There was consensus that the Steering Subcommittee agreed overall with the recommendations as developed by the Curriculum 2000 Working group for a curriculum that uses small group learning, is performance-based, and has early clinical relevance. Effort will need to be expended in integrating the disciplines, and developing the format, but the basic outline has already been developed. It was determined that a priority list of patient problems that changes with trends in medicine should be developed. The number of items is not important, but including all of the priority patient problems is. The Objectives for Commencement define what students need to be able to do by graduation.
Performance is described, and self-directed learning is part of the learning process.
Students have a responsibility to ensure that they are learning what they need to learn. There was consensus that, to the extent possible, the separation of Carbondale from the remainder of curriculum should be diminished. The distance should be erased in every possible way, including some combination of disciplines from Springfield and Carbondale. After discussion regarding how the first year of the curriculum might be structured and the remainder of the curriculum built on that structure, it was determined that a Working group on Clinical Skills and Professional Behaviors should be developed. This group will develop recommendations for what will be taught, how the information will be taught and how that information will be measured.