One highlight of fiscal year 2002–03 was the development of new facilities for the Clinical Education Center in renovated space in the McGaw Pavilion. “This is a unique and progressive facility for the education of students, residents, and physicians,” explains John X. Thomas Jr., PhD, associate dean for educational programs, professor of physiology, and center director. “The new facility helps us focus on the central reality of what it takes to be a physician: clinical, procedural, and medical decision-making skills.”
       The center includes 12 patient exam rooms, large enough to accommodate group teaching of physical exams and patient interviewing techniques. The rooms are regular physician outpatient offices with one difference: they are equipped with microphones and cameras that record all interactions.
       The patients are actors specially trained by medical school staff members to exhibit various symptoms. After students interview and examine their “patients,” they take post-encounter tests, entering their findings and diagnoses into a computer. The “patients” also complete encounter logs after each “exam.” This information, plus the audio and video of the actual exam, is fed into a digital recording system that allows faculty members to see material as the exam is being conducted and later sit down with the student to critique the encounter. The school has used such professional patients for a number of years. This will help Northwestern students when the USMLE in July 2004 begins using professional patients in its Step 2 clinical skills test .

During 2002, the Medical Scientist Training Program (the combined MD/PhD program) received National Institutes of Health funding for another five years. In addition, the funding was increased by 23 percent, allowing Northwestern to increase training slots at a time when the total number of slots did not increase nationwide. The annual budget of the program is $3.5 million. “We have taken the program to the next level,” says David M. Engman, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology and program director. “We have a thriving program that is competitive with the best programs in the country.”
       In 1964 Northwestern was one of three medical schools awarded NIH funding for combined MD/PhD programs. The goal is to train investigators who can better bridge the gap between basic science and medical application by providing training in both the biomedical sciences and clinical medicine. “We attract people who are curious about the very basic aspects of health and disease,” Dr. Engman explains. “We train clinician-scientists who reach down into the genetic and molecular mechanisms of disease and will be involved in developing the next generation of diagnostic tools and therapeutic advances.”

In May the MD/MPH program received full accreditation from the Council for Education on Public Health. “We were delighted that we received full accreditation in the shortest possible time,” says Rowland W. Chang, MD, MPH, program director and professor of preventive medicine.
       In January the program held the first of a series of cultural competency workshops that were open to faculty and staff members and students throughout the medical school. The goal was to make all participants aware of differences in culture and language. During the year a joint program between the Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences and the MPH program was created and approved. It will serve the needs of PhD students who are interested in the field of public health. “Many life sciences PhD holders may be found in public health, but not many have formal public health training,” Dr. Chang explains. “The graduates of our PhD/MPH program will be well qualified and more competitive for positions with groups such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pan-American Health Organization.”

The Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences celebrated its 75th anniversary. Its educational program is consistently rated among the nation’s top 10 such programs by U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Graduate Schools” annual survey. The department also opened new research facilities. In these labs, faculty and staff members use a variety of technologies to study the interactions of the brain and body.
       Two department faculty members were honored with significant professional awards. Mark W. Rogers, PT, PhD, received the Marian Williams Award from the American Physical Therapy Association for his research on falls in the elderly, and David A. Brown, PT, PhD, received the Margaret L. Moore Award from the American Physical Therapy Association as an outstanding new faculty member.


With 118 residency and fellowship training programs (73 approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education), the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University is one of the largest graduate medical education sponsors in the nation. Participating in the McGaw programs are Children’s Memorial Hospital, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and VA Chicago Health Care System. McGaw programs continue to be among the most desirable; in 2003 the Medical Center matched an impressive 97 percent of positions offered.
       A great deal of effort was devoted this year to preparing for and complying with the ACGME’s duty hour standards. These standards, which went into effect July 1, 2003, limit resident duty hours to 80 a week and set other restrictions. McGaw’s program directors worked diligently to ensure that quality education and patient care were maintained while meeting the new requirements. Despite the challenges imposed by the implementation of these standards, McGaw’s leadership believes that the impact of these changes will be overwhelmingly positive.