Moving a mountain: Practical insights into mastering a major curriculum reform at a large European medical university

Abstract

Our report is intended to provide practical insights and guidance for those institutions which are yet considering or have already started to undergo a major reform of their undergraduate programs towards competency medical education.

The scientific term paper at the Charité: a project report on concept, implementation, and students' evaluation and learning

“…Years 1-5 are structured as 40 themed, integrated modules [11]. The curriculum is competency-based, and the curriculum planning is outcome-oriented.…”

“…The curricular implementation of this training outcome can be achieved in both regular and model clause medical programmes. This entails considering general context features, such as the discipline-focused requirements of medical licensure laws and the existing degree of curricular integration as well as existing teaching traditions and experiences with curricular innovation at the respective faculty [11]. …”

A teaching coordinator’s nightmare?

“…The "Modellstudiengang Medizin" ( model curriculum medicine , MSM) which was introduced at the Charité [1], [6] for 300 students per semester in the winter semester 2010/2011 is organized across all disciplines and in a completely modular way. Only its first implementation version is described here in a simplified form (cf the module plan on page 474 of the Study Regulations [6]).…”

“…In their recent article, Maaz et al document the transition from a classical standard curriculum to a reformed “model” curriculum at the Charité in 2009, referring to it as “moving a mountain” [1]. Like other authors [2], [3], they rightly emphasize the high workload involved in introducing a new curriculum – which sometimes made me, as the then anatomy teaching coordinator, part of the “mountain”.…”

The modular curriculum of medicine at the Charité Berlin – a project report based on an across-semester student evaluation

“…With the introduction of a new “model” clause for reforms in the licensing laws for medical doctors in 1999, numerous German medical faculties have designed and implemented alternative curricula for undergraduate medical education [http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/_appro_2002/index.html], [3], [4], [5]. Based on experiences with the regular and reformed medical track, the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité) developed and implemented a new modular curriculum of medicine between 2010 and 2016 [6]. The aim was to implement a competency-based and outcome-oriented curriculum as much as possible within the context of formal requirements for undergraduate medical education and existing conditions at the institution.…”