Showcase Presenter: American Medical Association

Showcase title:

Preparing Students for 21st Century Medical Practice: The AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education Initiative

Presenter Bios:

Susan E. Skochelak, MD, MPH

Group Vice President, Medical Education, American Medical Association

Dr. Susan Skochelak serves as the Group Vice President for Medical Education at the American Medical Association (AMA). She leads the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative promoting innovation to align physician training with the changing needs of our health care system. Since 2013, the AMA has awarded more than $12.5 million dollars in grant funding to 32 medical schools to transform medical education through bold, rigorously evaluated projects to create the medical school of the future.

A nationally recognized authority in medical education, Dr. Skochelak pioneered new models for community based interdisciplinary medical education and initiated new programs in rural, urban, global and public health. Dr. Skochelak previously served as the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and as the director of Wisconsin Area Health Education System. Dr. Skochelak has been the principal investigator for more than $18 million in grant awards for medical education research.

Dr. Skochelak serves as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professions Education, the Liaison Committee for Medical Education Council, the National Board of Medical Examiners Board of Directors, and the Coalition for Physician Accountability. In 2015, Dr. Skochelak was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Richard E. Hawkins, MD, FACP

Vice President, Medical Education Outcomes, American Medical Association

Dr. Richard E. Hawkins joined the American Medical Association (AMA) in December 2012 and serves as vice president for medical education outcomes. In this capacity, he is responsible for providing senior staff leadership and support to the AMA's Council on Medical Education and Academic Physicians Section. He also is actively involved in the AMA's Accelerating Change in Education project, a broad initiative designed to better prepare medical school graduates to practice and learn in an evolving health care environment.

Dr. Hawkins has more than 20 years of experience working on various initiatives to evaluate and improve physician performance, and is co-editor of a textbook on the assessment of clinical competence. Prior to joining the AMA, Dr. Hawkins was senior vice president for professional and scientific affairs at the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). At ABMS, he worked with staff, committees and external stakeholders to help promote the science of ABMS Maintenance of Certification© and certification in the context of advancing physician assessment programs. Prior to assuming his position with ABMS, Dr. Hawkins was vice president for assessment programs at the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) in Philadelphia, where he helped implement the Clinical Skills Examination of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), develop the NBME's assessment of professional behaviors program and enhance the post-licensure assessment system of the NBME and Federation of State Medical Boards. Before joining the NBME, Dr. Hawkins was Assistant Dean and Director of the Simulation Center at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Content Description:

In 2013, the American Medical Association (AMA) awarded $1 million five-year grants to 11 U.S. medical schools as part of the Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative. In 2015, the AMA selected 21 additional medical schools to join the AMA Consortium and continue the spread of innovation. Various themes have emerged in the Consortium such as implementing flexible competency-based pathways, integrating health systems science into medical school curricula, working with technology in novel ways to enhance student learning and assessment, and developing master adaptive learners and advancing interprofessional education (IPE).

Several medical schools in the AMA Consortium are focusing on IPE and team based care, four of which include Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In addition, schools such as University of Michigan Medical School and Penn State College of Medicine are integrating IPE team leaders to educate students on the importance of interprofessional team-based care.

The AMA ACE Consortium is working to define health systems science (HSS) as the ‘third science’ in medical education, equally important to basic and clinical science, and support its meaningful integration in medical education curricula. Each school noted above is individually addressing elements of HSS within their projects. Presenters from the AMA will provide an overview of the consortium schools’ innovative IPE projects within the context of the AMA’s broad initiative to better prepare medical school graduates to succeed in our evolving health care systems.

Learner Objectives:

Learners will understand how the work of the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative is preparing students to succeed in our evolving health care systems
Learners will understand how innovative work in IPE aligns with the broader focus on integrating Health Systems Science into undergraduate medical education curricula
Learners will understand how several medical schools in the AMA Consortium are engaged in innovation in IPE and teambased care