Michael Schwartz, the Associate Dean for Curriculum, is pleased to enthusiastically welcome Associate Professor Rachel Liu, BAO, MBBCh, to the medical education curricular leadership team. On March 1, 2021, Liu assumed the position of curriculum director for the Advanced Training Period (ATP) in Yale School of Medicine’s (YSM) Office of Curriculum. Liu succeeds Professor Jessica Illuzzi, MD, MS, who held this position since 2008 and has become the new Deputy Dean for Education.

Liu has been a leader in medical education, serving on the Education Policy and Curriculum Committee since 2016 and the Elective Review Committee since 2017. In 2015, Liu helped design and implement the longitudinal student Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) elective and has continued to lead this very successful and popular elective. Liu also has been responsible for the integration of POCUS into the clinical skills course and serves as a Faculty Associate in Educator Development at the YSM Teaching and Learning Center.

The ATP period occupies the final 17 months of the YSM MD curriculum, and is a time for advanced individualized training that includes a required four-week sub-internship, 33 weeks of scheduled research and/or clinical electives, and the Capstone course. Liu is eager to work with students and elective and subinternship directors, leading the review of the elective curriculum and helping students make the most of this final period of training before graduation. Among the initiatives she plans to implement are facilitating the longitudinal continuation of preclinical interests into the elective and subinternship years and enhancing communications among elective faculty and students.