University of Virginia School of
Medicine
Curriculum Committee
Minutes 02.17.00
Pediatric Pathology Conference Room, 4:00 p.m.
Present (underlined) were: Reid Adams, Robert
Bloodgood, Anita Clayton, Al Connors, Gene Corbett, Joanna
Goldberg, Donald Innes (Chair), Steven Meixel, Jerry
Short, Bill Wilson, Robb Williams (Mark Mikkelsen),
Debra Reed
- A proposed schedule for first year 2000-01 was distributed to
the committee. Meetings will be arranged with the first year course
directors for both spring and fall 2000-01 to finalize the
schedule.
- The committee discussed a request by Dr. Hinton that Anatomy Labs
be moved to the afternoons on Wednesday and Friday.
Dr. Hinton is concerned about the well-being of the students and
faculty. He believes it is not appropriate to have only a one hour
period between gross anatomy and another class. This might occur for
the 6 MSTP students and the graduate cell course on Friday afternoon.
He feels students need to go home, shower, eat and return before taking
on another class. Likewise, faculty need to shower etc to continue for
the rest of the day. He notes that some faculty teach in gross anatomy
and in the first year graduate courses and that dissecting the human
body is very tiring for both students and faculty. >From his own
experience and from speaking with students, he does not believe that we
will provide an optimal learning environment in the afternoons if the
students are tired. Likewise, for faculty, it is not fair to expect the
faculty to pursue their research program, teach other courses, go to
committee meetings etc when they are also tired.
It was generally agreed that Friday classes should definitely be
morning as for 134/140 the last scheduled class time will be anatomy,
finishing at noon. The future Exploratory is better placed in the pm
for scheduling purposes (meeting with clinicians, laboratory
experiments) and this year showering is not an issue as all students
will have their last scheduled class (anatomy) finishing at noon on
Wednesday. Also with the consistent mandatory mid-day break - it's good
to have a solid end to the anatomy labs as OSHA regulations limit
laboratory time to 2 hours. Consistency of 8:00 start time for both
first and second years create good habits for the third year and
beyond. There are some facilities for showering in Davis 5 and in the
OR for the MSTP students who have class later in the day and for
faculty -although certainly not enough for the whole class.
The committee weighed the pros and cons of morning versus afternoon
anatomy sessions and after much discussion felt that it was in the
best interest of the majority of students and of the long term
curriculum issues that morning classes should be the policy.
It was noted that surgical correlations in anatomy should be more
"generalizable" with topics of interest to all physicians. Appropriate
topics might consist of putting in central lines, performing spinal
taps, etc and placing emphasis on anatomic imaging. The reduction in
the number of hours allotted to Anatomy was discussed and felt to be
appropriate while meeting the goals of our educational program.
- The committee discussed the scheduling of exams for next
year. In the proposed schedule for 2000-01 distributed to the committee
today, the exam schedule has been worked out for Anatomy to have an
exam on Monday morning of week 6 and Monday morning of week 11. The
rest of the exam schedule is very similar to the 1999-2000 schedule. An
alternative evaluation plan was discussed. It has been suggested that
exams be scheduled weekly or biweekly for the majority (60-70%) of the
students grade, with a final cumulative exam worth 30-40% of the final
grade. This schedule for exams would take no more time from the
schedule than is devoted to exams currently. This proposal will be
discussed at greater length at a subsequent meeting.
-Don Innes
DMR
|
