Empowering future learners through curriculum renewal

Artificial intelligence. Planetary health. A new Canadian standard for LGBTQ2S+ health care. These emerging topics in medical education are just a few of the many that are shaping updates and improvements to the NOSM University MD program.

“We are always looking for ways to make sure our MD program is leading-edge,” says Dr. Tara Baldisera, co-chair of the NOSM University Curriculum Committee. “Integrating the most contemporary approaches to medical education is just the start: we also look for opportunities to make sure our explicit social accountability mandate is at the core of what we do,” adds Dr. Zach Suntres, the committee’s co-chair.

A few notable and recent curricular renewal efforts include: 

• Review of the transition curriculum that supports medical students during key periods as they move into clerkship and residency
• Development and implementation of the first collaborative specializations—Rural Generalist and Indigenous People’s Health and Wellness—in the 2021/22 academic year
• A Virtual Patient Care series including simulations with standardized patients that are run by clinical faculty from our Comprehensive Community Clerkship
  (CCC) sites
• Formal peer-led teaching sessions that bring multiple levels of learners together to practice key clinical skills
• Expansions in nutrition, pharmacology and medical microbiology curricula in year one and two of the MD program and the enhancement of LGBTQ2S+ sessions with student involvement
• The MD program also recently participated in a Family Medicine Undergraduate Peer Consultation offered by the College of Family Physicians of Canada. The report will help inform further renewal efforts.

Curricular exploration, evaluation, and renewal is a vital and ongoing process. The curriculum our students are taught at any given time must be informed by the very latest: what’s happening in society, in health-care innovations and in best education practices. NOSM University is committed to maintaining a culture in which thoughtful, leading-edge and evidence-based curriculum renewal is a universally valued process, and one that never stops.