Medical Education Program Highlights The Wake Forest School of Medicine (WFSM) MD curriculum is called Wake Ready! and provides our learners with the knowledge and skills to be ready for the first day of internship/residency, while also setting the stage for their future training and areas of interest. Unique aspects of the curriculum include integrated ultrasound, curricular threads (patient safety, social determinants of health, histopathology, dermatology, radiology, pharmacology), and certificate programs. Curriculum description See Supplemental Digital Appendix 1—Curriculum Snapshot—at https://links.lww.com/ACADMED/A884. Curriculum changes since 2010 Our school has occupied a new state-of-the-art medical education building in July 2016, the Bowman Gray Center for Medical Education. Our class size has incrementally increased since 2010 from around 120 students to its current level of 145 students each year. This facility houses extensive resources in support of active learning; simulation-based instruction; the use of ultrasound in anatomy and physiology instruction; and space for student relaxation, study, and learning communities. Since 2010, our curriculum has undergone significant revision, including a shortening of the preclinical phase to 18 months. Extensive curricular change of the preclinical phase has included completely new courses focused on clinical skills, clinical reasoning, bioethics and humanities, health systems, ultrasound, and epidemiology. Our clinical curriculum has introduced new clerkship experiences in anesthesiology, geriatrics, and palliative care, as well as integrated instruction in health care disparities. We have partnered extensively with learners during the creation and revision of the curriculum, resulting in practical, experience-based instructional methods. The use of standardized patients in simulated clinical experiences has spread throughout our curriculum, including during basic science blocks of instruction, such as in our teaching of bioethics. Student assessment has been extensively revised, with the creation of experience-focused assessment events, with testing outcomes that correlate with future curricular performance. These assessments allow for early identification of students who may require additional instruction before advancing to clinical training. The emphasis on formative assessments is another important feature of the new curriculum. Narrative feedback was given to students during many preclinical courses and throughout the clinical years. Assessment The Undergraduate Medical Education Curriculum Committee (UMECC) reviews and approves the WFSM goals and objectives annually. The framework of WFSM goals and objectives is the Physician Competency Reference Set (PCRS) competencies and the ACGME domains of competence. WFSM has also implemented an assessment system in clinical years to longitudinally follow growth of student’s clinical performance growth. The assessment system not only is based on institutional objectives that aligned with PCRS but also incorporates the AAMC’s Entrustable Professional Activities. The assessment methods now include workplace-based assessments, standardized patient encounters, procedure objective structured clinical examinations, clinical subject matter examinations, oral examinations, and professionalism metrics. See Supplemental Digital Appendix 2—Program Objectives and Assessment Methods—at https://links.lww.com/ACADMED/A884. Curricular Governance The WFSM UMECC, by the authority of the dean, is charged with the oversight of the medical education program leading to the MD degree as a whole. The UMECC is responsible for the overall design, management, integration, evaluation, and enhancement of a coherent and coordinated medical curriculum, in accordance with the mission and vision of the school of medicine, and the accreditation requirements of the LCME. Subcommittees of the UMECC include: The Subcommittee on Preclinical Education: responsible for course content, instructional methods, and student assessment for the preclinical curriculum The Subcommittee on Clinical Education: responsible for course content; instructional methods; and student assessment for the clinical curriculum, including all clerkship, selective, and elective student experiences The Subcommittee on Integration and Transitions in Education: responsible for examining course content, instructional methods, and student assessment to achieve curricular integration needs The Subcommittee on Assessment, Learning, and Teaching: responsible for all aspects of learning, teaching, and assessment in the undergraduate medical education program The Medical Education Operations Subcommittee: responsive to UMECC directives and accreditation needs, including component and program review and continuous quality improvement See Figure 1—UMECC structure.Figure 1: UMECC structure.Education Staff The primary role of the Office of Academic Affairs is undergraduate curriculum planning, assessment, program evaluation, curriculum monitoring, and curriculum management. The Office of Medical Education is led by the associate dean for MD program academic affairs, who leads the teams responsible for delivery, planning, evaluation, and oversight of the curriculum. The office is organized into 4 distinct areas, including: Preclinical education (1 associate dean, 1 assistant dean, 2 support staff) Clinical education (1 associate dean, 2 assistant deans, 3 support staff) Longitudinal curriculum (1 associate dean, 1 assistant dean, 2 support staff) Evaluations and technology (2 directors, 4 support staff) See Figure 2—Educational staff.Figure 2: Educational staff.Faculty Development and Support in Education As part of the structure of support for our WFSM faculty, the Office of Faculty Affairs supports the advancement and success of faculty through a variety of institutional opportunities for all faculty to develop themselves as educators, researchers, clinicians, and an amalgamation of these career paths and tracks that represent the faculty at the school of medicine. This support structure includes a number of programs, including the Educator Certificate Program. Cosponsored with academic affairs, the Educator Certificate Program provides practical training for educators aspiring to develop the knowledge and skills needed to advance their teaching and leadership skills in education. Participant selection involves a competitive application process, which includes release time and funding support from their department chair. Mentoring is a core value and an essential activity at WFSM. One-on-one or team relationships provide an enriching opportunity for both junior faculty (mentee) and senior faculty (mentor). Several departments offer robust mentoring and faculty development opportunities. Institutionally, faculty affairs provide several opportunities in this area, including: During a pilot of the Faculty Mentoring Program, participants (mentors and mentees) received training on how to improve relationships, collaborate, and improve confidence in their roles. The Faculty Development Committee offers an annual Speed Mentoring event for faculty to network with midcareer and senior faculty. The longest-running institutional mentoring program is the WIMS Early Career Women Faculty Mentoring Program. Since 1998, this program has matched early-career women faculty with male and female senior faculty (associate and full professor) mentors. The “FacDev4me” Podcast Series provides brief interview-style episodes on a wide range of topics pertinent to faculty in a health professions education setting. The series is available through RSS feed, on Apple podcasts, or via the podcast web page. A summary outline for each episode is available for download, along with links to resources mentioned. Some of the topics covered include tips for teaching millennials, tips on being a peer reviewer, tips on working with an instructional designer, how to engage multilevel learner groups in the clinical setting, and turning your teaching into scholarship. Four annual scholarships are awarded to attend AAMC conferences: the Early-Career and Mid-Career Women Faculty Leadership Development Seminars, the Mid-Career Minority Faculty Leadership Seminar, and the Minority Faculty Leadership Development Seminar. WFSM seeks to recruit, retain, and promote faculty of the highest caliber. Faculty may be appointed, reappointed, and/or promoted in 1 of 2 separate tracks, the tenure-eligible track or the nontenure-eligible (fixed term) track with the following academic tracks: research scholar track, educator scholar track, clinician scholar track, and clinician expert track. We have recently created a clinical faculty pathway. This pathway is a nontenure-eligible faculty classification for physicians who contribute to the mission of our health system through independent medical practice, teaching, and the recurrent direct supervision of patient care provided by medical students, resident physicians, and other health care learners. The educator scholar track is a nontenure-eligible track for clinical and basic science faculty who spend a majority of their effort and scholarly work in educational activities, including pedagogy, education practice, educational research, and/or education administration. Faculty members on this track are expected to have terminal degrees in their field (e.g., MD, PhD, EdD). Educational scholarship is valued beyond the activities of high-quality teaching generally required of all faculty members. Scholarly expectations include innovative educational models and practices and a high number of scholarly publications in highly regarded journals. The clinician scholar track is a nontenure-eligible track for faculty members who contribute to the clinical mission of the institution and whose scholarly activities and publications directly relate to clinical practice or innovation, clinical research, and/or clinical education. Faculty members on this track have clinical responsibilities, may have extramural grant funding, and have substantial evidence of peer-reviewed publications (or equivalent scholarly dissemination). Innovations related to clinical patient care, clinical research, and/or educational scholarship beyond the high-quality teaching that is required of all faculty members are valued. For promotion, faculty must create a teaching portfolio. This portfolio includes teaching evaluations combined with any supplemental materials they wish to add that highlight their teaching and educational accomplishments. Teaching evaluations or other objective evidence of teaching performance they have received for intramural and extramural presentations and activities are included. It is highly recommended to include evaluations from multiple different learner groups (e.g., medical students, graduate students, resident physicians, fellows, practicing physicians, etc.), particularly for faculty on the clinical faculty pathway. Examples of teaching materials they created and used in their educational activities are included. These may include items such as course syllabi, lecture outlines, small-group cases, and other curricular materials. WFSM also offers the Health Professions Education Institute (HPEI) to support educators, which is a collaborative initiative sponsored by Academic Affairs, Faculty Affairs, and the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Committee. HPEI provides a series of CME activities to help faculty learn contemporary adult education theory and methods to achieve optimal learning outcomes for their trainees. HPEI also contributes to the research mission of the institution. HPEI features a series of programs that provide faculty, staff, and trainees with career development opportunities in medical education. The Lifelong Learning Series includes education grand rounds and education workshops. These events share best practices in health professions education, provide a forum to disseminate educational scholarship, and promote networking and collaboration across the training programs, including the MD Program, Physician Assistant Program, Pharmacy Program, CRNA Program, and nursing education. The education grand rounds are a CME-approved quarterly lecture series designed to disseminate new health professions education information and results of research; provide a forum for discussion of new techniques and approaches to health professions education; and build networks of educators, clinicians, researchers, and trainees across the health system. The education workshops are often spin-offs of education grand rounds topics and provide an opportunity for grand rounds attendees to “continue the conversation” in a more in-depth development opportunity. The half-day Annual Medical Education Conference brings together educators from WFSM’s health professions training programs. Teaching faculty, graduate educators, and course and program directors are invited to submit abstracts for poster and oral abstract platform presentations that showcase medical education research, curricular innovation, and works in progress. These abstracts are peer reviewed and published on the WakeHealth.edu HPEI page. Excellence in Education Scholarship awards are presented to faculty, staff, student, resident, fellow, or other trainees who demonstrate excellence in dissemination of education scholarship.