The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is adopting a competency-based education framework. This framework explicitly defines our educational expectations and goals. Our curriculum and assessments will reflect our competency standards. Ultimately we expect that a student’s progress in his/her undergraduate education will be defined by achievement of competence rather than time spent in curricular activities and will provide flexibility for students in our curriculum. Medical education is a lifelong process that requires the skills of self assessment, self reflection, continuous learning and professional accountability. These skills must be developed at the undergraduate medical level and continue on through residency and practice. We are committed to helping our students develop the skills that the modern physician needs to care for patients and be a leader in the practice of medicine.
Our graduates will demonstrate proficiency in the clinical skills and knowledge necessary to enter postgraduate medical education. They will apply their skills, knowledge, and clinical evidence with attention to patients’ perspectives, needs, values, and comfort. |
Our graduates will demonstrate communication (both verbal and non-verbal) and interpersonal skills and strategies that result in respectful, compassionate, and effective information exchange and decision making with patients, families, members of the healthcare team, and other colleagues. |
Our graduates will demonstrate knowledge of the scientific basis of medicine, the ability to apply knowledge to patient care and contribute to scholarship in medicine through research or teaching. |
Our graduates will demonstrate awareness of the overall healthcare delivery system as well as the system of care in each of their clinical settings, and will demonstrate the ability to work as an effective member of the healthcare team. |
Our graduates will demonstrate the capacity to self-reflect on their acculturation to medicine, to assess the impact of their medical school experiences on their evolving personal and professional values, and to tend to their own physical and mental health. |
Our graduates will demonstrate knowledge of community factors that influence individual, community and public health, and will gain both perspective and experience through service-learning activities within local or global community settings. |
Our graduates will demonstrate the ability to accurately assess and improve classroom and clinical performance, as well as to acquire, appraise, and apply scientific evidence to classroom activities and patient care. |
Our graduates will demonstrate a commitment to professional responsibilities and behavior as well as the ability to understand, reflect upon, and integrate ethical and moral dimensions of healthcare. |
| 
