The purpose of this educational development project is to improve medical student clinical training in the social and behavioral sciences (SBS) and to disseminate those advances to the broader medical education community. Based on curricular advances and learner needs identified by our recent NIH K07 curriculum development grant (RFA-OD-05-001), innovative educational interventions will target medical residents and attending faculty physicians who teach and supervise medical students. Partnerships with Stanford and the larger NIH consortium will maximize reach and impact while providing critical leverage for SBS inclusion. Over the five year course of this project, 960 medical students, 250 internal medicine and pediatrics residents, and 100 medical school faculty will receive our curricular interventions. Project innovations include the application of community-based research philosophies and dissemination & implementation science to medical education, the use of evidence-based teaching methods, and the intensive focus on medical residents and faculty within the context of clinical teaching using direct patient care. Project continuation will be ensured through careful linkages with existing, required curricular structures. The goals of this project will be achieved through 4 specific aims: 1) Partnership, 2) SBS Translation, 3) Dissemination, and 4) Assessment. Partnership establishes a collaborative relationship between UCSF and Stanford Schools of Medicine and the larger NIH SBS consortium to facilitate curriculum development and implementation strategies. SBS Translation addresses the common problem of knowledge translation from the more didactic first two years of medical school to clinical practice in third year clerkships. Innovations in SBS clinical education for third year medical students will be primarily driven by meta-cognitive skills instruction and the development and support of both the residents and faculty who teach students. Through local and national consortium relationships, targeted programs for dissemination (Aim 3) will make materials and implementation strategies available to a larger health professions education audience. Competency-based evaluations of learners using standardized patient exams and SBS portfolios (Aim 4) will demonstrate intervention impact and motivate scholarly exports.
Through the specific aims of this proposal, both medical residents and attending faculty physicians will improve their clinical teaching competence to medical students including non-traditional topics such as patient behavior change and cultural competence. More skillful instruction should translate into more skillful providers with the capacity to provide higher quality care to all the patients they serve. Active dissemination efforts will translate and transport both teaching processes and content to a larger health education audience.
