The mentored clinical casebook project at Harvard Medical School
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Abstract An excellent physician must be aware of the countless issues that affect eachpatient’’s health. Many medical education programs expose students to a broad spectrum of disparateknowledge and hope they will integrate all the pieces into a coherent whole. The authors describe anexplicit approach to integration used at Harvard Medical School since 2003 that aims to enhancestudents” learning in medical school and throughout their medical careers: the Mentored ClinicalCasebook Project (MCCP). The MCCP is constructed on the premise that such integration does not occursuddenly but, rather, is an unending process. A first-year student is assigned to one clinician andfollows one patient for one year. The student is expected to spend as much time with the patient aspossible, in both clinical and nonclinical settings, seek help from the clinician, and consultother experts and sources to develop a complete picture of the patient’’s life. The student mustproduce a casebook that includes, but is not limited to, the patient’’s history; basic science,clinical, socioeconomic, and cultural issues; and self-reflection. The MCCP is intended to allowstudents to develop a deeper and more diverse understanding of what comprises a patient’’s healthcare life, to discern the patient as a person and the person as a patient. This educational projecthas been popular with students since its inception, providing them with a personal framework fromwhich to address the needs of future patients and introducing them to how much they will continue tolearn from their patients.
Keywords Education, Medical, Undergraduate; Mentors; Patient-Centered Care; ProgramEvaluation
Stanton,RC; Mayer,LD; Oriol,NE; Treadway,KK; Tosteson,DC
Academic Medicine
1040-2446, Volume 82, Issue 5, 2007, Pages 3-520
