Dear Colleagues,

We have now completed the second year of implementing the revised curriculum approved in May 2001. I would like to thank those of you who have devoted time to establishing the revised curriculum over the past year, and all of you who teach and mentor our medical students. I’d like to give you an update of what we have accomplished so far, and mention the activities and goals for the 2003-04 academic year.

The new curricular management structure is working effectively. We would not have achieved this success without the curriculum committees acting as vehicles for discussion and innovation.

Several important changes have been implemented, including restructuring the anatomy course in the Autumn Quarter, instituting the required continuity curriculum and preceptorship for first-year students, and adding a clinical skills examination at the end of the second year. In addition, the new clinical requirements are at various stages of being either implemented or piloted. These include a required neurology clerkship, a restructured chronic-care clerkship, a four-week surgical requirement, a clinical skills examination at the end of the third year, and a fourth-year capstone course.

The Colleges have been formed and named after natural wonders of the WWAMI region: Big Sky, Denali, Rainier, Snake River, and Wind River. The College faculty members are teaching the revamped Introduction to Clinical Medicine II (ICM II) course and are mentoring first-, second- and third-year students. As planned in the curriculum review, the first two years of the four-year, integrated, developmental curriculum in clinical skills and professionalism are in place and continue to be refined.

Feedback tools, based on benchmarks in the clinical domains, have been designed for first-year students in the Introduction to Clinical Medicine I (ICM I) series. Benchmarks, curricula, and feedback mechanisms for the clinical skills and professionalism domains have been created for second-year students in ICM II. College faculty members have begun to interact with basic science course chairs to put together case-based materials.

The next step is to carry the integrated curriculum into the third and fourth years. We are fortunate to have received a grant offered through the Association of American Medical Colleges and the New York Academy of Medicine and funded by the Macy Foundation. This grant activity focuses on the essentials of clinical skills training in the third and fourth years of medical school. Challenges and difficulties in clinical training during the latter half of medical school have become a national concern in medical education. The grant gives the Colleges the resources to design benchmarks, curricula, skills observation, and evaluations in clinical training. The College faculty members are available to assist the clinical clerkship coordinators in developing and incorporating these efforts into the clinical curriculum. I am confident that we can provide national leadership through our efforts in this area.

I want to thank you, the faculty, again for your dedication to medical education. To our students, I would like to express my strong interest in fostering your learning through the revised curriculum and my gratitude for your comments and suggestions. I look forward to continued success in the next year of implementation.


Paul G. Ramsey, M.D.
Vice President for Medical Affairs and
Dean of the School of Medicine
University of Washington