MED Launches New Health Sciences Education Program

The School of Medicine is launching a new Health Sciences Education (HSE) program this fall. Designed to give doctors, nurses, dentists, and other health care professionals the skills they need to become more effective teachers, the program is offered through the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences in collaboration with the School of Education and will grant both a certificate and a master’s degree. It can be completed full-time in one year or part-time over several years.

The Master of Science in Health Sciences Education is a 32-credit degree program with seven core courses, two of them in curriculum design taught at SED. The 16-credit certificate program is designed for students who cannot commit to a full course load. The courses will also be open to other health professionals interested in further study, says HSE program director Jeffrey Markuns (SED’07), a MED assistant professor of family medicine.

Karen Antman, MED dean and provost of the Medical Campus, says the HSE program addresses a pressing need: injecting more teaching expertise into health care settings that are training grounds for practitioners, especially those new to a field, such as medical students.

“It’s great education training and great leadership training,” Antman says. “People who have been trained as physicians or scientists aren’t necessarily trained to be the best educators.” Students in the new program, she says, “are going to be master teachers and are getting the theoretical background. And they are getting the recognition of having a degree.”

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