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  Physician Executive Leadership: Assessing a Student-Led Approach to Healthcare Leadership Education in Medical School

  Jessica W. Downing; Anuh Shah; Ronuk M. Modi; Jonathan S. Gordon; Lauren E. Grunenwald, MS; and J J. Veloski, MS

  Poster presented at: 14th Annual AMA Research Symposium in Orlando, Fl

  Objective:

  To investigate the effectiveness of Physican Leadership, an open access, student-led healthcare leadership program at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, in preparing to face five key emerging topics in medical practice: healthcare economics, health policy, care and quality and safety, law and medicine, and patient experience.

  The Problem: Gaps in Medical Education

  Healthcare in the US continues to evolve, and topics such as health policy, health finance, and patient experience are not central to the practice of medicine.

  However, the sheer volume of material students are required to learn in the preclinical years makes it challenging to introduce new subjects into traditional medical school curricula. As a result, these topics in healthcare leadership are often left out. Indeed, only 40-50% of medical student report appropriate training in the "practice" of medicine, including subjects as medical economics, healthcare systems, and managed care.

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  Physician Executive Leadership: Student-Led Curriculum to Fill Gaps in Traditional Medical Education

  Anuj Shah; Ronuk Modi; Jessica Downing; Angela Ugorets; Kathryn Linder; Michael Jacobs; Graham Hale; Jeffrey Fitch; Nicholas Kurtzman; and Paul Rosen, MD

  Students at Sidney Kimmel Medical College (SKMC) have identified a gap in the traditional medical curriculum surrounding topics such as telehealth, the patient experience, health policy, medical malpractice, and health care entrepreneurship and innovation, and in response have initiated a student-centered, student-led, student-driven program called Physician Executive Leadership (PEL). PEL provides students with a variety of avenues to engage with these topics, such as lectures from leaders in each of these fields, easy access to weekly news articles on current events in health care, targeted review sessions on the US health care system, and the opportunity to voice and develop ideas through an online publication.

  To identify the gaps in medical education PEL is best suited to fill, we administered a survey to 174 students at Sidney Kimmel Medical College.The survey contained 20 multiple-choice questions to assess general knowledge on health insurance and reimbursement, health care policy and reform, and care quality and patient experience. It also included a subjective self-assessment of students’ understanding of and interest in these topics. Overall, we found that although the traditional medical school curriculum improved students' understanding of these topics from year to year, it is not sufficient on it's own: on average, students failed to achieve a passing score of 70% in any of the categories tested. Further illustrating the importance of this program, students self-identified a gap between their current level of understanding and what they want to know.

  Please visit our website www.physicianexecutiveleadership.com to learn more!