Curricular Changes Requiring Executive Curriculum Committee Approval

Rationale

The Executive Curriculum Committee (ECC) is responsible for oversight of the curriculum at the Brody School of Medicine (BSOM) and the final voting body regarding curricular changes. This committee is comprised of representatives from the faculty who are charged with the ongoing review and central management of the undergraduate medical curriculum at BSOM.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) has established standards regarding the involvement of the faculty in the design, content, management, evaluation, and enhancement of the curriculum.

LCME Standard 6: Competencies, Curricular Objectives, and Curricular Design

The faculty of a medical school define the competencies to be achieved by its medical students through medical education program objectives and is responsible for the detailed design and implementation of the components of a medical curriculum that enable its medical students to achieve those competencies and objectives. Medical education program objectives are statements of the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that medical students are expected to exhibit as evidence of their achievement by completion of the program.

LCME Standard 7: Curricular Content

The faculty of a medical school ensure that the medical curriculum provides content of sufficient breadth and depth to prepare medical students for entry into any residency program and for the subsequent contemporary practice of medicine.

LCME Standard 8: Curricular Management, Evaluation, and Enhancement

The faculty of a medical school engage in curricular revision and program evaluation activities to ensure that medical education program quality is maintained and enhanced and that medical students achieve all medical education program objectives and participate in required clinical experiences and settings.

In accordance with these standards and the charge to the ECC outlined in the BSOM Unit Code of Governance, this SOP defines changes to curricular design, content, delivery, and management that must be approved by the Executive Curriculum Committee prior to implementation.

Scope

This procedure involves all courses and clerkships taken as part of the BSOM medical curriculum by students.

Definitions

ECC: Executive Curriculum Committee. The ECC will review and incorporate recommendations from the year curriculum committees as appropriate to provide ongoing review and central management of the MD degree curriculum in its entirety. The ECC will define the architecture of the curriculum, ensure graduated advancement of curricular topics, assure coverage of all objective-related content, and address any unnecessary redundancy of material, patterns of student evaluations or performance by course or content area, and reviews data at specified intervals to monitor and evaluate the curriculum as a whole and make informed decisions to enhance, coordinate, and ensure coherence of the educational program.

BSOM Unit Code of Governance: The Brody School of Medicine Unit Code of Governance. “This code allows for faculty participation in and establishes procedures for the unit’s internal affairs and is consistent with all applicable parts of the East Carolina University Faculty Manual and the East Carolina University Policy Manual”.

LCME: Liaison Committee on Medical Education. The group with authority to accredit medical education programs leading to the MD degree in the United States and Canada.

Responsibilities

Office of Medical Education

The Office of Medical Education will assist in curriculum planning by documenting curriculum design, delivery and performance. At the direction of the ECC, the Office of Medical Education will sponsor annual retreats that review individual phases of the curriculum, as well as a curriculum in toto retreat. The Office of Medical Education will assemble committees in accordance with the 3-Year Course and Clerkship Review SOP and conduct annual and 3-year reviews of every course and clerkship. The committees will bring forth recommendations for revisions to the curriculum of each independent course and clerkship to the ECC for their review and discussion.

Executive Curriculum Committee

The ECC will review recommendations from year curriculum committees, annual retreats, and reviews of courses and clerkships within the undergraduate medical curriculum. The ECC will review additional proposed curricular changes, as outlined in the procedures for implementation, on an ongoing, as-needed basis. A vote of approval from a majority of the ECC committee must be obtained prior to implementing the requested changes.

Course/Clerkship Director

The Course/Clerkship Director is responsible for bringing changes requiring approval forth to the ECC prior to implementing the changes within their course/clerkship.

Curriculum Facilitator

Individual within the OME who is responsible for the administrative management of the ECC.

Procedures for Implementation

To ensure compliance with the identified LCME Standards and the faculty governance code, the following lists have been developed to distinguish between changes that may be implemented without ECC approval, and those changes requiring ECC approval prior to implementation.

Changes that do not require ECC approval prior to implementation

• Minor revisions to scheduling within a course that do not involve a change in the total number of hours allocated to a course or to the overall or Block calendar
• Revisions to specific course assignments
• Day-to-day management procedures for the course (e.g., selection of teaching faculty)
• Revisions to required course materials
• Revisions to session level objectives or keywords

Changes that must be reviewed and approved by the ECC prior to implementation

• Major changes to content (e.g., blocks of content, major themes) that would significantly impact the curriculum as a whole
• Revisions to course/clerkship level objectives
• Changes to course/clerkship activities related to longitudinal content delivery
• Changes to course structure involving an increase or reduction in course hours
• Changes to course schedules that could impact other courses/re-alignment of course sequencing
• Revisions in teaching methods or content delivery systems
• Changes in assessment methods and procedures (i.e., how students are given formative feedback and/or summative grading)
• Changes in course/clerkship leadership

  This includes both Director and Assistant/Co-Director level changes

• Approval of proposed new courses (e.g., new M4 elective rotations)
• Deleting an existing course or adding a new course to the curriculum
• Proposed changes to existing education related policies/procedures

For all curricular revisions requiring ECC approval, the following steps should be followed to achieve timely review by the ECC:

• The Course/Clerkship Director will outline the proposed changes, in detail, and provide these to the Curriculum Facilitator in OME
• The Curriculum Facilitator will distribute the proposed changes to the ECC Chair, and Associate/Assistant Deans in OME for review
• The Curriculum Facilitator will add the proposed changes to the next scheduled ECC meeting agenda for review, discussion, and vote

  If the revision is of an urgent nature, and it is determined by the Chair of the ECC that review of the request cannot wait until the next scheduled meeting, the Curriculum Facilitator will distribute the request for revisions electronically to ECC members for email discussion and vote

• Once a vote has been completed the Curriculum Facilitator will notify the Course/Clerkship Director of the results of the vote

Related Policies

3-Year Course and Clerkship Review Process

Applicable Laws, Regulations & Standards

BSOM Unit Code of Governance, part IV, section 4, subsection d
LCME Standards for Accreditation of Medical Education Programs Leading to the MD Degree: Published March 2019; Standards 6, 7, and 8