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Information in the medical sciences is growing faster and faster. Health care systems are under increasing pressure to deliver high quality care in a cost-effective manner. Patients are concerned that health care providers no longer have the time to listen to and understand their personal issues. Because of these changes, educators at the U-M Medical School -- one of the country's top medical education programs -- are in the midst of a significant curriculum revision.
This new plan will put students into patient care settings much earlier than in the current curriculum, and in addition to teaching the scientific principles of health and disease, will emphasize communicating with patients, and understanding how the cultural and social contexts in which they live influence their health.
"What we know today is five or ten times what we knew twenty years ago. So, training medical students by having them memorize facts no longer makes sense," says Allen S. Lichter, M.D., dean of the medical school and Newman Family Professor of Radiation Oncology. "This passive transmission of knowledge in a lecture is no longer the ideal way. We need to prepare students with skills for lifelong learning. They need to be able to gather, analyze, and apply new information that's relevant to the care of their patients."
Lichter also points out that hospital patients are sicker and have shorter hospital stays, and that the majority of patient care, including many surgeries, happens in outpatient settings, physician offices, and medical clinics.
"To respond to all these changes, students are learning clinical skills earlier, beginning literally in the first few weeks of coming to medical school. We're providing more and more of their training in outpatient clinics, because increasingly, that's where diseases are detected, diagnosed and treated. And, we recognize the unique needs of patients within an increasingly diverse population. This requires significant change in how we prepare medical students to take care of their patients." Lichter says.
According to Lichter, outstanding communication skills are essential for the physician of today. These skills help physicians transcend potential barriers of culture, personal beliefs and education, so the patient and physician understand each other and can share in decision making and treatment planning.
For Edmond Baker Jr., a third-year U-M medical student, working with faculty and classmates on the committee reviewing the curriculum was an opportunity to apply lessons he had already learned in business.
"I worked in the business world before entering medical school, and that's where I learned that if you don't continuously improve, you can fall by the wayside. Being on this committee gave me the opportunity to help create a new curriculum at Michigan so that we can become better. We're already a great school, and these new curriculum changes will make us even better," Baker says.
Baker places special emphasis on getting medical students into clinic settings earlier. Medicine, he says, is a people business.
"We can't learn in a lecture hall how to deal with people. If you can't communicate with your patients, then you're really not much good as a doctor," he says.
Baker acknowledges the importance of learning aspects of science, disease, health and death in a formal setting. But, in the end, medicine is still about people and their relationship with their physician.
"I really love having patients of my own to follow. To see them go home from the hospital is one of the best joys I've had. And so, to know that students will be getting more of this is just awesome," Baker says.
U-M Medical School at a glance
Founded: 1848
Medical students: 668
Average annual number of applications: 4,500
Residence:
Michigan: 52%
Out of state: 48%
Gender:
Men: 58%
Women: 42%
Minorities: 14% (Puerto Rican Mainland, Mexican American, African American and Native American)
Interns and residents: 933
Educational and research space: 2 million gross square feet
Buildings: 20
Number of alumni: 18,900
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