CHICAGO — Building on its work over the past five years to reinvent the way future physicians are trained, the American Medical Association (AMA) today announced a new $15 million competitive grant initiative aimed at significantly improving residency training. Through the new AMA “Reimagining Residency” initiative, the AMA will work toward better aligning residency training with the evolving needs of patients, communities, and the workforce needs of the current and future health care system.

The AMA Reimagining Residency initiative marks the next phase in AMA’s successful efforts to transform physician training. The goal of the effort is to address the growing gap between how physicians are being trained and the skills they’ll need to practice in modern health systems. As part of the new grant program, the AMA will support innovations intended to ensure future physicians are prepared for and safely transition from medical school to residency, develop needed skills to enhance their readiness for practice, and train in an environment that promotes their well-being.

“Applying what we’ve learned through our successful initiative to create the medical schools of the future, we’re embarking on a new effort to reinvent residency training to ensure our future physicians are able to make a seamless transition into residency and ensure they’re prepared for practice—while supporting their well-being and improving patient safety,” said AMA CEO & Executive Vice President James L. Madara, M.D. “During this unprecedented time of rapid growth and technological change in the U.S. health care system, the AMA is continuing to support significant redesign and innovation in physician training that will help physicians adapt and grow at every stage of their career, and ultimately improve the nation’s health.”

Through the new grant program, the AMA will provide $15 million over five years to fund up to eight innovations among U.S. graduate medical education sponsors, medical schools, health systems, and/or medical specialty societies to support bold and innovative projects that promote systemic change in graduate medical education.

The selected organizations will join an AMA-convened consortium and work together to evaluate successes and lessons learned, and promote wide dissemination and adoption of successful innovations.

Beginning January 3, 2019, organizations interested in applying to receive funding and join the consortium must submit letters of intent describing the goals and scope of their proposed project by February 1.

Specifically, funding will be awarded to institutions and their partners for:

• Improving the transition from medical school to residency to preserve continuity in professional development
• Ensuring readiness for practice through modifications of residency curricula
• Optimizing the learning environment to support well-being among trainees, mentors, and staff

From the initial pool of proposals, the AMA will invite a select group of organizations to submit full proposals by April 17, and will conduct a thorough review of all materials before announcing the selected organizations at its Annual meeting in June 2019.

Upon selection, the eight institutional partners receiving grant awards will meet together to agree upon standardized criteria for student assessment, resident selection procedures, on- boarding/transition of students to residency, off-cycle selection of residents, core curriculum for residents in health systems science and a common evaluation program that measures performance, patient outcomes and learner well-being. 

The new AMA Reimagining Residency initiative builds on the work of the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative launched in 2013 to create the medical schools of the future. The new partner organizations will work in tandem with the AMA’s consortium of 32 medical schools created through the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative, which has impacted more than 19,000 medical students who will one day provide care for more than 33 million patients annually.

For more information about the initiative and to view a short video, visit www.ama-assn.org/ama-reimagining-residency-initiative.

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