Recent Travels

A few days ago in Boston, the Lucian Leape Institute of the National Patient Safety Foundation hosted an amazing meeting. This invitation only affair brought together most of the key stakeholders with a deep interest in changing how undergraduate medical education approaches the key topics of quality and safety. Among the guests were the leaders from AHRQ, NPSF, ABMS, ACGME, ABIM, and a host of others. I was proud to be one of the authors of the three submitted position papers that helped to guide and stimulate the discussion. As you might imagine, this group had a raucous conversation and a professional facilitator kept it very well on track. The bottom line, there is a lot of work to do in an attempt to really change some of the tightest cultural beliefs in medical education. We must get to students as early as possible in the spectrum of training, even years one and two in medical school. We need a curriculum and we need better informed faculty on these issues too. I am hopeful that our new Jefferson School of Health Policy and Population Health will be a key step in the right direction here. I am confident that we could help to produce just the sort of leaders that the stakeholders at this meeting called for. I really admire Lucian Leape, Dennis O'Leary and Don Berwick----the three nationally prominent hosts of this meeting as they attempt to transform medical education. What do you think we need to do in order to transform medical education for the future?? Clearly a key question!!! Thanks for your continued support, DAVID NASH