UCSF and UC Davis medical schools selected for professional development program The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Fresno Medical Education Program and the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine and School of Nursing have been selected to participate in a three-year, grant-funded program that seeks to help faculty teams better prepare medical students and allied professionals to work together in patient-centered medical homes. The two schools are among nine nationwide institutions to participate in the Professionals Accelerating Clinical and Educational Redesign (PACER) program. “The (PACER) program will enhance our knowledge and skills to provide and teach interprofessional, team-based, comprehensive and continuous health care with the goal of achieving maximized health outcomes for patients at the Deran Koligian Ambulatory Care Center as a patient-centered medical home at Community Regional Medical Center,” said Serena Yang, M.D., associate clinical professor for UCSF Fresno Department of Pediatrics and team leader for UCSF Fresno’s PACER program. At UCSF Fresno, the grant will allow for faculty members to educate future doctors of the importance of the team approach to medicine, Dr. Yang said. Medical staff from internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics will be the core of care, but that treatment will also be enhanced by including pharmacists, nurses, mental health therapists and sub-specialists who will work as a team with the primary care practitioners. The team also will take advantage of electronic health records to communicate. The focal point of the new training efforts at UC Davis take place at the School of Medicine’s Transforming Education and Community Health (TEACH) clinic. The clinic does much of its work for underserved communities at Sacramento County’s Primary Care Center. Plans are underway to incorporate the UC School of Nursing’s physician assistant and nurse practitioner programs into TEACH to create the PACER interprofessional training team. PACER is funded by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, with matching funding from the Boards of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The project is implemented and evaluated by educational researchers in the department of family medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. January 25, 2016 General Medical Homes, Medical School, Allied Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
AMA expands initiative to transform medical education The American Medical Association (AMA) announced that it will seek to triple the number of medical schools participating in its Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, launched in 2013 to reshape medical education in the United States. AMA will provide $1.5 million over the next three years to fund up to 20 additional projects that support a significant redesign of undergraduate medical education. Interested medical schools must submit their proposals by September 16, 2015. The goal of the initiative is to work toward a significant redesign of undergraduate medical education so that it better aligns with the 21st century health care system. The consortium was created by the AMA in 2013 with $11 million in grants awarded to 11 of the country’s top medical schools. Each school received a $1 million grant over five years, and together they are developing innovative curriculum models to help thousands of medical students better prepare for delivering care in the rapidly evolving health care landscape. In California, the UC San Francisco School of Medicine and the UC Davis School of Medicine were among the initial grantees. The projects currently underway encompass many educational innovations, including models for student immersion within the health care system from day one of medical school and competency-based models enabling students to advance through medical school based on their own individualized learning plans. “In such a short amount of time, our consortium schools have made impressive strides toward creating the medical school of the future. Many of the schools have already implemented new curriculum models that are supporting innovative training for 7,000 medical students who will one day care for more than 12.2 million patients each year,” said AMA President Steven J. Stack, M.D. “It is because of this tremendous progress that we’ve decided to collaborate with more medical schools and continue on the path to spreading innovation across the entire medical education system to close the gaps that exist between the way physicians are educated and how health care will be delivered in the future.” As part of this second phase of the Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative, AMA is calling on medical schools to build upon and implement the education models created by the 11 founding consortium schools, as well as to offer unique projects that can be shared with medical schools nationwide. Through a competitive grant process, a national advisory panel will evaluate submitted proposals and select projects that incorporate one of the following themes: Developing flexible, competency-based pathways Teaching and/or assessing new content in health care delivery science Working with health care delivery systems in novel ways Making technology work to support learning and assessment Envisioning the master adaptive learner Shaping tomorrow’s leaders Projects that do not fall under one of these themes, but that provide a valuable contribution to the consortium, will also be considered. Over the course of the initiative, AMA will continue to track and report on the progress of the medical schools’ collective work in order to identify and widely disseminate the best models for transformative educational change. AMA has also created a summary report to highlight the current progress of the founding 11 consortium schools. For more information, visit www.changemeded.org. August 3, 2015 General Medical School, Medical Students, American Medical Association 0 0 Comment Read More »
Local Group Announces Plans for a New Non-Profit Medical School A local group led by Dr. Dev GnanaDev, a longtime surgeon and nationally recognized leader in health care, announced Monday it has formulated a plan to develop a privately-funded, non-profit medical school in Colton, Southern California. The allopathic (M.D.) school, known as California University of Science and Medicine (Cal Med), College of Medicine, seeks to receive accreditation from the Licensing Committee on Medical Education in time to welcome its first class in 2016. “This is an exciting and much-needed opportunity for medical students in the Inland Empire and California,” said Dr. GnanaDev, Cal Med’s founder, president and chief executive officer. “Because of many factors, including the extremely limited medical school spots in our state and severe shortage of doctors, we believe this project will have a significant positive impact on the economy, education and health for many decades.” The university and the medical school are being financed primarily through a $40 million donation from Prime Healthcare Foundation, a 501©3, non- profit, public charity founded by Dr. Prem Reddy, a cardiologist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. The Foundation also operates six non-profit hospitals. He is a long- term resident of San Bernardino County and will serve as the chairman of the board for Cal Med. Dr. Reddy is also the founder, chairman, president and CEO of Prime Healthcare Services. Through their subsidiaries, Prime Healthcare Services and the Foundation own and operate 25 hospitals in six states across the country. “This is a landmark day for our communities in medical education and health care,” said Dr. Reddy. “I am extremely proud as a physician, as a local resident and longtime proponent of health education to contribute to this project. Through Dr. GnanaDev’s vision and participation of many who will be positively affected by the school, the medical school will become a pillar of health education in our area.” Cal Med will be housed initially at a temporary site until a permanent facility, potentially located near Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC) in Colton, is built. The school expects to welcome 50 students in its inaugural class and include a maximum of approximately 150 within a decade. “Cal Med will be a great addition to the universities, colleges and trade schools providing career training and educational opportunities to our residents," San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chair Janice Rutherford said. "In addition, the new medical school will help us overcome our region's doctor shortage by allowing more students to pursue careers in the medical profession." Cal Med will cultivate an environment that facilitates advances in education, research and health care delivery, and it will partner with ARMC, the County of San Bernardino’s top-quality health care facility, and other hospitals in the county and throughout Southern California to train the next generation of innovative and diverse health care professionals. “The opportunity to establish a new medical school within the county is exciting,” said Josie Gonzales, Fifth District Supervisor for the County of San Bernardino. “The medical school will not only help meet the growing demand for new health care professionals, it would be an economic boost to Colton and the surrounding communities.” The medical school will be governed by a four-person board of directors, including Drs. GnanaDev and Reddy; Dustin Corcoran, chief executive officer of the California Medical Association; and Dr. Albert Karnig, president emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino. The College of Medicine leadership will be comprised of a highly qualified and experienced group of physicians, including Dr. Emily Ebert, a family medicine physician at ARMC who will serve as associate dean, graduate medical education. A national search is underway for the Dean of the College of Medicine. The need for a medical school: physician shortage: According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, the United States faces a shortage of 91,500 primary care and specialist physicians by 2020. In San Bernardino County, there is just one primary care physician per 1,201 people, one half the number compared to the national rate. The need for a medical school: aging Baby Boomer population: Baby Boomers are individuals born between 1946 and 1964 and make up about 26.1 percent of the U.S. population, or an estimated 78 million people. California is one of five states with the largest Baby Boomer population. It is expected that one of every six Californians will be 65 or older by 2030 and, as the Baby Boomer population ages, a more intense, dignified and responsive health care system will be required to meet their medical needs. The need for a medical school: California medical students abroad: According to a government report, from 1998 to 2008 the federal government loaned $1.5 billion to U.S. students enrolled in foreign medical institutions through the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Of the 42,000 medical student applicants, only 18,600 matriculated and the remainder was forced to consider alternatives. For example, 20 to 25 percent of students currently enrolled in medical schools in the Caribbean islands are from California. A majority of these students graduated from elite California colleges with excellent grade-point averages. California, however, has just 8 fully accredited MD schools, and one new one (UC Riverside), for a population of 39 million; in comparison, New York, with a population of 19.5 million, has 13 MD schools. “Clearly, for these reasons and many more, the timing and need for Cal Med is now,” said Dr. GnanaDev. Cal Med Contact - Jorge Valencia, 909-580-6334 April 16, 2014 General Cal Med, California University of Science and Medicine, Medical School 0 0 Comment Read More »
