Brody students help transform medical education
Faculty at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine have made national news in recent months because of their contributions toward transforming medical education around high quality, team-based, patient-centered care. Brody’s innovative curriculum is what led the American Medical Association in 2013 to award the school $1 million to help lead their national Accelerating Change in Medical Education (ACME) initiative.
Now Brody students are getting noticed for doing their part too. Several recently traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to attend the AMA’s student-led ACME consortium, which brought together medical students from across the country to address key challenges in medical education.
Brody students presented several posters on topics ranging from second-year curriculum optimization to student-led implementation of tablet use in the clinical education setting.
Students attend the AMA conference. (Contributed photo)
“As one of the smaller schools represented at the conference, the imprint our students had on the conference was quite impressive,” said Dr. Jill Sutton, a clinical Ob/Gyn professor at ECU and the group’s faculty representative at the event.
Third-year student Zach Frabitore gave an oral presentation about developing and implementing interdisciplinary mock disaster exercises like the ones Brody students held the past two years. Frabitore said his presentation resonated with other students, and many approached him throughout the day to discuss it further.
“I think we left the conference having made a very clear and loud statement about our student body at Brody,” said Frabitore. “We were able to articulate the commitment to student leadership and intimate faculty-student relationships that encourage innovation at our home institution.
“Many students were [surprised] when we spoke about how we could pick up the phone and make personal calls to our faculty to discuss project ideas and receive advice from mentors who knew us on a personal level.”
“The school’s commitment to student participation in curricular governance and feedback that informs future decisions is a high value for Brody,” said Dr. Elizabeth Baxley, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. “The enhanced opportunities we have had in recent years to invest more substantially in student leadership development and to more formalize their contributions to educational and clinical scholarship are already paying off – for the students and the institution. Additionally, it has increased Brody’s national reputation and brought attention to the great work that has been happening here for many years. Everyone wins in that scenario!”
For more information about Brody’s involvement in the AMA initiative to transform medical education visit ecu.edu/cs-dhs/medicaleducation/reach/.
-by Angela Todd, University Communication