AMA expands medical education transformation efforts

The American Medical Association (AMA) today named 20 medical schools selected to join its Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, which aims to enhance the innovative work underway to create the medical school of the future and quickly spread these innovations to additional medical schools throughout the country.

The 20 new schools will build upon the projects created by the 11 schools awarded grants by the AMA in 2013. With the added schools, the now 31-school consortium will support training for an estimated 18,000 medical students.

“Our goal throughout this initiative has been to spread the robust work being done by our consortium to accelerate systemic change throughout medical education,” said AMA CEO James L. Madara, MD. “By tripling the number of schools participating in this effort, we know that we will be able to more quickly disseminate the consortium schools’ innovative curriculum models to even more schools—leading to the type of seismic shift that the medical education system needs so that future physicians can better care for their patients.”

Each of the 20 medical schools will receive $75,000 over the next three years to transform undergraduate medical education to better align with today's healthcare system. Through a competitive grant process, the schools were selected from among 170 eligible U.S. medical schools by a national advisory panel which sought proposals that would significantly redesign medical education. Some of the selected projects proposed by the new schools include programs that incorporate medical students into care coordination teams in an accountable care organization aimed at improving care for patients with multiple chronic conditions. Other selected projects focus on developing advanced simulation and telemedicine technologies to foster skills specific to the needs of rural or remote communities.

“Together, the 31 schools will collectively work to quickly identify and widely share the best models for educational change to ensure future physicians are prepared for a lifetime of learning, to lead a team of professionals in delivering care and to explore innovative ways to care for patients, populations and communities in the evolving health care system,” said Susan E. Skochelak, MD, MPH, AMA Group Vice President for Medical Education. “By working together, we believe that during the next several years this effort will produce physicians who are not just skilled clinicians, but system-based thinkers, change agents, technology champions and inter-professional team players.”