Next Generation Cells to Society Curriculum
What’s special about the “Next Generation” curriculum?
“Next Generation” (NxGen) eschews the traditional split of basic and clinical sciences and, instead, by employing a system-based learning experience that has a deeper integration of basic sciences into clinical medicine. The curriculum is oriented to clinical performance, and uses the best evidenced-based models for medical education to foster student learning.
Goals
- Assure that all graduates demonstrate mastery of the 12 UVA School of Medicine Competences Required of the Contemporary Physician
- Integrate content around organ systems
- Integrate basic and clinical sciences within each educational experience and across all phases of the curriculum
- Incorporate experiential and active-learning activities
- Provide frequent developmental activities for clinical skills
How was the “Next Generation” curriculum developed?
Curriculum renewal is part of an ongoing, multi-year process based on the research, recommendations, and discussions of the Curriculum 2020 Project, the Working Group on Clinical Skills Education, and the Education Task Force. Over 100 faculty, decision scientists, educational technology specialists, faculty development experts, instructional designers, and students worked to create the new curriculum from 2008 to 2010 when the Class of 2010 matriculated.
Who leads the “Next Generation” curriculum?
Basic science and clinical faculty leading each system unit are selected for their teaching skills, subject matter expertise, and professional experience.
How does the Claude Moore Medical Education Building foster and support the “Next Generation” curriculum?
The Claude Moore Medical Education building serves as the nucleus of the “Next Generation” Cells to Society curriculum, featuring innovative learning spaces and groundbreaking educational technology.
- The building integrates small-group learning and individual instruction with state-of-the-art educational spaces including the “Learning Studio,” a technology-enabled active-learning classroom that provides an interactive, hands-on learning environment in which students work collaboratively in small groups.
- Space is also provided for students to learn and refine interpersonal and clinical skills in a single environment for clinical performance and education: the Clinical Performance Education Center (CPEC). Housing the Medical Simulation Center and the Clinical Skills Center (standardized patient program), CPEC provides students myriad opportunities to practice and demonstrate competency in cognitive and psychomotor skills in simulated clinical settings.
Learning Objectives
- Cultural Competency Objectives Pre-Clerkship Period
- Cultural Competency Objectives for the Clerkship Period
Resources
- National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS)
- A Kleinman, L Eisenberg, B Good: Culture, Illness and Care – Clinical Lessons from Anthropologic and Cross-Cultural Research. Annals of Internal Medcine 88:251-258, 1978
- Berlin EA, Fowkes Jr WC: Cross-cultural Medicine – A teaching Framework for Cross-cultural Health Care – Application in Family Practice, The Western Journal of Medicine 139:934-938, 1983
- Models of Cross-cultural Communication
Thread Leader Job Description
Thread Leader(s) will work closely with the course, system, clerkship, and other leaders as appropriate to establish the goals, learning objectives, and teaching and learning methods for their subject discipline across the undergraduate medical education curriculum. They will aid in the operation and administration of their discipline components and are charged with actively supporting curricular innovation and improvement and with providing content material that will make the unit succeed in its aims.
Specifically, Thread Leader(s) will:
- Monitor and evaluate the delivery of subject material across the continuum of the undergraduate medical education curriculum to ensure the orderly sequence of knowledge, skills, and behaviors
- Work collaboratively with System Leaders to:
- determine appropriate thread content, learning objectives, and learning methods
- determine the scheduling and placement of structured learning and assessment activities
- identify faculty for learning activities based on expertise and teaching ability
- create assessment items consistent with their specific discipline and NBME guidelines for MCQs
- approve sessions, learning objectives and resources, and instructions to students in X-CREDiT
- Liaise with Clerkship Directors and others to devise methods to integrate their content into the clerkship and elective programs
- Attend a majority of the Pre-Clerkship meetings held the second Wednesday of the month, 4-5 p.m.
- Collaborate with the Director of Curriculum Evaluation (Elizabeth Bradley) to evaluate the processes and outcomes of the subject discipline through the preclinical and clinical years
- Report annually to the Curriculum Committee on how the content integrates across the undergraduate medical education curriculum