Goals for new Seton Hall-Hackensack Meridian Medical School

Steve Adubato goes on-location to the Seton Hall-Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine to speak with the Associate Dean of Medical Education Continuum, Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp, about the goals for the new medical school and impact it will have on NJ’s healthcare landscape.

3/16/17 #2021

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We are at the Seton Hall Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and we're here talking to a friend who we've talked to many times. He is Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp who is the Senior Vice President Co-Chief Academic Officer, Hackensack Meridian Health and also the Associate Dean here at the Medical School. Doctor, we have talked many times on the air and offline about medical education. About the changing paradigm of medical education. Talk to us about what you envision here and frankly, the bigger picture of medical education. So, I think the whole landscape is changing. I mean medical education has to keep up with the times. We don't actually know where it's going to go. Our first students are going to enter in 2018 so trying to get them to memorize facts that are good today are going to be outdated... Way outdated by then. So, what are we going to do? We're going to teach them to problem solve, to become life long learners, we're gonna have them get the skills they need to continue to learn throughout their careers and keep up with these humongous changes. What does emotional intelligence have to do with clinical excellence? Well, I think it's everything. Basically, we're going to have a group of doctors that can relate to patients that can have empathy with patients and it's a totally different way of looking at it. For example? They have to relate to the community, so all of us are looking at not just hospitals and traditional places where healthcare is given. We're focused on wellness and wellness doesn't happen at hospitals. It happens out in the community. We want our students to be out there in the community interacting and engaging people before illness occurs. Doctor, let me push you a little bit on this. A concrete example. I mean you and I have talked about communication a lot. As a student of it, as a teacher of it, I often think "How do you teach communication; how do you teach people to be more empathetic?" In a medical school, how do you actually do that? Well, that's the challenge and it's something we're up for. You know, traditional medical schools haven't taught that so I think there's a couple of parts to that Steve. I think one is that you have to do a really good selection process in the beginning. As to who the students are? Before they're your students. When you do interviews and you decide who's going to make up your class, you have to look for people that have the seeds of empathy that you can develop. For some people, that's not a skill..."