To all students: I hope your summer was productive and meaningful, whatever you did. One of the more amazing summer activities was the group of students, participating in an elective with Dr. Rebecca Byrne in Family Medicine, who provided medical, dental, and vision screenings for over 200 Tibetan refugees and had the opportunity to meet with the Dalai Lama. Many students and faculty used the summer months to re-charge and prepare for the start of classes, while others were busy in clerkship and other clinical activities throughout the summer.

The Big News

The School of Medicine received excellent news in June when we received notification from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) that we were granted an eight-year accreditation, the maximum allowable. The School received only four citations, and as was expected, will be required to provide follow-up in several areas. Student satisfaction is an important element in this process, and we will therefore be working closely with the student leadership regarding issues such as academic and career advising, study space, facilities, research opportunities, and specific elements of the curriculum. We are already working with students to improve all of these areas with new processes, systems, and curricular changes.

Curriculum Overview

Students typically wonder: Who runs the curriculum and how do changes occur? While the medical education program is under the Office of Academic Affairs, we are mandated, by the LCME to have a central governing body for the curriculum, the Curriculum Committee, (made up of mostly elected faculty, five voting student members, and a non-voting first year student) which is charged with the development, monitoring, and assessment of a coherent and coordinated curriculum. This committee is supported by sub-committees, each with the appropriate course directors and 6 students, representing each phase of the curriculum, all of whom help design the curriculum. The curriculum is monitored in many ways including, but not limited to end of module and clerkship evaluations, end of year student evaluations, student performance on standardized exams, and discipline and system performance on Step exams. Additional data includes a survey of residency directors about our graduates as well as the Graduation Questionnaire, administered by the American Association of Medical Colleges to fourth year students, nationwide. All of this information is put into a comprehensive program evaluation that is presented to the Curriculum Committee, Executive Faculty (Dean and Chairs) and others so that we can continuously improve the curriculum. Examples of recent student concerns include organizational issues for modules, teaching methods, preparation for residency, and formative feedback, all of which we are working with faculty to improve.

Medical Education Open Forum for Students: Thursday, September 19

Still have questions? I will be holding an open forum for any students who have questions or concerns about the medical education program on Thursday, September 19 at 3:30 PM. A follow-up email will provide the specific location.

What is new and exciting?

Fifth Floor of Murphy Building: Construction is on-going, and the following facilities are anticipated to open in late October:

• A dedicated student study area including 8 small group study rooms and additional open seating for study
• A new DeBakey-style educational facility, large enough for 200 students, but designed to also be partitioned into 3 rooms and available as study space
• The Office of Medical Education

Guenevere Rae, Ph.D., has joined the Office of Medical Education and will be primarily responsible for faculty development with a focus on enhancing teaching methods. She also brings her expertise as a trained anatomist; the first-year students have already experienced her active learning presentations of embryology content.

The Curriculum Committee has approved a process for students with advanced coursework in Biostatistics/Statistics (i.e. MD/MPH students) to be able to waive the requirements for the on-line course that is part of Foundations in Medicine.

Our new relationship with Children’s Hospital continues to advance, working in partnership with the Department of Pediatrics at LSU School of Medicine. This is now the primary site for the Pediatrics Clerkship.

Patrick McGrew, M.D., was appointed as Surgery Clerkship Director beginning this academic year. I’m sure all students will appreciate his enthusiasm and dedication to students on the surgery clerkship.

I hope all of you have a productive, meaningful, and even fun academic year. I will keep you updated on a regular basis with both these updates and future Open Forums scheduled over the year, for any students to discuss any aspect of the medical education program directly with me.

Dr. Krane

Professor of Medicine

Vice Dean for Academic Affairs

Did You Know?

• All Policies affecting the curriculum are posted at: https://medicine.tulane.edu/home/lcme-accreditation/policies.
• There is a new app called the TUSOM Companion that you can find more information on here: https://medicine.tulane.edu/home/tusom-companion-app
• A full list of study spaces can be found at: https://medicine.tulane.edu/education/academic-affairs/medical-student-study-spaces