MD Curriculum Redesign Update

Yale School of Medicine is launching a redesigned MD curriculum this summer.

The new curriculum will support a learner-centered and flexible teaching model composed of well-organized, integrated, and engaging learning activities with ample opportunities for students to measure their progress in attaining the nine YSM MD program competencies.

“The MD curriculum redesign is well aligned with the Yale system,” says Jeremy Moeller, MD, MSc, associate dean for MD curriculum.

“Our new framework will more closely embrace the Yale philosophy. Yale has championed the principles of competency-based education for over 100 years, and our plan is to modernize the MD curriculum in a way that both respects the Yale system and enables students and faculty to adapt to a dramatically changing landscape in both education and clinical practice.”

Instead of back-to-back lectures, which have low engagement, courses will be broken into meaningful learning units with measurable goals informed by the educational program objectives and milestones.

Learning units will follow a predictable but flexible sequence and will be designed to stimulate curiosity, challenge understanding, and spark meaningful scientific inquiry. Faculty will be repositioned as mentors and facilitators in more interactive learning sessions.

“Medical education should be so much more than a content delivery mechanism,” says Moeller. “The redesign will focus on creating educational experiences that challenge students to develop methods to engage with new information and cultivate a passion for discovery and professional growth.”

Each learning unit will start with activities that get students primed and ready to learn. Examples may range from a class interview with a patient to a captivating panel discussion or group activity about a relevant public health challenge.

Getting ready to learn will be followed by sessions in which students encounter new material, engage in critical thinking, and practice applying this content. Sessions will cover fundamental concepts and core conditions across the scientific and clinical disciplines.

Learning units will conclude with opportunities for review, consolidation, and formative assessment which will embrace modalities such as gamification and one-on-one clinical reasoning consultations with faculty and others to help solidify neurocognitive connections and long-term learning and retention.

A new, comprehensive curricular map will tag all objectives, learning activities, and assessments by relevant competency and scientific or clinical discipline, making it possible to evaluate whether content is being taught at the right depth, in the right sequence, and with adequate integration across courses.

“The curriculum redesign embraces the Yale system in that it is focused on empowering our learners to develop the knowledge and skills they will need to care for patients and advance human health as physicians,” says Jessica Illuzzi, MD, MHS, deputy dean for education.

The new curriculum will prepare students to become well-rounded, expert clinicians and physician scientists equipped with the clinical reasoning, critical thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, communication, and life-long learning skills required to thrive and excel in an ever-changing health care landscape invigorated by new discoveries and technologies.

For Illuzzi, this is an exciting time. “Our strategic plan from 2022 is infused with a commitment to engage our students in new ways and equip them with tools to measure their own progress in developing the knowledge and skills needed to become outstanding physicians and future leaders in medicine. With technology and information evolving every day, it is an exciting time for both our faculty and students.”