Building a socially accountable medical school: A layered analysis of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine

Background

If medicine fundamentally exists to care for the wellbeing of individuals and societies, there should be a direct and comprehensive link between a medical school's social mission and its educational programme. We have not found a description of development or reform that utilises social mission to guide the comprehensive development of the educational programme. As a new school, we utilised a systematic mission-driven approach to develop the curriculum, pedagogical methods and structure of the programme. Using layered analysis, this paper demonstrates how a school's mission can drive all aspects of the educational programme. This supports the transferability of this work to other schools so that they can achieve their unique missions.

Approach

Layered analysis is used for reporting an intervention through three tiered lenses: philosophies, principles and techniques. This provides a structure to guide implementation and evaluation. It can also be used to transfer the innovation to other contexts.

Evaluation

Each principle guiding the school's development is linked to context specific techniques and drives the focus of programme evaluation. Evaluation approaches using these principles are described, including an example of composite student performance data in a core area of focus.

Implications

Through layered analysis of a medical school that developed and implemented a mission-driven curriculum, this can enable other schools to transfer this approach to achieve their missions through the design and implementation of their programmes.