Next-Generation Medical Education Task Force to Design the Ideal Training for Doctors of the Future

As medicine and the delivery of health care continue to be transformed, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine — already a national leader in innovative education — is taking a global look at transforming the entire medical curriculum.

And Amar R. Deshpande, M.D., who is leading the charge as chair of the Next Generation Medical Education Task Force, says the timing couldn’t be better.

The expansion of the University of Miami Health System footprint to The Lennar Foundation Medical Center and other outpatient facilities will allow for more useful, realistic training for students as the number of patients requiring treatment in a hospital continues to decline. And the imminent construction of a new medical education building — the Miller School of Medicine Center for Medical Education — will go a long way to facilitate the design of the ideal medical curriculum.

“If we’re going to make changes, this is our opportunity,” said Deshpande, who is Assistant Dean for Medical Education and Competency Assessment. “We’re moving into a new place, so let’s design that place not so it’s ready to provide the education we offered in 1975 or 1995, but the education we’re going to provide in 2025 or 2035.”

The medical education task force, which includes faculty from the schools of medicine, nursing and business, along with a medical student and resident, “will review in detail the structure and content of the curriculum, how we assess the students’ competency in critical areas of patient care, and come up with meaningful recommendations for the future,” said Laurence B. Gardner, M.D., interim Dean of the Miller School of Medicine.

The task force was formed as the Miller School prepared for the February reaccreditation visit of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. It is a natural next step for an institution that led the nation in “flipping the classroom,” creating ’Cane Academy to advance active rather than passive learning.

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