|
Dear colleagues:
As I reflect on my first year as dean, it has been an exciting time. Not only have I had the opportunity to work with incredibly talented colleagues and make new friends, but together we have changed the academic trajectory of the College of Medicine. I had the opportunity to reflect on this recently while preparing my annual report to the Faculty Senate.
Together, we have improved virtually every aspect of our program.
We've welcomed new and returning students to campus this past month- here are some highlights about our incoming classes:
- We admitted our largest class ever (192 students!) with the assistance of our hard-working admissions team.
- Our incoming M1s had the highest mean MCAT score since the most recent MCAT scoring change in 2015. With the support of our new pre-matriculation program, which offers all of our students a chance to “level up” their basic science knowledge before matriculating, these students should be even better prepared to face the rigors of medical school.
- Last year’s M1s performed better on the end-of-the-year formative CBSE exam than the previous year’s class.
- Last year’s M2’s had a much higher final CBSE pass rate with the support of the new AIMS review program and our fast pass track (90% vs. 80% last year).
- In the M3 year, student scores on end-of-rotation shelf exams increased overall, and student ratings of our clerkships, while still leaving room for improvement, were better than in the previous year. We will continue improving M3 performance by adding new regional Zoom-based learning sessions on each clerkship this year.
Thus, each year’s students have surpassed the class before them, which should give us real reasons for optimism that student outcomes will continue to improve as they progress through our improving systems. In addition, the new academic and career counseling system we designed last year has been fully implemented and will further support our students this year. To top it off, members of the COM community continue to be recognized for their excellence, and this newsletter includes a list of some of those recent recognitions.
In my last newsletter communication, I described the pending evaluation of our updated report by the LCME. This went very well. All the elements rated unsatisfactory and the overall standard unsatisfactory rating were all moved to compliant/satisfactory with monitoring. We’ll provide them with another update next summer based on our continued efforts and expect to see them back in Spring 2027 for our regularly scheduled accreditation visit. Congratulations to our entire team, administration, faculty, staff, and students, who have all worked together to change our culture to make this possible.
This year will be critical for COM. We must fulfill our promises to our students and ourselves last year and not lose our momentum for continued improvement. The revised M2 curriculum is being implemented. As I’ve often said, we won’t get it all right, but if we can get 70% correct, that would be a dramatic improvement, and then we need to continue to be open to continued refinement based on data and student feedback. The lessons we learn in refining M2 can also be propagated backward into M1. Meanwhile, our chairs, clerkship directors, and clinical faculty continue to improve the curriculum, outcomes, and student satisfaction in the M3/M4 years. On the research front, we will seek opportunities to enhance our college’s scholarship by supporting our existing faculty and through new hires in the coming year.
So, while I know that everyone is working extraordinarily hard, our efforts have been rewarded by our progress in our shared missions. I hope you all look forward to this new year as much as I am!
| 
