Feb. 6, 2015: Strategic Plan Update on the Education Priority

Dear Colleagues,

As Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine trainees start the spring semester, we find it an opportune time to give you an update on the Johns Hopkins Medicine Strategic Plan, particularly what we are doing to advance the education and training of our current and next-generation physicians and biomedical scientists.

Last year, the school of medicine attracted a record number of applicants for the medical school class of 2017—6,400 for 118 slots—and we also welcomed 141 new graduate students. Thanks to the quality of our education, we have an excellent, diverse group of bright, multitalented students we are confident will do impactful things. The top-tier rankings of our medical school and residency training programs by U.S. News & World Report affirm the quality of our programs, and a school of medicine survey taken at the end of the last academic year found that nearly 90 percent of our medical and graduate students who responded feel that we teach them novel practices and cutting-edge biomedical science.

We have created a primary care track within the school of medicine, and we are pleased that Colleen Christmas, the track's first director, will be looking for innovative ways to train our medical students to become leaders in the field.

On the biomedical education side, we are pleased that Peter Espenshade, the associate dean for graduate biomedical education, and his deputy, Namandje Bumpus, have many new initiatives in place. As an example, they are developing programs that will prepare our trainees for diverse career paths not only in academia, but also in areas such as industry, policy and communications.

Other progress we have made to achieve the goals of the education strategic priority includes:

• Enhancing the school of medicine's involvement in online education; for example, the Department of the History of Medicine has developed an online certificate and master's program. The school of medicine is developing the infrastructure to support the development of additional courses and programs in the future.
• Creating important pipeline programs to enhance the ability of minority and disadvantaged students in high school and college to enter science and health care careers by involving them in scientific research programs on our campus
• Developing additional career advising and mentoring resources for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows

Lastly, kudos to All Children's Hospital Johns Hopkins Medicine's pediatric residency program, which welcomed its inaugural class of residents in July 2014. They are training to become leaders in pediatrics in a program that features an innovative curriculum led by program director Raquel Hernandez. The program's second class of residents will arrive this July. All Children's first pediatric surgery fellow began training last July.

Please remember that you can email your thoughts about the Strategic Plan to strategicplan@jhmi.edu.

Sincerely,

Paul B. Rothman, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Ronald R. Peterson
President
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System
EVP, Johns Hopkins Medicine