Harvard Macy Institute broadens impact
for faculty and leaders

For the second year, the National University of Singapore (NUS) Medical School welcomed Tom Aretz, MD and Elizabeth Armstrong, PhD for a professional development course utilizing instructional models developed originally for the programs of the Harvard Macy Institute. The course, held in October, brought together a multidisciplinary group of educators to focus on leading change in educational design.

The program topics included the process of curriculum development, teaching and learning, leading and managing, negotiation, and assessment. Aretz and Armstrong used case studies to create an interactive learning environment, as well as a customized negotiation exercise that helped the participants tackle the issue of problem-based learning. In addition to faculty from NUS, the group also included faculty from NUS-affiliated hospitals, and educators from schools in Malaysia, Thailand, and Fudan.

The five-day program combined elements of the two annual programs offered by the Harvard Macy Institute, one of which focuses on leadership and creating change, the other designed to help health care professionals become better educators. As the Harvard Macy network has expanded, elements of the Institute’s courses have been adapted, customized, and delivered in multiple international locations, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Grand Cayman, India, Japan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

New program offerings on the way
In 2006 the Institute will launch two new programs under the auspices of HMI that address emerging topics in medical education. In May, HMI will team with the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden to deliver a course focused on curriculum development. The program, scheduled for May 7-12 in Stockholm, will bring together faculty from all over the world to discuss strategies for creating innovative curricular models across the continuum of medical education. The program will investigate current and newly developed curricular models, analyze the processes through which curricula are derived, and derive new approaches to leading and managing change in medical education. While examining the current state of the art, the program will largely expand on scenario planning to formulate future models.

HMI and the Karolinska Institutet are assembling an international panel of faculty that will include Aretz and Armstrong, as well as faculty who have been engaged in significant curriculum development efforts within the last five years. Comprehensive information regarding this program is available via the Harvard Macy Institute’s website.

In addition, Armstrong is collaborating with Constance Bowe, MD on a course that will address assessment from three perspectives: student and faculty assessment, curriculum evaluation, and school-wide accreditation. This program is tentatively scheduled for the Fall of 2006.

Year-end recap by the numbers
Armstrong reports that since the Harvard Macy Institute was created in 1994, its annual programs have been attended by 1,188 scholars representing 295 institutions from 45 countries. She added that a growing number of medical schools, such as the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of California (San Francisco), have supported multiple participants in the Institute’s programs for several years. “These institutions have come to rely on our annual offerings as a major form of professional development for their faculty,” said Armstrong.