Medical Education: Introduction Edward J. Wing, MD  We a t t h e Wa r r e n Al p e r t Me d i c a l Sc h oo l a r e g r a t e f u l f o r physical diagnosis, history taking, and the physician-patient the opportunity to report on the latest developments in our relationship. We greatly appreciate our clinical faculty in this educational programs. Dr. Phil Gruppuso and his colleagues endeavor. I know what it takes to teach in this setting and what have done a truly outstanding job over the past seven years a financial cost it is. taking the school through curriculum redesign, expansion of The next piece describes the innovative curriculum changes the class, the introduction of a standard route of admission, which have been made and are planned for the future. The final and construction of the first home for the in article describes how we assess the clinical competence of our the Jewelry District. In October we will be undergoing a review fourth year students. The new building allows us to use a state by our accrediting agency, the Liaison Committee on Medi- of the art clinical skills suite to test students through OSCE cal Education (LCME). I am confident that the changes that exams. have been made and the progress of the school will result in a We hope you find the articles informative and we welcome positive review. any comments, suggestions or interest in participating in our In this issue we first highlight Alpert’s class of 2012—their educational programs. residency selections and a comparison with past classes. You can quickly get a sense of the outstanding quality of our students Edward J. Wing, MD, is the Dean of Medicine and Bio- from the data. The following article presents the Doctoring logical Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown Program. This program which places first and second year University. students in physicians’ offices plays an essential role in teaching

The Warren Alpert Medical School of Class of 2012 Philip A. Gruppuso, MD, Eileen Palenchar, and Janice Viticonte  On Ma y 27, 2012, 78 m e n a n d w o m e n dents in this year’s graduating class came 27% of majors were in the humanities received the degree from five different communities in the and 12% in the social sciences. from the Warren Alpert Medical School state: North Providence, Barrington, West The students in the Class of 2012 of Brown University. These new physi- Warwick, Providence and . continued to pursue their diverse in- cians represent the 38th class graduated The remaining students came from across terests during medical school. This the from our institution since 1975. Of the US. third graduating class to complete AMS’ the over 2,800 physician graduates of This was an experientially diverse Scholarly Concentrations Program, an Alpert Medical School (AMS) to date, class at the time of matriculation. The elective program that was established approximately ten percent are currently breakdown of the graduating class by ad- six years ago. It provides students with licensed to practice in . missions route is 64% PLME (the 8-year the opportunity to undertake mentored This represents a substantial contribu- Program in Liberal Medical Education), scholarly work in a variety of cross-disci- tion of the medical school to health 26% standard pre-med and 6% students plinary areas. Twenty-one students par- care in our state. By introducing the from post-baccalaureate programs (two ticipated in and completed the program. graduates of the MD Class of 2012 to from Bryn Mawr, one from Goucher, Their areas of focus were Advocacy and the physician community in our state, and two from Columbia). The remain- Activism (two students), Aging (two), we aim to apprise Rhode Island’s physi- ing three students came to AMS via the Contemplative Studies (one), Disaster cian community of the medical school’s Early Identification Program, Brown- Medicine and Response (one), Global ongoing contribution to health care in Dartmouth and MD-PhD routes. The Health (six), Medical Education (three), Rhode Island. most common undergraduate major Physician as Communicator (three), among the graduates was biology (47%; and Women’s Reproductive Health A Po r t r a i t o f t h e Cl a s s o f inclusive of sub-disciplines such as bio- (three). Of the students who completed 2012 chemistry, , and community the Scholarly Concentrations Program, Of the 78 graduates in this year’s health). Taken together, science majors 15 were from the PLME program, five class, 44 are women and 34 are men. Five (including math, engineering, chemistry were from the standard admission route of our most recent graduates are residents and psychology) accounted for 61% of and one attended a post-baccalaureate of Rhode Island. The Rhode Island stu- all majors. Of the remaining students, program.

308 Medicine & Health/Rhode Island Re s i d e n c y a n d Ca r e e r Ch o i c e s came to AMS via the PLME and premed placements again showed considerable The specialty choices made by admission routes. geographic diversity (Table 3). Twelve of this year’s graduates (Table 1) showed a As has been the case in recent years, our graduates, 15% of the graduating class, proportion choosing primary care dis- our students’ residency placements (Table have stayed on in AMS-affiliated programs. ciplines that was about the same as the 2) again showed many students matching As has been the trend in recent years, many past four years, approximately half of the at highly regarded programs within their of our students entered programs in Mas- graduates. Internal medicine continued chosen specialties. This was reflected in the sachusetts (17), California (12) and New to be the primary career choice among number of students matching at programs York (eight). Of the 78 graduates, six are all disciplines. The proportion of students affiliated with delaying entry into residency to undertake entering family medicine was 9%, about (11) and the University of Pennsylvania additional research or other scholarship. the same percentage as last year. There (three), as well as students who moved on One other aspect of this graduating were no significant differences in career to programs at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, class, its relatively small size, deserves choice when comparing students who Yale and Stanford. Students’ residency comment. Over recent years, the number

Table 1. Specialty Choices for Warren Alpert Medical School Classes of 2005 – 2012

309 Volume 95 No. 10 Oc t o b e r 2012 Table 2. Warren Alpert Medical School MD Class of 2012 Match List (cont.)

310 Medicine & Health/Rhode Island Table 2. Warren Alpert Medical School MD Class of 2012 Match List (cont.)

311 Volume 95 No. 10 Oc t o b e r 2012 Table 2. Warren Alpert Medical School MD Class of 2012 Match List (cont.)

Table 3. Geographic destination for all of matriculants to AMS has increased Disclosure of Financial MD Class of 2012 graduates moving on markedly from 73 in 2005 (the MD Interests to PGY-1 positions. Class of 2009) to 120 students who The authors and/or their spous- began medical school this August as es/significant others have no finan- members of the MD Class of 2016. cial interests to disclose. However, slightly more than a third of the original matriculants in the Co r r e s p o n d e n c e Class of 2012 chose to extend their Philip A. Gruppuso, MD medical education by at least one year. Brown University Ten undertook secondary degrees Box G-M143 (MPH, MEd, PhD). The majority Providence, RI 02912 took advantage of the medical school’s phone: (401) 863-1618 policy to allow time away for “fel- fax: (401) 863-3801 lowship,” which is most often used to pursue research or international work. We feel that this indication of our students’ commitment to their professional and career development bodes well for the contribution they will make to their future patients’ care and to the healthcare system.

Philip A. Gruppuso, MD, is As- sociate Dean for Medical Education and Professor of Pediatrics Janice Viticonte is Medical Resi- dency Program Coordinator Eileen Palenchar is Records and Registration Systems Manager All are with The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University 312 Medicine & Health/Rhode Island