The Wayne State University School of Medicine has received a 2023 American Medical Association Innovation Grant, one of only 13 medical school teams nationwide to secure the prestigious grant.
As part of the grant, the School of Medicine will join the ChangeMedEd Consortium working to develop, implement and disseminate bold and innovative projects that promote systemic change to better train future physicians.
Team members include Christopher Steffes, M.D., associate dean of Clinical Medical Education; Rajiv John, M.D., Internal Medicine Clerkship, Beaumont Hospital Dearborn; Jonathan Zimmerman, M.D., Internal Medicine Clerkship, Beaumont Hospital Dearborn; Diane Levine, M.D., professor of Internal Medicine and vice chair of Education for the Department of Internal Medicine; Joel Appel, D.O., associate professor of Internal Medicine and director of Ambulatory Student Programs; Anthony Gaynier, Ed.D., clinical faculty learning skills specialist and integrated curriculum coordinator; and Hannah Levine, clinical ambulatory site coordinator.
They will use the grant to focus on precision education by working to develop point-of-care, competency-based, multidimensional assessments for students using seven growth chart narratives of clinical reasoning, presentation and documentation skills.
“This is a great opportunity for Wayne State University to lead in the area of developing a system for formative feedback to truly allow our students to grow as health care professionals,” Dr. Levine said.
The first students to pilot these growth chart assessments will be those in the Class of 2025 during their Internal Medicine Acting Internships (formerly titled sub-internships). This will allow students and educators to focus on growth instead of grades by offering real-time coaching and feedback before grades are issued at the completion of internships.
The competency milestones the team will incorporate include: the ability to diagnose and treat; monitor and manage; medical knowledge, inquiry and application; caring, communication and interpersonal skills; commitment to patient and to care team; and integrity and self-improvement, including professional behavior. The team said this will assist with the hand-off between educators, and allow students to visualize and track their own data-driven growth as they move through their internship, with the goal of guiding trainees through their medical school career and bridging the gap into residency training.
“Medical education is changing. Faculty leadership at the Wayne State University School of Medicine have the foresight to see what’s coming,” Dr. John said. “They recognize the movement toward competency-based assessment is coming. They recognize that education is a continuum from medical school to practice, and not siloed experiences. I would like to thank Dr. Christopher Steffes and faculty leadership for their trust in the Resident Growth Chart project to address some of these changes. The way we train and produce physicians is changing and the Wayne State University School of Medicine will take the lead.”