The Pritzker School of Medicine has begun such a process of curriculum reevaluation, the Pritzker Initiative: A Curriculum for the 21st Century, as a means of creating a system of education that fully reflects the last ten years of biomedical discovery. The current curriculum offered at Pritzker is among the best in the country, as recognized by the recent awarding of the full eight years of accreditation by the LCME. It is imperative, however, that the intellectual leadership of the institution continue to strive beyond what has become a comfortable level of greatness towards true innovation and excellence.

"We know that our current curriculum is one that does a great job of preparing our students to be physicians in today's medical environment, but as a responsible organization, we should be conducting periodic reassessments of the curriculum,?" says Sandy Cook, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs, ?"But if we want to stay on the cutting edge of medical education, we have to take into account the enormous explosion of advancement and knowledge in the field. We need to make sure our students are in a position to respond to those innovations once they enter the medical community as physicians, researchers and teachers.?"

The initiative began formally on October 19, 2005, with a presentation by Dr. Jordan Cohen, President of the Association of American Medical Colleges and former faculty member at the University of Chicago, who in his remarks identified the challenge of modern medical education as preparing students for the new paradigms of health care while adapting the curriculum to the new paradigms of medical education. The initial planning effort of the Pritzker Initiative to address this very issue will be completed in six months under the guidance of Planning Committee Co-Chairs, Halina Brukner, M.D., Associate Dean for Medical Student Education and Marsha Rosner, Ph.D., Charles B. Huggins Professor and Director of the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research, followed by a one-year long implementation phase involving the broadest representation of faculty from all.

“The Pritzker Initiative has the goal of enhancing our current successful curriculum by rethinking how we can best prepare our students for the challenges of medicine and science in the 21st century,” says Brukner. “In the first phase, we are attempting to define the intellectual domains that define 21st century medicine, and in the subsequent implementation planning phase we will translate those insights into a coherent curricular structure that takes advantage of the integration of basic and clinical science in ways that reflect the new face of medicine. It has been exhilarating to witness the enthusiasm and engagement of the faculty and students in the process so far.”

“This process allows us the opportunity to define what medical education will be at Pritzker for the foreseeable future,” agrees Rosner. “Our challenge is to create a curriculum that will impart to our students the experience and knowledge necessary to be effective physicians, that will integrate recent innovations in medical education, and that will allow our students to most effectively face the challenges of being clinicians, educators and researchers in the 21st century.”

Further information regarding the Pritzker Initiative can be found at

http://pritzker.bsd.uchicago.edu/students/curriculum.html.

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