Curriculum Committee - November 26, 2002

Present: Gold, Davidson, T. Wright, Bottom, Rarey, Normann, Genuardi, Burchfield, Sumners, Butson, Tisher, Allen, Meuleman, Hatch, Watson, Romrell, Harrell, Wallace, Lind, Paul Gulig, Butson, Pauly, B. Wright

Dr. Davidson is the new chair of the Curriculum Committee.

Dr. Davidson outlined the role of the Curriculum Committee, the composition and responsibilities, with comment about ex-officio members and subcommittees for the 2003 agenda items as follows:

Role
The Curriculum Committee will serve as the faculty decision-making body regarding, content, methods, timing, and structure of the medical curriculum, and through the Evaluation Subcommittee, will make qualitative decisions regarding the efficacy of existing coursework. The Evaluation Subcommittee will be organized by the Associate Dean for Program Evaluation and Development. The Curriculum Committee will work with the Associate Dean for Medical Education, who will implement through the faculty the curricular decisions after approval by the Dean.

Composition and Responsibilities of the Committee

• A minimum of 11 committed educators without parochial, political, or departmental influence from basic science and clinical faculty, as well as representatives of the Gainesville community or other colleges of the Health Science Center when appropriate.
• The academic chairs from third and fourth year classes will be voting members of the committee.
• Committee members are expected to prepare for and attend the committee meetings, as well as participate in task forces or subcommittees at the discretion of the chair. Failure to participate will require replacement on the committee.
  

Ex Officio Members

There will be a number of ex officio members of the committee including the Dean of the College of Medicine, the Senior Associate Dean for Education, the Associate Deans for Education in Gainesville and Jacksonville, and the Associate Dean of Program Evaluation and Development. Additional ex officio members will include the chairs of the clerkship and course directors committees; an Assistant Dean for Minority Affairs; the medical director and director of the Harrell Assessment Center; the Associate Dean for Information Techonology; representatives of the Physicians Assistant Program and the Health Science Center library; and medical student representatives from the first and second year classes. Ex officio members of the committee may vote on specific topics at the discretion of the chair.

Current Members, Curriculum Committee
David Burchfield: Neonatology/Pediatrics
Heather Harrell: Medicine
Scott Lind: Surgery
Rob Hatch: CHFM
Sig Normann: Pathology
Colin Sumners: Physiology
Mark Gold: Psychiatry
John Meuleman: Geriatrics
Paul Gulig: Microbiology
Peggy Wallace: Molecular Genetics
Ankit Desai: MS4
Mat Lawson: MS3

The Curriculum

• The curriculum is based on twelve learning principles which were a proved by the Committee in 1997.
• Learning objectives were developed for each principle.
• Evaluation of competencies are the way we evaluate our students and our curriculum; these competencies serve as a blueprint for the development of new curricular content.

Areas of Emphasis: 2003

• Assisting the office of Program Evaluation and Faculty Development successfully prepare for LCME accreditation
• To add to the current evaluation of our curriculum by assessing our end product (December meeting)
• Faculty peer evaluation of content
• Curricular content and structural issues:
1. Third/fourth year continuum (18 month)
2. Intersessions
3. Perioperative clerkship (surgery and anesthesiology)
4. Bioterrorism
5. Interdisciplinary education and service-
   learning (January meeting)
• New curricular time for topics that are responsive to the emerging needs of society : bioterrorism, palliative care, information mastery, clinical genetics, cost-effective practice and others.
• Increasing class size and increase for clinical sites as well as more faculty participation in the educational effort.

Subcommittee Assignments
The following subcommittees will present their initial reports at the Curriculum Committee retreat, which will be held on February 10. Subcommittee members need not be members of the Curriculum Committee. Each report should include a description of:

1. Our current structure and content
   
2. A description of some alternatives
3. A preliminary recommendation
4. Resources needed to implement the recommendation

   Year 3 and 4 Continuum
   Heather Harrell, chair
   Scott Lind
   Ankit Desai
   Rob Hatch
   Lynn Romrell

   Intersessions
   John Meuleman, chair
   
   Mat Lawson
   Peggy Wallace
   Richard Rathe
   TBA

   Research Curriculum
   Colin Sumners, chair
   Bill Allen
   TBA
   

   Bioterrorism
   Paul Gulig, chair
   David Burchfield
   Sig Normann
   James Crawford
   Mark Gold
   David Seaberg
   Richard Moyer (per Dr. Gulig)

Other items to be considered at future meetings are:

• the objectives
• blending our competencies into the ACGME competencies.

Dr. Davidson asked that new members familiarize themselves wtih the competencies. These items will be distributed well in advance of the meeting on the discussion of competencies.

Agenda for this coming year and beyond:

1. Assisting OPED to successfully prepare the LCME accreditation.
2. Explore the merging of our competencies with those of the ACGME
3. Add to the current evaluation of our curriculum by assessing our "end product" (Dec mtg)
4. Faculty peer evaluation of content. (clinical presentation model)
   

Dr. Davidson stated that he would pass out theWhitcomb editorial address before the December meeting.

Dr. Tisher suggested adding David Seaberg to the Bioterrorism subcommittee as well as Dr. Moyer.

Dr. Davidson announced that members will be given an opportunity to comment on daily events at each meeting.

Dr. Tisher asked the committee if there was any way in our curriculum for a medical student to devote time to basic or clinical research project without falling out, and still graduate with his/her class.

Dr. Watson stated that there are two ways, the Duke approach, which compresses the first two years into one. For the last two years, it is required by LCME that students rotate through clerkships. However, there are the traditional fourth-year electives. Dr. Harrell commented that at Stanford University they had a way to approach this, like online courses, etc. Dr. Harrell will give more information at a later time. Dr. Watson stated that we try to maximum flexibility.

Davidson indicated he would appoint a subcommittee to look at the statement made by Dr. Tisher.

Dr. Meuleman suggested that a new membership list be sent to all committee members.

Meeting adjourned at 8:36 a.m.