Edu-leaders

Stanford university’s, School of Medicine, one of the top 10 medical schools in the US, has developed a new industry-funded model for the continuing education of physicians that aims to improve patient care while ensuring that corporate donors do not exert influence over the curriculum. “We set out to see if industry would be willing to partner with us to create a high-quality curriculum, under the condition that Stanford faculty would design the curriculum independent of the relationship with industry,” said Robert Jackler, MD, the school’s associate dean for Continuing Medical Education (CME). Under this new model, Stanford will use a new, $3 million, three year grant from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer to design and implement a novel curriculum that uses a variety of advanced technologies and teaching methods, including simulated and immersive learning tools.

The Pfizer grant comes with no conditions, and the company will not be involved in developing the curriculum. The overall goal of the program is to improve patient care and outcomes, with a focus on specific patient-care issues identified by Stanford physicians, said Jackler.

US organisations like the Institute of Medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, have been saying that the way in which CME is currently financed and conducted is fundamentally flawed.