I spent a few days last week at the University of Texas at Austin, where in 2016 a brand new medical school will open. The school invited me, other physician leaders and representatives from the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative to discuss innovations in medical education to build into their curricula.
The University of Texas has a unique opportunity with its new Dell Medical School in Austin: There are no preconceived notions about what should be taught or how it ought to be taught. Educators there are able to start from scratch, and they’re thinking about how to incorporate the latest and greatest technology into their curricula. The University of Texas system is opening another new medical school in the Rio Grande Valley, and ideas for innovations will be implemented there as well.
As an educator, I’m excited by this opportunity. As a proponent of effective health IT, I see this as a promising view of the future of health care.
But I often caution my fellow physicians that it’s easy to get overexcited about technology. Attendees in Austin saw some pretty cool things—new standardized patient simulators that are voice-activated and can respond to thousands of questions, new tracking tools to follow students throughout their development, and new ways to mine and examine data, for instance. However, innovations are not just about the tech—they are about how we use the tech to take better care of our patients and be better physicians.
That’s what was so exciting about this meeting in Austin. We talked in depth about how to harness technology appropriately and use it to improve the way future physicians are trained. And we talked about how to help medical students understand the ways they should not be using technology, like for posting pictures of patients on social media.
The next generation of medical students has grown up with the Internet, cellphones and email. They are digital natives. They’re moving forward and nimble, and expect to access information quickly. They have the potential to transform the way health care is delivered and fix the broken health care system we’re dealing with today.
As medical education leaders, we need to shepherd through innovations—in technology and in other areas, such as faculty development, competency-based education and professionalism—to equip future physicians for improving the health of our nation.
We’re making progress already. The work the 11 schools in the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative are doing has sparked a robust discussion that’s garnered national attention. Now the initiative has expanded beyond those 11 schools, and other medical schools are seeking out the AMA for input on how to build the best curricula possible in a rapidly changing world. I’m proud that we’re seen as experts and innovators, and I’m looking forward to what the future brings for this initiative.
