Dean’s Corner
The Changing Face of Pritzker: Highlight on Scholarship and Discovery
Dear Students, Alumni, Faculty, and Staff:
Holly J. Humphrey, MD
Professor of Medicine and
Dean for Medical Education
In the coming months and years, prospective, incoming, and current students at the Pritzker School of Medicine will notice some exciting changes taking place throughout our curriculum. It is our hope that these changes will enhance our students ’ experience at the University of Chicago and build upon Pritzker‘s rich tradition as a medical school rooted in scholarship and discovery.
One key aspect of the Pritzker Initiative: A Curriculum for the 21st Century is to make participation in research and discovery a requirement. At present, it is something that the great majority of our students choose to do already. For example, I am thrilled to learn that more than 80 members of the first-year class have chosen to participate in the Pritzker Summer Research Program this year. This is the largest percentage of the class to participate in recent history! Many of these positions are funded through our existing training grants from the National Institutes of Health, which speaks to the success of our faculty in securing funding for support of student scholarship. This spring, we are lucky enough to have a third NIH-funded training grant—this one from the National Institute on Aging—added to our existing two (see NIH Training Grant).
Beginning with the Class of 2013, all Pritzker students will participate in a four-year experience in scholarship and discovery, with opportunities ranging from basic and clinical research to scholarship in teaching or quality improvement or community-based service learning. Our goal is to provide all of our medical students—both current and future—with the best possible experiences and opportunities to help them become the next generation of leaders across the spectrum of medicine. As medicine is an ever-evolving, ever-growing discipline, elements of scholarship and discovery can go through transformations in order to be most relevant to the nature of the times. And in keeping with the spirit of progress joined with scholarship, we believe the encouragement—through faculty mentorship, funding support, and ample opportunity—of collaborative scholarly student projects will be an exciting and vital part of the Pritzker curriculum.
Throughout this issue of the Pritzker Pulse, you will learn more about some of the changes taking place here on campus, and I hope you will share in my excitement as Pritzker ventures forward. In concert, these changes will ensure that the Pritzker School of Medicine encourages and supports the best and brightest medical students who have achieved the competencies and tools to be world class physicians in a progressive medical field.
Sincerely,
Holly J. Humphrey, MD
Professor of Medicine
Dean for Medical Education
