interdisciplinary students, healthcare providers, policy professionals, and community partners together to learn from one another can create key opportunities for ameliorating health inequities.
RESUMEN
PURPOSE: Since 2010, medical schools across the United States have engaged in a new cycle of curricular revision and renewal for their undergraduate medical curricula. But what structures, features, and trends have emerged in U.S. medical schools as a result of deliberate curricular redesign efforts? An analysis of the ways that medical schools have approached the reorganization of their curricula to prepare their students for the growing complexity of medical practice is presented. METHOD: This study drew a total pool of 40 U.S. MD-granting programs, of which 25 met the inclusion criteria for the study. The authors used a qualitative coding approach to materials from the undergraduate medical education (UME) program websites to identify 4 dimensions of strategies that these programs used to renew their curricula. RESULTS: The analysis of the curricular maps and website content of the UME programs provided evidence for a continuum approach to the description of innovation strategies: 96% of schools employed a cohort-based linear pathway, 80% of schools used thematic basic science blocks, 47% placed their Step 1 exams outside of the second year, and 68% moved their clerkships to the second year. CONCLUSIONS: The Continuum of Innovation strategies will enable programs to renew their curricula in ways that promote deliberate curricular changes that are consistent with emerging needs in the field. This study and future research may be useful for UME programs with limited resources by providing consensus practices that enable them to plan curricular changes in ways that best serve their institutions.