DEAN’S ADVISORY COMMITTEE - Columbia University



Dean’s Advisory Committee

January 9, 2007

6:00 PM

Old Business:

LIBRARY (Dr. Molholt)

1. Café Update- The grand opening of the Library café will be Thursday, January 18th from 8:30-11:30 am. Free coffee mugs will be distributed.

a. Bard Hall Café- many first year students would like to see the Bard café open later. This issue has come up in the past and it was not cost-effective when extended hours were piloted during exams in December.

i. suggestion- poll the first year class and revisit the poll from last year to assess how strong the interest is.

ii. suggestion- maintain the same number of working hours, but rearrange them, closing the café at certain slow points of the day.

iii. suggestion- work with the nutrition advocacy group (headed by Sam Ash) and housing reps.

2. Printers- information is being collected about usage and which files may be clogging up the system. While no specific load balancing actions have been taken yet, a new high end printer has been ordered that was recommended by the main campus.

a. Suggestion- It is often confusing to know which printer to print to in the library. It would be helpful to post a note by the computers saying “your nearest printer is ___.”

3. Printing Quotas- the different quotas for uptown (700 pages per semester) and downtown (20 pages per week) is troublesome for students who print in bulk downtown.

a. Suggestion- convert the downtown quota from a weekly to a semester quota like the uptown

b. Suggestion- combine printing quotas

4. Software (Robin Tang)- the Lower Level 1 and 2 computers in the library now have Microsoft office. The computers in the entrance of the library do not. This allows segregation between computers used for research from those used for word processing/power point. As always, the computers in the 24 hr room and on the second level have Microsoft office.

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS (Dr. Mellman)-

1. Potential first year funding- There will likely be funding for some first year students to work at the Millennium Village Project in Africa this summer. The final details of this arrangement are currently being hammered out.

2. Fourth year electives- several fourth years are spending an elective this year working at the Millennium Village Project.

a. Suggestion- while there are lots of summer and fourth year opportunities for service and research, this information is difficult to access. The first year summer handout would benefit from the addition of links to websites and applications, as well as funding information. This information would be useful to highlight on the CUMC website as well as individual class websites.

i. Krystyna Cukrowski in Student Affairs and Danielle Trief, 1st year DAC rep, will meet to begin organizing summer opportunities to post online.

3rd YEAR TRAVEL AND SAFETY (Brian Paquette)- Student Affairs was in touch before the winter holiday with the University Transportation Office, which oversees shuttle service, and will have a follow-up conference call in January. Transportation was receptive to considering possible changes in the shuttle schedule to better meet the needs of P&S students. They agreed to conduct a ridership survey of riders in January on the current schedule. They agreed that the anticipated ridership of students who would potentially ride the shuttle, but don’t now also needs to be assessed. They will look into how to access drivers and provide information to riders when shuttles are late or do not show.

1. Rider safety- suggestions

a. More shuttle trips at night and early in the morning

b. Give students a phone number to call if shuttle doesn’t show.

3rd YEAR CLERKSHIP EVALUATIONS (Dr. Mellman)

1. Electronic Evaluation- P&S hopes to implement a system of electronic evaluation of 3rd and 4th year rotations to increase efficiency, response rate and timeliness of the evaluation process. P&S administration has already met with one potential consultant for this service, and will be meeting with another within the month.

a. Some of the clerkships have been timely, while others have been slow to give back evaluations. Student Affairs is noting which clerkships return evaluations late in order to address the appropriate people.

b. Clerkships have been consistently more timely since an e-mail was sent out from Dr. Drusin stressing the importance of timely evaluations.

2nd YEAR FOCUS GROUP BREAKFASTS ON CURRICULUM (Dr. Mellman)- Dr. Goldman has found the breakfasts quite informative and has enjoyed getting feedback from students. He is hoping to have similar breakfasts with the fourth year students soon. Second years have found it useful to hear from the Dean what to expect, however, many students felt that they would like to have more input in shaping these changes (see future curriculum below).

LIBRARY CONSTRUCTION (Dr. Drusin and Dr. Molholt)- construction will take place in Hammer library. Lower level 1 and 2 will be converted into classroom and study spaces and will be open 24 hours. These spaces will serve to replace the rooms on PH17 and will centralize much of the social and academic programming. These classrooms will not only serve P&S students, but students at all of the schools at the medical campus. Spaces will be designed for future technology and will contain computer work stations, projectors, and lounge areas. They will be designed with the understanding that many of the current histology labs will soon be based on high definition computer images. The architect is currently meeting with administrators to design this new space, but would also like to meet with students.

1. student focus groups- groups will meet with the architect and give suggestions for future changes. If you are interested in joining one of these focus groups, e-mail Dr. Drusin red3@columbia.edu

2. time frame- conversations with the architect should happen soon, but the actual construction depends on relocating the books currently occupying these spaces. The design phase should take at least 3-4 more months.

CURRICULUM CHANGES (Dr. Drusin)- An e-mail will be sent to students outlining the goals of the curricular reform under discussion. Some of the major points discussed at the DAC meeting: the new curriculum will not affect any of the current P&S students or students into the incoming class. The first students who may experience the new curriculum will be those entering in 2008, and they will be aware of these changes before they decide to enroll. A major goal of the new curriculum will be to incorporate more clinical experiences into the first two preclinical years. By giving students access to patients early, students will have an applicable frame of reference for the lessons they learn in the classroom. These years will also be more integrated, so that there is not such a strict division between normal physiology (first year) and pathology (second year). Time will also be available during students’ medical education to engage in a focused academic project: research of some sort, global health, bio ethics etc. Students will be paired with mentors, who will serve as practical advisors and help students explore these fields in greater detail. Dr. Garret, Dr. Barasch, and Dr. Spitalnik will help design the new preclinical education.

1. suggestion- P&S students would like to contribute to designing this new curriculum, and would also like to see greater transparency with the changes suggested

a. solutions- an e-mail will be sent outlying some of these changes and the administration will consider venues for continued dialogue, including possibly another town hall meeting (similar to the one in the fall with Dr. Goldman) in the future. P&S is still in the early stages of curriculum design. Students will continue to give input through focus groups and committees.

2. suggestion- concern was expressed that P&S might lose it’s uniqueness, because the new curriculum sounds similar to existing curriculae at Stanford, UCSF, and other schools. P&S should be setting the trend for medical education and not the reverse.

a. Solution- P&S might borrow some of the best ideas from other schools, but improve upon them. The new curriculum will be innovative and unique.

3. Public Health- In the past, the Macy scholarship has funded several medical students to receive an MPH. This funding will no longer be available.

STUDENT WORK HOURS (Carlton Prickett)- prior to the break, some of the clerkships were not in compliance with work hour expectations that follow the ACGME policy of no more than the 80 hour work week. As of the DAC meeting, there hadn’t been enough of clerkship to determine whether this has changed or not.

New Business:

RECYCLING (Jake Kaufman)- Students are concerned about the medical school’s recycling policy. They feel recycling is very important, and the lack of recycling discussed in the last meeting should have been remedied a while ago.

1. Update- the information presented in the last meeting was not accurate. Since them, the university has been in touch with the Allied Waste industry (the medical school’s sanitation collectors) to clarify the recycling policy. With the exception of residential housing (Bard, Towers), garbage collected from the medical campus is source separated at a transfer station where plastics, glass, and any wood material are separated for recycling. Until 8 or 9 months ago, paper was also separated. The university is now aware of this and will once again separate paper. On the other hand, recycling in the residence halls must be done prior to collection. Please use the recycling bins provided.

TRANSITION COMMITTEE (Robin Tang)- four committees have been established to help in the transition from second to third year: 1) committee to plan the transition week during the first week of third year 2) committee to plan events during the spring of second year, focusing on board preparation 3) committee to give out resident teaching awards 4) committee to create the class video.

BOARD PREPERATION (Bill Kernan)- Bill Kernan and Mark Graham will help establish board preparation workshops for the second year class. These will include an overall introduction to the board (high yield preparation), a review of a sample board preparation study profile, a panel of third and fourth year students to offer advice, and some small groups to talk about study schedules, approaches to the boards, and how to effectively use Kaplan. These events will hopefully take place before mid February, which is earlier than previous years.

P&S CLUB RENOVATION (Andrea Sturtevant)- the new space for the P&S club (in Bard, near the recovery room), is almost complete. There is a large conference room where student leaders can meet. A key will be available that P&S club leaders can pick up from Andrea for evening meetings. The space is reserved for the P&S clubs.

EARLY MATCH AND RESIDENCY (Dr. Mellman)- 4th year early match is next week and through January. Results will be posted.

1. Meetings will be planned where 4th years can talk with 3rd years about different specialties. These meetings will probably take place at dinner (last year they took place at lunch), and might be clustered across several days, so that students can swing by several different meetings.

NIH SUMMER RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY (Dr. Mellman)- the deadline for applications to the NIH Summer Research Fellowship is January 31st. The reason this is early is to make sure potential projects get IRB clearance before the summer and students are notified of decisions by March. 28 grants will be awarded.

HD VIDEOS FOR CLASSES- 1st and 2nd year reps spoke during the curriculum meeting last month to make a convincing case for HD videos of classes. Pat Molholt has volunteered the money for a new camera, and Dr. Garrett wants to try to pilot this new technology for second year. The video technology may be less time consuming than Articulate for professors (they wouldn’t have to repeat the lecture again). However, courses that currently offer Articulate will continue to do so.

The next DAC meeting will take place Tuesday, February 13th

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