Medical Education
Our mission is to elevate healthcare by training the next generation of health professionals to meet the needs of diverse patient populations, while successfully navigating the ever-changing medical landscape. As family physicians centered in our community, we are guided by the principles of inclusivity and collaborative care, and we understand the critical role various social determinants have on the overall health of our patients. Our teaching and research reflects this understanding, as we train our medical students to bring their learning and advocacy skills into practice, so they may provide person-centered healthcare throughout their professional careers, regardless of their chosen specialty.
Medical education research is focused on deepening the knowledge of innovative curriculum design, implementation, and practice in the clinical learning environment. Our family medicine faculty support education across all four years of the medical school curriculum at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, in medical school administration, curriculum development and as course directors.
Research areas include:
- Integrating comprehensive education about sexual and gender identity into clinical skills training.
- Implementation of group observed structured clinical examination (OSCE) in family medicine clerkship.
- Training future healthcare providers to best address substance use disorders.
- Assessing the impact of a pre-clerkship health equity curriculum that teaches medical students about physicians’ role in recognizing and addressing the inequities and injustices that contribute to health disparities.
- Sexual history-taking curriculum that recognizes the diversity in sexual practices and health beliefs.
- Assessing the impact of a longitudinal curriculum that emphasizes teamwork skills and interprofessional collaboration.
- Assessment of student-led, patient-centered health counseling on health outcomes and student knowledge, comfort and empathy when working with patients with chronic conditions.
- Impact of an Interprofessional education and clinical practice curriculum in the ambulatory clinical learning environment on patient health and student learning outcomes.
- Family medicine clerkship curriculum teaching perinatal and child health, including topics on contraceptive coercion, reproductive justice and breastfeeding.
- Evaluation of medical student experience after participation in an innovative maternal-child health mobile healthcare clinic.