Teamwork and Interdisciplinary Training Emphasized at Mayo Clinic National Symposium on Medical and Health Care Education Reform

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Teamwork and interdisciplinary training among medical, nursing and allied health students emerged as a unifying theme at the Mayo Clinic National Symposium on Medical and Health Care Education Reform, April 27-28 at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Nearly 200 national leaders in medical and health care education gathered to discuss ideas and reach consensus on priorities for reforming the education system to support comprehensive, patient-centered health care reform.

Through a consensus-driven process, those attending identified top priorities for health care and medical education reform to support overall patient-centered health care reform. Creating transparency of educational costs across health care professions, compressing and consolidating the curriculum for medical school and other health professions, and introducing team-based and reality-based standards and training experiences were identified as top priorities.

"The participants provided insightful perspectives on the barriers and possibilities for medical and health care education reform," says Terrence Cascino, M.D., executive dean for education, College of Medicine at Mayo Clinic. "There is much work to be done, but I'm optimistic we've made an excellent start at developing a new model for educating a work force that will be team-oriented and focused on the well-being of patients."

Participants discussed a variety of topics including licensure, accreditation and certification; realigning training systems; continuing education for health professionals; and financing health care education. Top recommendations include changing how students are selected and assessed; working in teams early in the education process; developing support mechanisms for team-based and point-of-care learning; and creating incentives for lifelong learning.

In closing the symposium, Denis Cortese, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic, emphasized that everything from education to care delivery should be built around the needs of the patient. "What we accomplished today is the beginning of a shared vision for what medical and health care education should be," said Dr. Cortese. "Once we have the shared vision, we can develop a shared reality — identify where we are and where we want to be — and then begin to work on getting there."

Summaries and archived Web casts of each symposium session can be viewed online.

MD Connector Student Competition
MD Connector, a student-run Web site for pre-medical and medical students, and the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center cosponsored a competition for health care profession students designed to engage them in proposing innovative changes to medical and health care education. More than 120 essays were submitted on the question "In order to create a health care workforce equipped to provide a high-value team approach to coordinated, patient-centered health care, what is the most important change required of the health care education system?"

Three finalists presented their entries at the symposium and participants selected the winner of the competition. Claire Fung, M.D./M.P.H., candidate and Jessica Schumer, M.D., candidate from Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, took the top prize. Fung and Schumer recommend that traditional medical education be built upon a foundation of longitudinal primary care and community health. In addition, they suggest that formal medical students be exposed to topics such as public health, patient-centered care, prevention, and advocacy/policy. Finally, they recommend reinforcement of their focus through a required, longitudinal community health project.

Finalist and semi-finalist essays can be viewed online.

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Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy of "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,700 physicians, scientists and researchers, and 50,100 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has campuses in Rochester, Minn; Jacksonville, Fla; and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz.; and community-based providers in more than 70 locations in southern Minnesota., western Wisconsin and northeast Iowa. These locations treat more than half a million people each year. To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. For information about research and education, visit www.mayo.edu. MayoClinic.com (www.mayoclinic.com) is available as a resource for your health stories.