Celebrating the First Phase of Well Beyond Curriculum

By Keith Gillogly

The revamped curriculum emphasizes foundational skills, early clinical experiences, experiential learning, and community-centric compassionate care. After 18 months, medical students have now completed the initial phase of the new curriculum, with phases 2 and 3 remaining.

To celebrate this first cohort’s phase 1 completion, a group of faculty course and program directors along with pillar leaders and staff gathered in the Jacobs School’s Active Learning Center on Jan. 29. In addition to celebrating successes, the group had the chance to reflect on the foundational skills, early clinical experiences, and other key components of phase 1 curriculum while discussing continued refinements. 

After welcoming the audience, Jennifer A. Meka, PhD, associate dean for medical education, spoke about the lengthy discussion, analysis and spirited debate that goes into the significant task of revamping medical curriculum. She noted that all of the revisions and re-revisions demonstrated the group’s resilience and commitment to balancing intuition with evidence and educational experience.

“When we began this curriculum redesign, we knew we were signing up for something ambitious. We knew we were signing up for something that was going to be big,” said Meka. “Designing curriculum is an iterative, creative and resilient process. And your collective commitment to that process, especially through this first implementation, has been nothing short of remarkable.”

In 2019, the Jacobs School began reassessing curriculum concepts and goals for medical school graduates. It started with recognizing that the needs of learners and the health care system itself are changing, Meka said.

After collectively establishing guiding principles, planning committees began to look at adding more early clinical experiences and collaborative learning into the curriculum. She recalled how students were particularly excited about these experiences and clinical immersions and about new emphasis on health care delivery topics like population health and health insurance.

Always keeping the focus on students and being willing to adapt in real time have made the phase 1 rollout “not just successful but transformative,” Meka said.

Attendees at the celebration received commemorative plaques recognizing their ongoing devotion to the curriculum revamp and to medical education. In distributing the awards, Meka was joined by Alan J. Lesse, MD, associate dean for medical curriculum; and David A. Milling, MD, senior associate dean for medical education.

Students’ quotes and praise about the educators were on display as the attendees were recognized for their roles in the design, implementation and teaching of scientific literacy and inquiry, foundations of patient-centered care, health sciences scholarly project, learning communities, case-based inquiry learning, and foundational courses such as cardiology and pulmonary systems and other subjects encompassing the school’s curricular pillars and program objectives.

Milling commended the room full of educators for their dedication to the overhaul process, saying that “the mere fact that the vision and the implementation actually look alike is pretty amazing. And that only happens because of all of you in the room.”

Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, UB’s vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, echoed praise for the educators’ efforts while reflecting on the new curriculum’s potential. “This curriculum is not about memorizing facts; it’s about building resilient leaders and lifelong learners,” she said. “Our students are incredible. They’re going to be gamechangers for how we take care of patients in the future.” 

In addition to thanking people in the room and the school’s educators broadly, Brashear acknowledged all of those who manage the scheduling and administrative needs that enable such an undertaking. “We can have all the vision we want, but unless you have someone operationalizing that vision, nothing gets done,” she said.

The celebratory event also provided opportunities for ongoing discussion and brainstorming about curricular improvements and future changes.

Meka discussed how being 18 months into the new curriculum rollout has given time to reflect and identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities for refinement.

To that end, attendees at the event participated in an interactive exercise involving “educational dilemmas” uncovered in the first implementation of the new curriculum.

One such dilemma involves identifying further opportunities for integration within pillar courses. The pillar courses emphasize foundational sciences, clinical sciences, health systems science, humanities and humanism, and scientific literacy and inquiry.

While these exercises served to spark ideas and discussion, they demonstrated the nuance and precision needed when making curricular alterations and also the collective commitment to excellence and to implementing a shared vision.