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Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors

BACKGROUND: A handful of medical schools in the U.S. are awarding medical degrees after three years. While the number of three-year pathway programs is slowly increasing there is little data on the opinions of medical education leaders on the need for shortening training. PURPOSE: To survey deans an...

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Autores principales: Cangiarella, Joan, Gillespie, Colleen, Shea, Judy A., Morrison, Gail, Abramson, Steven B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Co-Action Publishing 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4908065/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27301381
http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/meo.v21.31794
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author Cangiarella, Joan
Gillespie, Colleen
Shea, Judy A.
Morrison, Gail
Abramson, Steven B.
author_facet Cangiarella, Joan
Gillespie, Colleen
Shea, Judy A.
Morrison, Gail
Abramson, Steven B.
author_sort Cangiarella, Joan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: A handful of medical schools in the U.S. are awarding medical degrees after three years. While the number of three-year pathway programs is slowly increasing there is little data on the opinions of medical education leaders on the need for shortening training. PURPOSE: To survey deans and program directors (PDs) to understand the current status of 3-year medical degree programs and to elicit perceptions of the need for shortening medical school and the benefits and liabilities of 3-year pathway programs (3YPP). METHODS: Online surveys were emailed to the academic deans of all U.S. medical schools and to a convenience sample of residency and fellowship PDs. Frequency distributions are reported for key survey items and content analysis was used to describe open-ended responses. RESULTS: Of the respondents, 7% have a 3YPP, 4% were developing one, and 35% were considering development. In 2014, 47% of educational deans and 32% of PDs agreed that there may be a need to shorten medical school. From a list of benefits, both deans and PDs agreed that the greatest benefit to a 3YPP was debt reduction (68%). PDs and deans felt reduced readiness for independence, reduced exposure to complementary curricula regarding safety and quality improvement, premature commitment to a specialty, and burnout were all potential liabilities. From a list of concerns, PDs were concerned about depth of clinical exposure, direct patient care experience, ability to assume increased responsibility, level of maturity, and certainty regarding career choice. CONCLUSIONS: Over one-third of medical schools are considering the development of a 3YPP. While there may be benefits for a select group of students, concerns regarding maturity, depth of clinical exposure, and competency must be addressed for these programs to be well received.
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spelling pubmed-49080652016-06-22 Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors Cangiarella, Joan Gillespie, Colleen Shea, Judy A. Morrison, Gail Abramson, Steven B. Med Educ Online Research Article BACKGROUND: A handful of medical schools in the U.S. are awarding medical degrees after three years. While the number of three-year pathway programs is slowly increasing there is little data on the opinions of medical education leaders on the need for shortening training. PURPOSE: To survey deans and program directors (PDs) to understand the current status of 3-year medical degree programs and to elicit perceptions of the need for shortening medical school and the benefits and liabilities of 3-year pathway programs (3YPP). METHODS: Online surveys were emailed to the academic deans of all U.S. medical schools and to a convenience sample of residency and fellowship PDs. Frequency distributions are reported for key survey items and content analysis was used to describe open-ended responses. RESULTS: Of the respondents, 7% have a 3YPP, 4% were developing one, and 35% were considering development. In 2014, 47% of educational deans and 32% of PDs agreed that there may be a need to shorten medical school. From a list of benefits, both deans and PDs agreed that the greatest benefit to a 3YPP was debt reduction (68%). PDs and deans felt reduced readiness for independence, reduced exposure to complementary curricula regarding safety and quality improvement, premature commitment to a specialty, and burnout were all potential liabilities. From a list of concerns, PDs were concerned about depth of clinical exposure, direct patient care experience, ability to assume increased responsibility, level of maturity, and certainty regarding career choice. CONCLUSIONS: Over one-third of medical schools are considering the development of a 3YPP. While there may be benefits for a select group of students, concerns regarding maturity, depth of clinical exposure, and competency must be addressed for these programs to be well received. Co-Action Publishing 2016-06-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4908065/ /pubmed/27301381 http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/meo.v21.31794 Text en © 2016 Joan Cangiarella et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cangiarella, Joan
Gillespie, Colleen
Shea, Judy A.
Morrison, Gail
Abramson, Steven B.
Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
title Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
title_full Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
title_fullStr Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
title_full_unstemmed Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
title_short Accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
title_sort accelerating medical education: a survey of deans and program directors
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4908065/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27301381
http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/meo.v21.31794
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