Morehouse School of Medicine

This grant application outlines Morehouse School of Medicine's strategic plan for the period of October 1, 2007, through September 30, 2012, under the Title III, Part B, Historically Black Graduate Institutions Program. The plan details strategic goals and objectives across eight focus areas: Educational Excellence, Research Excellence, Operations Excellence, Patient Care, Employee Satisfaction, Financial Excellence, Development, and Community Service. It aims to strengthen educational programs, student services, institutional advancement, and administrative management.

This document details the development and implementation of an integrated first-year medical school curriculum at MSM. The plan focused on addressing LCME compliance and student concerns by reducing lecture and exam times, combining courses like Biochemistry and Human Morphology, and reorganizing content by organ systems. Key outcomes included a significant reduction in scheduled contact hours and improved cross-disciplinary understanding, aiming to enhance learning efficiency and student well-being.

The consolidated meeting minutes cover discussions across several dates regarding curriculum revisions, scheduling, and administrative updates. Key curriculum topics included the review and approval of syllabi for Biomedical Genetics and Biomedical Genetics lab, and planning for the review of the Fundamentals of Professional Science (FPS) course. Discussions focused on major proposed revisions to the First Year Graduate Curriculum, including making each Core Course one semester long with two courses running concurrently, combining the Cells & Tissue Course and Organ Systems Courses, and developing an Integrated Biomedical Sciences Course. Scheduling updates involved finalizing schedules for the first module of 2010-2011, assigning temporary leadership for the Organs and Systems course, and proposing the addition of the Research Data Analysis course as parts 2 and 3 of FPS. Administrative items included updates on the compilation of Qualifying Exam Part I grades, proposed changes to committee membership, and updates regarding the MSCR certificate program approval, SACS self-study results, Teaching Lab renovation plans, and a recommended amendment to the Qualifying Exam grading policy (which was approved in part for the June 2010 exam).

The committee reviewed several required courses, offering suggestions for the Community Health Course, noting concerns about faculty and patient availability for Fundamentals of Medicine 2, and requesting minor adjustments for Basic Principles. For Organ Systems I, II, and III, the committee recommended recruiting additional instructors for labs, obtaining timely student evaluations, developing an integrated review structure for struggling students, and recruiting more faculty due to class size expansion. Four new elective courses were approved: Law and Medicine, Advanced Gynecology and Obstetrics, General Gynecology and Uro-gynecology, and Subinternship in Obstetrics. Existing electives, including Medical Acupuncture, Maternal-Child Health, Research elective, and International Health Elective, were re-approved with modifications or additions regarding duration and requirements. New policies discussed included charging a subcommittee with modernizing the 3rd-year MD curriculum, addressing student feedback on the need for specific rotations (radiology, emergency medicine, neurology), beginning discussions on adjusting clerkship time allotment, and reviewing student professionalism issues related to examinations and online networking. The committee also monitored the merger of the Rural Health Clerkship into Family Medicine, observing positive preliminary results.

The meeting addressed several new course proposals, including Principles of Drug Action, Bioinformatic Analysis of Methylation Profiling Data, and Population Genetics. The committee discussed the need to review elective course offerings due to a recent lack of availability in the fall semester and the necessity of establishing minimum enrollment criteria for electives. Core course reviews included FPS courses, which will be restructured with ongoing curriculum revisions. Old business covered updates on the Graduate Core Curriculum revision plan, including pending meetings with various research groups and faculty, and an agreement to allow PhD students who completed a research-based Master of Science thesis to potentially complete only one lab rotation on a case-by-case basis. Student concerns included the request for the GSA to prepare an Honor Code and a suggestion for a writing workshop for second and third-year students.