Students’ Opinions Mixed About New Med School Curriculum

When Harvard Medical School officially rolled out an overhaul of its curriculum this semester, students were met with a new system that they characterized by a heavy workload and an increased level of student engagement with content and faculty.

The curricular shift, which places less emphasis on lectures and more on pre-class learning, follows a one-year transitory period that prepared the Medical School for the rollout among the incoming first-year class this fall.

By Crimson file photo

Still, faculty said the new curriculum continues to undergo review and refinement. Medical School professor Richard M. Schwartzstein, who chaired the task force on the curriculum redesign, said the school’s administration will continue to develop the curriculum throughout the year along with student representatives.

Medical School first-years, the first group officially under the new system, said their first taste of the curriculum came in a large dose.

Gabriel E. Molina ’15 said his workload hovered around 12 hours each night during his orientation week. “The amount of prep material was really unreasonable,” he said.

Classmate Rebecca M. Hammond said she and other students initially viewed the curriculum negatively, adding that “the professors underestimated the amount of time it would take us to get through the material.”

For his part, Schwartzstein said faculty are working to ensure that assignments are the appropriate length.

But the large amount of out-of-the-classroom preparation also serves students well, said Tara Jain ’15, a Medical School first-year.

“Since we have the basics down before we come to class, we can apply the material to problem-solve and learn so much more from our professors and peers,” she said.

First-year Daniel A. Curiel, whose experience with the new curriculum is his first with the flipped classroom model, said he generally enjoys it as well.

“It really helps to learn the material beforehand and...go in and work through problems that stimulate my memory from the night before,” Curiel said. “Then I can actually apply it to an actual patient case.”

To balance the benefits of the new curriculum with its rigorous workload, Schwartzstein’s committee is continuing to supervise the implementation of the curriculum, and upperclassmen are monitoring assignments to gauge their appropriateness.

“Our class is the transition class. Technically, we are still in the old curriculum, but a lot of the faculty have been implementing some of the new pedagogical approaches,” said Jordan D. Anderson, a second-year at the Medical School who works with faculty to review the curriculum.

“[The curriculum is] not something you just put in place and leave there,” Schwartzstein said. “We make assessments. We revise and make it better the next year. We’re all hoping to make things better and ... we don’t expect perfection the first time around.”

—Staff writer Melanie Y. Fu can be reached at mfu@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @MelanieYFu.

—Staff writer Jiwon Joung can be reached at joung@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @YunaJoung.