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Dear Colleagues, I hope this message finds you healthy and well. Even as we continue to navigate the many challenging issues facing our communities, I am pleased to report on our resilience in continuing the much-needed work around curriculum redesign. It goes without saying, a curriculum redesign has never been more relevant and urgent. From building a curriculum that incorporates self-directed/distance learning, to ensuring robust coverage of the many social and environmental issues impacting the health of our communities, including but not limited to anti-racism, social justice, advocacy, and the social/structural determinants of health. I am committed—with your help—to ensuring our new curriculum includes these critical components, fulfilling our “why” statement of creating physicians who are “committed to excellence and leaders in innovation, research, health, education, advocacy and humanistic care." Schematic Design & Program Competencies I’m happy to report that we have finalized a design for our curriculum schematic. The design reflects the structure of our new curriculum and the tremendous work by so many over the past two years. In addition, to the redesigned schematic, Associate Dean Jason Napolitano, Assistant Dean Ed Ha, and our Curricular Affairs Director Ashley Siemer have put together a modified schematic for AY 202122 to greatly minimize the overlap of the clerkship year with third-year medical students in the current curriculum. I am also delighted to share our newly approved revised program competencies and objectives. These program competencies encapsulate key elements of our “why” statement and will promote continuity of learning and assessment. Importantly, adding leadership and interprofessional teamwork, curiosity/inquiry/critical thinking, and social justice/advocacy amplifies the importance of these competencies in our new program. From Design to Implementation Many Phase III planning committees have concluded their work while others will begin meeting in the Fall of this year. I am deeply grateful to these planning committees and their respective chairs for their dedicated efforts towards defining core objectives and learning activities. Phase IV of our redesign efforts will focus on implementation activities, specifically, finalizing course schedules, developing the content, and defining the educational strategy. In the words of Jim Collins, we must “have the right people on the bus and in the right seats.” I am happy to announce that Phase IV efforts will be led by a highly accomplished group of individuals: ? Foundations of Science Phase IV leads: Drs. John Colicelli, Ph.D. and Jason Napolitano, M.D. will lead the development of the Foundations of Science curriculum as part of Phase IV activities. The Foundations of Science Course Director position is currently open. Interested individuals can contact Morgan Fultz (mfultz@mednet.ucla.edu). ? Foundations of Practice Phase IV leads & directors: Drs. Art Gomez and Peter Quiros will serve as the inaugural Co-Directors of Foundations of Practice. Along with the Educators for Excellence, the co-directors will develop the Foundations of Practice course. ? Early Authentic Clinical Experience: Dr. Adriana Izquierdo has been selected as the inaugural director of the Early Authentic Clinical Experience which is being implemented this year. Finally, we have submitted our redesign curriculum proposal to the LCME. I am grateful for the tremendous efforts we have all made to this point. I look forward to finalizing our new curriculum in Phase IV. Clarence H. Braddock III, MD, MPH, MACP Professor of Medicine Maxine and Eugene Rosenfeld Chair in Medical Education Vice Dean for Education, DGSOM
Dear Colleagues, I hope this message finds you healthy and well. The past several months have been enormously challenging. First, the COVID 19 pandemic has challenged us to adapt our priorities and focus, and created substantial resource challenges. Then we again bore witness to violence towards the Black community with the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police. This stark reminder of racism in America has caused us to elevate anti-racism in our planning for the current and new curriculum. Despite these challenges, we remain very excited that our new curriculum will launch its first phase in a few short weeks. Through the commitment, creativity, and dedication of our faculty and our curriculum redesign planning committees over the past two years, especially these past few months, we continue to make progress towards our curriculum redesign efforts. Launch of the first Phase of implementation begins August 2020! Earlier this spring, the FEC and MEC voted to proceed with a phased-implementation of our new curriculum. We will launch the Early Authentic Clinical Experience (EACE) and Educators for Excellence programs in AY 2020-21. While we had originally planned to also implement the Foundation of Practice course, the course will be implemented in AY 2021-22 with implementation of all other new components of the curriculum. EACE - The primary goal of the EACE curricular component is to provide students with an immersive, authentic clinical experience from the start of their MS1 year. Students will apply knowledge and skills in an authentic clinical environment augmented by classroom and independent learning components. The experience is designed to facilitate professional identity development, as well as the skills and attitudes necessary to care for diverse populations, to provide compassionate, respectful care, and to participate as a member of an integrated healthcare team.Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the EACE planning committee, we have made significant progress, including having clearly articulated objectives for the EACE experience, a list identifying a universal set of skills all students must be able to perform by the end of their EACE experience, and a comprehensive menu of incredible exciting sites. As I think about our current need in the community, our students will play a vital role within our healthcare system while also having a meaningful learning experience. We are currently recruiting for an EACE Director who will oversee this experience for students. Please contact Morgan Fultz (MFultz@mednet.ucla.edu) if you have not received an announcement about this opportunity. Educators for Excellence - I am pleased to see the enthusiastic response to our call for faculty to join the Educators for Excellence--the cadre of DGSOM faculty who will conduct much of the small-group teaching in our current curriculum this year, and will lead the teaching of the Foundations of Practice course beginning in 2021. Thirty faculty members including one director will make up the Educators for Excellence. These faculty have been selected and will be announced very soon. In the coming weeks, they will begin their preparation for the teaching roles they will take on this August. Foundations of Practice - In early March, we invited content experts from a broad set of new fields to develop a curriculum outline for the Foundations of Practice course. Over forty faculty members graciously agreed to support the efforts. I am grateful for their expertise and efforts in assembling our future Foundations of Practice course. As their works finishes, we will then turn to integrating all that into the final version of Foundations of Practice. Finally, my sincere gratitude to all Phase III planning committees who have finalized their committee reports: Foundations of Practice, Foundations of Science, Early Authentic Clinical Experience, Base Camp, Clerkships, Intersessions, and Longtinudinal Clinical Experience. We will begin reconvening planning committees for the following areas over the summer and going through the fall: Evaluation & Assessment, Discovery, & Learner Experience. I look forward to our continued work together. Clarence H. Braddock III, MD, MPH, MACP Professor of Medicine Maxine and Eugene Rosenfeld Chair in Medical Education Vice Dean for Education, DGSOM
Dear Colleagues,
As we continue progress in Phase III of the curriculum redesign process, I am delighted to report that we have made tremendous progress and are on track to beginning our phased implementation of the new curriculum with the entering class of 2020, as well as making superb strides to final complete implementation in August 2021.
Planning Committees Updates
In the last quarter of 2019 Phase III planning committees convened to develop the core objectives and learning activities for the following components of our new curriculum: Base Camp, Foundations of Science, Foundations of Practice, Early Authentic Clinical Experience, Intersession, Clerkships and Longitudinal Clinical Experience. Committees have developed recommended objectives, sub-objectives, and learning activities. The planning committees met on average eight times. All committee were led by committed chairs/co-chairs who have been instrumental in this process. After some of these Planning Committees completed their work in December, we began in January of this year reviewing the committee reports and created the first Provisional Schedule as well as a detailed timeline and process for curriculum development. These key documents are being reviewed by the FEC & MEC. I would like to recognize the dedication and valuable contributions of our Curriculum Redesign Steering Committee, Assistant Deans and staff in our Office of Curricular Affairs, and the many faculty, staff, and students participating in various curriculum redesign activities throughout Phase III. I am deeply grateful for their time and commitment to developing our new curriculum.
As we begin the next phase of planning, we will prioritize developing the curriculum for the Foundations of Practice as well as Early Authentic Clinical Experience, both of which will launch in August 2020. The Provisional schedules will be reviewed by the Planning Committees and by content experts in twenty-two new and emerging areasi to finalize the detailed curriculum.
In the Spring of 2020 we will also continue developing the core objectives and learning activities for the remaining components of the new curriculum: Discovery, Learner Experience, Program Evaluation amp; Assessment, and Faculty Development.
Recruitment for Director, Foundations of Practice
In December we announced the search for a medical education faculty leader to assume the new role of Director, Foundations of Practice. This position will be directly involved in the development of the DGSOM curriculum. We are reviewing all applications and will complete the selection process in the first quarter of this year.
New Ideas – Submission Portal
We launched an idea submission portal in late October to ensure our MD curriculum remains dynamic. The Curriculum Redesign Steering Committee is pleased to continue to accept new ideas for the new curriculum through Phase III & Phase IV of the curriculum redesign efforts. Please visit the curriculum redesign website to contribute your ideas of what should be in the new curriculum.
I look forward to our continued efforts in developing the new MD curriculum.
Regards, Clarence H. Braddock III, MD, MPH, MACP Professor of Medicine Maxine and Eugene Rosenfeld Chair in Medical Education Vice Dean for Education, DGSOM Chief Medical Education Officer, UCLA Health System
We continue to make great progress on our journey; here are a few updates: 1) Implementation timeline for curriculum redesign; 2) Launch of Phase III; 3) Draft competencies for the new curriculum.
New MD Curriculum 2020-21
Phased implementation: In recent weeks we have been in conversations with many stakeholders including leadership of FEC, MEC, Deans, and other school leaders around the implementation timeline for the new curriculum. All have agreed that there is tremendous excitement about the promise of this new curriculum, but there’s a lot more to do and it’s most important that we “get it right.” As such, rather than implementing the entire new curriculum in August 2020, we are planning on a phased implementation. For the class entering in 2020, their curriculum will closely resemble the current curriculum except for the addition of two new components in August 2020: Foundations of Practice and Early Authentic Clinical Experience. The remainder will be implemented in full for students entering in August 2021. We have good momentum at this stage of the planning and all agree that we must maintain the pace to assure that all parts of the new curriculum can be developed and implemented within this phased implementation timeline.
Launch of Curriculum Redesign Phase III
In August, we launched Phase III of the redesign process, with Planning Committees for each of the components of the new curriculum. I would like to thank the committee chairs and members for accepting the invitation to participate in this phase of the redesign, that will define the core objectives and specific content of our new curriculum. I encourage the DGSOM community to interact with committee members to share ideas and learn about the committees’ work.
Draft competencies for the new curriculum
Over the past month, the Deans Office in collaboration with the Curriculum Redesign Steering Committee have been developing a new set of competencies and MD program objectives that better aligned with our “Why” statement and “Guiding Principles.” These nine competencies make up our new DGSOM competencies, and represent a change from the current competencies and MD program objectives. We are continuing to review and refine these competencies and objectives, informed by the ongoing work of our Phase III planning committees.
Regards, Clarence H. Braddock III, MD, MPH, MACPProfessor of MedicineMaxine and Eugene Rosenfeld Chair in Medical EducationVice Dean for Education, DGSOMChief Medical Education Officer, UCLA Health System
As we begin Phase III of our curriculum redesign process, I am delighted to share with you two important work products. These products are a result of on-going collaborations, vibrant discussions, insightful feedback, and significant contributions from the Curriculum Redesign Steering Committee as well as many other groups including Phase II workgroups, the MEC, FEC, MSC, EESG, Deans Council, and many faculty, staff, and students.
Guiding Principles & Philosophy of Teaching – At this year’s MEC retreat attendees were asked to list characteristics of a memorable learning or teaching experience. We collected and analyzed the valuable responses from MEC attendees and found emerging themes in these characteristics that also aligned with findings from our Phase II workgroups. I presented these themes to various groups and through thoughtful feedback we developed five principles that will guide our approach to teaching in the new curriculum:
I. DGSOM reflects UCLA “True Bruin” values and embodies the Cultural North Star. II. DGSOM cultivates a spirit of inquiry and encourages critical thinking. III. DGSOM promotes excellence over competence in learning. IV. DGSOM fosters meaningful partnership and engagement between teacher and learner. V. DGSOM embraces pedagogy that empowers the learner and fosters active learning.
Each of these five principles is further described in sub-bullets which you can review here. These principles will be the lens through which our faculty will create a new curriculum.
Curriculum Schematic – In addition to the philosophy of teaching, the MEC retreat attendees also had an opportunity to sketch their blue skies / greener pastures ideas of what a new DGSOM curriculum schematic might look like. Groups posted their schematics on research boards and a gallery walk ensued with members voting for their favorite structures. Key features across the schematics were: Early authentic clinical experience, flexibility in pathway, ability to customize and differentiate, and integrate basic science with clinical experience. Our new curriculum will have these features, and in Phase III we will be forming Planning Committees to develop the details around these elements. A graphic of the preliminary schematic will be coming soon.
Continued DGSOM Engagement - I continue to engage with members of our community to refine the above mentioned products. In May we held two receptions for department delegates around the emerging content areas. Faculty members contributed refinements to the twenty two emerging areas. In the first week of June we invited students to participate in an evening presentation of the curriculums schematic and guiding principles. I was delighted to see many students in-person and online participate in a vibrant discussion.
Our next steps are to finalize the planning committees and structure for Phase III. We will consider all interest submitted through various events and online forms. As we begin this next phase, I look forward to continuing to engage with the DGSOM community.
As we continue our curriculum redesign efforts, I’m inspired by the continued high level of interest and engagement shown by faculty, staff, and students in the process of creating our new curriculum. The steering committee now stands ready to launch the next phase (Phase III – the How), as we start to sketch out the detailed plan for the overall structure of the curriculum and specifically define the courses and other activities that will be its component parts.
We continue to analyze and validate data to inform the next phase, while also implementing planned curriculum redesign activities for the DGSOM community. The feedback and ideas we have received through these events has been extremely helpful.
MEC Retreat - This year’s annual MEC retreat focused entirely on curriculum redesign, specifically creating a shared “philosophy of teaching,” as well as capturing blue skies thinking on overall structure for the new curriculum. I was delighted to see the vibrant discussion and creative thinking during the meeting. Participants provided valuable input towards the creation of our philosophy of teaching and many promising and creative ideas around curriculum structures. The image on the right represents one of many structures sketched by MEC participants.
Deans Council Meeting – I presented the progress we have made in redesigning our curriculum at the monthly Dean’s Council meeting. Together we reviewed and discussed curricular structures from peer institutions. Some of our department chairs have generously offered to invite their colleagues from peer institution to discuss their programs experience implementing a new curriculum. I look forward to continuing the dialogue.
Department Engagement – To continue engagement with departments I have proposed an activity in April/May for department chairs and assigned delegates to provide further feedback on emerging themes and topics. We will be hosting two evening receptions for department chairs and their appointed delegates to react to poster presentations on the emerging themes and topics from Phase II, offer insights, identify anything that’s missing, and have an opportunity to provide additional ideas.
Finally, student engagement is vital and in the coming weeks I will engage with the Student Leadership Council to brainstorm activities to continue engagement with students as we wrap up Phase II.
We’ve built an incredible foundation for our work. There’s still lots to do, but we have momentum, and the vision of a new curriculum will soon be taking more concrete shape.
Regards,Clarence H. Braddock III, MD, MPH, MACP Professor of Medicine Maxine and Eugene Rosenfeld Chair in Medical Education Vice Dean for Education, DGSOM Chief Medical Education Officer, UCLA Health System
Our redesign continues to move forward with great energy and important, exciting progress. We kicked off 2019 sorting through and distilling the hundreds of great ideas collected in Phase II. These ideas came from the four workgroups, over 400 ideas received through the Request for Ideas (RFI), the traveling poster and more. As we began formally sorting these ideas for themes, five categories emerged: New/Emerging Content, Unique Structures, Desired Outcomes, an explicit Philosophy of Teaching, and the Learner Experience. The “New/Emerging Content” category, for example, includes 22 topics areas, with many more great ideas within the other categories.
On February 11, 2019 we held a Mini-Retreat of all workgroups including the Curriculum Redesign Steering Committee. During the retreat participants engaged in two activities, one structured as a gallery walk to validate and refine these 22 content areas. The second was a World Café format group discussion addressing seven structured questions. I was delighted with and inspired by the active engagement and energy of the retreat participation and the outputs from the retreat. In the weeks ahead, we plan to digest all of the valuable feedback to inform the structure of the work in Phase III.
There will soon be many opportunities for members of our community to get engaged in Phase III. If you would like to participate in Phase III of the curriculum redesign process, please send an email to deanoeducation@mednet.ucla.edu indicating which category or topic area you are interested in.
I look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming MEC retreat on April 1st where we will continue to advance our work around Curriculum Redesign.
