The OHF Medical Education Summit: a summary Sponsored by American Osteopathic Association and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine with support from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Prepared by Tom Levitan, M.Ed., AACOM AACOM

Three days covering four broad topics: The osteopathic physician workforce. Recruiting students to osteopathic medical education. Financing osteopathic medical education. Quality medical education – undergraduate and graduate. AACOM

Format of the summit: Formal presentations by experts in the topic. Round-table discussions by practitioners. Focus groups of stakeholders. Leading to a set of recommendations that were voted on by summit participants. AACOM

Growth The osteopathic profession should responsibly grow the profession’s percentage of the US physician workforce. The osteopathic colleges should contribute to this growth either through expansion of class size or an increase in the number of colleges.  Maintaining quality of students by increasing the size of and maintaining the quality of the applicant pool.  Maintaining quality of instruction by developing curriculum, pedagogy, and faculty.  Assuring the availability of resources – physical, fiscal, educational.  Developing adequate and appropriate undergraduate clinical education opportunities. AACOM

Develop appropriate and sufficient (specialty, geography) GME programs for the graduate training of all osteopathic medical school graduates. AOA, AACOM, colleges, and others should support the creation, development, and expansion of GME programs. Growth AACOM

Osteopathic distinctiveness The AOA, AACOM, colleges, and others must develop programs to highlight the distinctiveness of osteopathic medicine – such programs must be directed to physicians and other health-care providers, patients, current students, future students, and societal opinion leaders. Current osteopathic students, recent graduates, and medical school applicants should be queried to identify what about osteopathic medicine is especially interesting to them. Develop educational programs to make the case for osteopathic GME to undergraduate osteopathic medical students. AACOM

Collect and disseminate data on the profession and education The AOA and AACOM should develop and collaborate on their own data bases of students, physicians, GME, and other educational programs. The AOA and AACOM should develop and expand their collaboration with non-osteopathic organizations (AAMC, ACGME, AAHC) in data collection and dissemination. More research should be conducted on the osteopathic physician workforce. AACOM

Collect and disseminate data on the profession and education Develop incentives to encourage participation by COMS, GME programs, individual physicians, and students in various data collection initiatives. AACOM

Specialty mix Personal choice and market forces should allow individual osteopathic physicians and graduates to choose specialty of practice. Specialty mix should be a component of workforce research. OGME specialty mix should be expanded to allow osteopathic residents access to regionally distributed quality programs across the specialties. AACOM

21 st Century Practice The osteopathic profession should embrace the concept the physician as team care leader with non- physician providers where all work within their scope of training and competence to provide quality care and outcomes*. *hubris AACOM

Curriculum COMs and OGME programs should embrace innovative and expanded models to team care, interdisciplinary education, and integration of non- physician clinicians into medical practice. COMs will develop curriculum modules to educate students and faculty on OGME opportunities. AACOM

OGME Conduct research on the barriers to creating adequate GME positions to meet the needs of all osteopathic graduates. Communicate the availability of OGME positions to students and faculty in COMs. Communicate accurate and timely match data. Develop and maintain quality standards for OGME. Work to assure adequate and appropriate funding for OGME. AACOM

OGME Encourage and support growth and development of OGME resources, programs, and research (many recommended methods). Encourage the development of more geographically dispersed OGME opportunities. Remove obstacles and barriers to the development of new OGME programs. OGME specialty mix should be expanded to allow osteopathic residents access to regionally distributed quality programs across the specialties. AACOM

Accreditation Conduct research on the implications and issues of increasing UME by increasing class sizes or developing new institutions. Responsible expansion of the osteopathic workforce requires responsible growth of UME and OGME, considering the various elements of growth – student numbers and quality, faculty resources, administrative resources, facilities, and funding. AACOM

Recruitment All groups should establish a task force to develop a plan to increase recruitment, applications, and enrollment with a special focus on underrepresented minority students:  Undergraduate college students, parents, pre-college students (K-12).  Career counselors and undergrad pre-med advisors.  Articulation and other forms of linkage programs. AACOM

Administration and faculty development Develop programs to promote mentoring for faculty and administration Develop programs to promote mentoring for students. AACOM

Finance COMs should pursue activities to control tuition and tuition increases – increase non-tuition revenue, increase productivity, sharing resources, work to increase public support, increase enrollment while controlling incremental costs, increase competition by increasing number of COMs. Collect and disseminate information on student indebtedness and its impact on career decisions.

Finance Develop approaches to resolve GME funding issues – amount, equity. AACOM

Research Develop new and expanded resources to support research in OGME programs and at OPTI sites. AACOM

Government policy Previously state in other sections – financing UME, GME support, research support. AACOM

Questions? Comments? Slide show available at: or contact Tom Levitan AACOM