MED-NET Conference 1997. Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Proceedings 3.1.

Report of the reference group on curriculum innovation

G. Majoor (Maastricht, The Netherlands), C. Creusy (Lille, France), S. Curtoni (Torino, Italy; President of AMSE) and N. Lameire (Gent, Belgium)

Introduction

The last decades have witnessed a growing interest in the reform of undergraduate medical education. New views on the desirable objectives of undergraduate medical education, recent changes in the context of medical practice, and anticipated developments in health care in the 21st century may have contributed to the consideration of change in medical education (see also Albano & Majoor elsewhere in this volume).

At its inception, MED-NET merged with MedEd-21 Forum, a Socrates thematic network of medical schools designed to promote exchange of information on and mutual assistance with the implementation of innovations in medical education. However, the MED-NET Reference group on Curriculum innovation felt that within the broader membership of MED-NET the primary emphasis should be on the collection of information on recent changes in undergraduate medical education at European schools.

Every year a growing number of papers on medical education is published in international journals and in national journals or newsletters either exclusively addressing medical education or broader targets like health professions education and higher education in general. Although thanks to these publications professionals in the area of medical education are well aware of new developments in medical education, this usually does not apply to all teaching faculty in medical schools. Furthermore, even the 'medical pedagogists' are not always aware of how many schools are actually using or implementing new approaches to medical education. Therefore, the primary aim of MED-NET in the area of curriculum innovation is to inventorise the types of changes which were introduced in medical education over the past five years or planned to be implemented in the near future; and to get an impression of the number of medical faculties (within MED-NET) introducing these innovations. Next, information on a selected sample of innovations in medical education and student assessment will be spread as widely as possible among the faculties of the MED-NET member institutions. The long-term goal of this activity is to initiate discussions about these examples among medical faculties to stimulate them to consider introduction of innovations in their educational approaches.

Inventory of changes: project design

Briefly stated, the project will start with a short questionnaire to be distributed among the participants of the first MED-NET Conference in Rotterdam on 1-3 May, 1997 and mailed to those MED-NET member institutions not represented at that meeting. Following a suggestion made at the Rotterdam workshop on Curriculum Innovation an overview of the responses in a standardised, impersonalised format will be made accessible to the MED-NET membership, preferably via the Internet.

Furthermore, based on the information collected from that questionnaire, the Reference group will select 10-15 examples for more in-depth description. To that aim, junior investigators will visit each of the selected institutions for a few days to collect information pertaining to the innovations implemented or planned. Their reports will constitute the core chapters of a MED-NET Monograph on curriculum innovation in Europe. These chapters will be summarised in a template and presented in the Internet to provide the starting point for a database on changes in medical education in Europe. Other schools will be encouraged to also enter and regularly update their curricular changes.
Below, the elements of this proposal have been worked out in some more detail.

The questionnaire

Essentially, the questionnaire poses the question whether a faculty recently implemented changes in medical education and student assessment, whether it is in the process of implementing changes, or whether changes are being planned. If applicable, the respondent is requested to briefly specify t

hose changes. It may be noted that in this fashion the definition of "innovation" is left to the (representatives of the) MED-NET member institutions.

Because it is felt that schools, implementing changes, will be glad to report on their activities and to share their experiences, no attempts will be made to increase the response rate. Thus, it is entirely up to (representatives of) each school whether the questionnaire is submitted or not.

Initially, the questionnaire will only be distributed among medical faculties within MED-NET. However, respondents may suggest inclusion of non-MED-NET faculties in this survey if they are aware of interesting innovations being developed at those institutions.

As stated before, as soon as available via the Internet an overview of the responses will be presented to the MED-NET membership.

In-depth studies

Based on the data from the questionnaire, 10-15 institutions will be selected for further study. The report on the workshop on Curriculum Innovation held at the MED-NET conference in Rotterdam elsewhere in this volume, elaborates on the selection process.

Next, some 5-8 junior investigators will be invited each to pay three-day visits to two of the selected schools. Obviously, the investigators should not be inhibited by language barriers. The assignment of the investigators will be to produce a comprehensive description of the innovation(s) introduced at that institution and which had prompted its selection. The investigators will be encouraged also to collect views and comments from the leadership, faculty and students of the institution.

Monograph production

The reports produced by the investigators will be reviewed and - if necessary - edited by the MED-NET reference group. This version will be returned to the schools for review. Comments by the institution will be digested to yield the final version of the chapter. Depending on the timing of the 1998 MED-NET meeting a preliminary presentation on the findings may be given at that occasion.

The Reference group will add a chapter with its general impression on the types of changes in medical education in Europe. Furthermore, if deemed relevant, the group may separately add comments to some of the individual chapters.

Towards a database

Under the MED-NET WWW home page a site will be created to present summaries of the chapters of the monograph. To cope with information overload, a template will be designed to which the core information on any innovation at each institution should fit. The templates for the selected institutions will be filled in consultation with the pertinent institutions. This format should enable selected schools to regularly update their information with respect to changes in medical education.

Using all communication formats operative within MED-NET, other medical schools will be encouraged also to add information on their most recent and substantive change in medical education and student assessment. A schedule will be made operative to e.g. annually remind schools represented in the database to review their information and to update it if appropriate.

Project planning

The planning of the project follows the description of the activities given above.

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