Student Innovators Of MedEd

Winners were announced recently at the first meeting of the newly expanded AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, which includes participants from 32 of the nation’s medical schools. From physician burnout to data sharing, ambitions of winning this year’s AMA’s Medical Education Innovation Challenge produced nearly 150 eye-popping top student submissions to address common physician problems, making the choice of picking a winner challenging and exciting.

Here are the four winning innovations from student teams:

1ST PLACE WINNER

Designers Amol Utrankar and Jared Shenson of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine developed ‘Muse’, an open national exchange for the advancement of medical education. ‘Muse’ explores the benefits and possibilities of an innovative open source solution to accelerate and synonymize curriculum development among all educators and students for a more collaborative, evenly distributed and adaptive medical learning environment vs the the current model, which “moves at an incremental pace and often remains siloed within institutions“ as described by Utankar. See how ‘Muse’ works in their innovative presentation at this year’s consortium.

2ND PLACE WINNER

“Design-thinking, making and innovating: Fresh tools for the physician’s toolbox” developed by 2nd year Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University medical students Mark Mallozzi, Ludwig Koeneke, Tim Bober and Lorenzo Albala empowers students to understand their own problems and develop their own solutions through design and making skills. They really push the envelope seeking a new pre-clinical curriculum that incorporates skills centered around computer science, textiles and medical materials, and rapid prototyping technologies. They believe if students foster these skills early, they will be better equipped to innovate and impact the future of healthcare. Watch their fascinating presentation.

3RD PLACE WINNER A (tie)

Students from the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Anish Deshmukh, Matt Neal, Melinda Ruberg and Katherine Yared, created “Happy healers, healthy humans: A wellness curricular model as a means of effecting cultural change, reducing burnout and improving patient outcomes”, a model that promotes self-awareness, communication and empathy for improved doctor-patient relationships. Watch their compelling breakdown of the problem and the solution they hope to be a significant driving force in a much needed global cultural shift among medical students, faculty, and staff.

3RD PLACE WINNER B (tie)

Nicole Paprocki and Carol Platt, students from Midwestern University/Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine contend that an unshakable understanding of patients’ cultural, socioeconomic and environmental atmosphere will enhance the value and context of the doctor-patient relationship. “It is important that we train a new generation of culturally responsive physicians,” Platt said. Their model, “Community and classroom approaches to cultural competency and health equity” propose that medical schools develop a four-year, service-learning curriculum to address healthcare disparities. Exposure to local underserved communities intend to support a curricular foundation for building deeper understandings of social determinants of health and better equip them with the tools to apply this perspective to their medical practice. They quickly cover the key take-aways of their model in this short video.

Learn more about the winning proposals and explore the ideas from all participants.