THE SECOND YEAR CURRICULUM COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
March 30, 2009: 4:00-5:30pm in 133 MacNider
 LCME Internal Review Discussion:
LCME Review Committee: Carol Tresolini, Tom Bacon, Cam Enarson, Lisa Slatt, Daniel Fox

Institutional Competencies/Outcome Objectives: How do you use them to plan 2nd year curriculum and for the
individual courses in regard to content and assessment methodology? (Whether we use them or how we use
them)
 Harder to apply to medical students; easier with residency students.
 System-based practice isn’t feasible for medical students.
 Practice-based learning is hard to judge.
 Communication skills, Professionalism, Medical Knowledge – can get at to some extent
 Clinical practice – can assess very well – as addressed in ICM
 In general, the content is highly referable to the core competencies but it’s difficult to structure the course
around them.

When it comes to the thinking about the 2nd year’s contribution to the curriculum as a whole and the output
contribution as a whole, how do you know whether that overall competencies have been achieved at the end of
the entire curriculum and what role 2nd year had in that?
 The goal is medical knowledge and giving them a springboard to clinical skills.
 We look at Step 1.
 We look at their performance on the examinations that we give them which give us a good feel of their
medical knowledge.
 There is a good deal of communication back-and-forth skills and how well they relate to situations that are
presented, they think on their feet, they think about it, get a consult from one of their colleagues. We bring
patients in and talk about how to approach the patients.
 The other core competencies we barely touch on.

Student Course Evaluations: How do you use them for the development and evaluation for your individual
courses as well as your 2nd year curriculum?
 We read them all but it is difficult when there are no narrative comments; the narrative comments are more
valuable in helping us.
 We have a large set of narrative comments, some of which are more valuable then others. If it gives
constructive criticism that we see that it is justified then we can make an appropriate change.
 We are going to provide a pre-test this year in effort t his year to determine what is accomplished during our
course. We are going to 2 almost identical tests at the very beginning of the course and then again at the end
and to get some measure of what they brought to the course from the 1st year as well as what they learned
during the course.
2. Presentation by WCC Representatives:

Student Representatives gave a presentation outlining the stress levels of the current 2 nd year students. One of
the main themes revolving around their stress is preparation for Step 1. The students also provided a list of
recommendations for the committee to consider alleviating some stress in the future.
.
o
Restructure Clinical Epidemiology to possibly run the course through the entire year. Some faculty felt it
would severely compromise HSS and would require more 1:00-2:00 classes in the fall than the spring.
o
Clinical Medicine Cases to offer Step 1 review. Faculty has offered to offer Step 1 review in the past but
a lot of students wanted to study on their own. The students were asked to provide more information on
what type of tutoring sessions they would prefer and to get back in touch with the committee to work on a
possible plan to accomplish.
o
Eliminate 1 week of community week for ICM. ICM is currently being reworked and the idea of doing
anything with the 2009-2010 calendar year is off the table for discussion.
3. Finalize the 2009-2010 Calendar:

The committee was asked to review the most recent draft of the color calendar for 2009-2010 and provide
feedback as soon as possible if changes are needed.

The 2009-2010 calendar will reflect the update that Clinical Epidemiology is being moved entirely to the fall
semester.
NEXT MEETING
March 31, 2009 from 4:00 – 5:30 in MacNider 133