Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Mission statements of medical schools: Here’s why they matter

Kenneth Lin, MD
Education
July 10, 2015
Share
Tweet
Share

Over the years, applicants whom I’ve interviewed for positions in the first-year medical student class at Georgetown have often asked how our school’s mission statement influences the educational experiences and clinical services we provide:

Guided by the Jesuit tradition of Cura Personalis, care of the whole person, Georgetown University School of Medicine will educate a diverse student body, in an integrated way, to become knowledgeable, ethical, skillful, and compassionate physicians and biomedical scientists who are dedicated to the care of others and health needs of our society.

I never quite know how to answer this question. Like the aspirational mission statement of my previous employer, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which was “to improve the health of all Americans,” Georgetown’s statement doesn’t offer an obvious path for how to produce physicians dedicated to the “health needs of our society.” Although our nascent population health scholars track will give select students perspectives and tools to address societal health needs on the population level, Georgetown consistently graduates a majority of medical subspecialists and produces few who will relieve growing national shortages of family physicians and psychiatrists. As for meeting the needs of rural and urban underserved populations, a 2010 study ranked us 102nd out of 141 U.S. medical schools in the percentage of physicians who were practicing in federally designated health professional shortage areas.

So are medical school mission statements just academic boilerplate, or do they really guide graduate specialty choice and practice location? This was the question that Dr. Christopher Morley and colleagues investigated in a fascinating study published in Family Medicine. A diverse panel of 37 medical students, educators, and administrators reviewed the mission statements of U.S. medical schools and rated them on a 5-point scale for social mission content, defined as “any language that reflects a goal of medical education to train practitioners capable of matching the needs of society and vulnerable populations or for the institution itself to serve vulnerable populations or regions.”  The mean of panelist ratings for each school’s mission statement turned out to be a statistically significant predictor of the percentage of graduates who entered family medicine and the percentage who worked in medically underserved areas/populations.

As the study authors noted, these interesting associations could be interpreted a number of different ways:

It is not clear from these results if graduate career choice is influenced by the orientation of the institution, or if students who go on to work in these areas of medicine self-select into institutions because of a personal predilection to work in primary care or in underserved communities; however, it appears that medical schools with a proclaimed orientation toward producing physicians in primary care and/or physicians who provide care to underserved populations are achieving these missions.

Incidentally, I don’t know how Georgetown’s mission statement rated on the scale of social mission content, although I imagine that it would have fallen somewhere in the middle. Also unanswered is the philosophical question of what percentage of schools should be orienting their graduates toward Morley and colleagues’ definition of social mission, rather than producing excellent physician-scientists, health executives, or some other standard of accomplishment.

For medical schools, mission statements matter. Perhaps we need a national mission statement for medical education in the United States, one that embraces and expands on the American Association of Medical College’s “improve the health of all.” This national mission statement would recognize the shortcomings of our current physician workforce and explicitly aim to produce a mix of future medical school graduates who are dedicated and prepared to build the culture of health that America so desperately needs.

Kenneth Lin is a family physician who blogs at Common Sense Family Doctor.

Prev

A quiet day in the doctor's office: And that's the way it's supposed to be

July 10, 2015 Kevin 2
…
Next

Test your medicine knowledge: Reducing the personal risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis

July 11, 2015 Kevin 0
…

Tagged as: Medical school

Post navigation

< Previous Post
A quiet day in the doctor's office: And that's the way it's supposed to be
Next Post >
Test your medicine knowledge: Reducing the personal risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Kenneth Lin, MD

  • How to recruit more students into family medicine

    Kenneth Lin, MD
  • When should you prescribe statins for older adults?

    Kenneth Lin, MD
  • Clinical practice guidelines have problems, but they’re not broken

    Kenneth Lin, MD

More in Education

  • Why medical schools must ditch lectures and embrace active learning

    Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
  • Why helping people means more than getting an MD

    Vaishali Jha
  • Residency match tips: Building mentorship, research, and community

    Simran Kaur, MD and Eva Shelton, MD
  • How I learned to stop worrying and love AI

    Rajeev Dutta
  • Why medical student debt is killing primary care in America

    Alexander Camp
  • Why the pre-med path is pushing future doctors to the brink

    Jordan Williamson, MEd
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Forced voicemail and diagnosis codes are endangering patient access to medications

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Meds
    • How President Biden’s cognitive health shapes political and legal trust

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Conditions
    • The One Big Beautiful Bill and the fragile heart of rural health care

      Holland Haynie, MD | Policy
    • America’s ER crisis: Why the system is collapsing from within

      Kristen Cline, BSN, RN | Conditions
    • Why timing, not surgery, determines patient survival

      Michael Karch, MD | Conditions
    • How early meetings and after-hours events penalize physician-mothers

      Samira Jeimy, MD, PhD and Menaka Pai, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • Forced voicemail and diagnosis codes are endangering patient access to medications

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Meds
    • How President Biden’s cognitive health shapes political and legal trust

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Conditions
    • Why are medical students turning away from primary care? [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The One Big Beautiful Bill and the fragile heart of rural health care

      Holland Haynie, MD | Policy
    • Why “do no harm” might be harming modern medicine

      Sabooh S. Mubbashar, MD | Physician
    • The hidden health risks in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

      Trevor Lyford, MPH | Policy
  • Recent Posts

    • Beyond burnout: Understanding the triangle of exhaustion [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Facing terminal cancer as a doctor and mother

      Kelly Curtin-Hallinan, DO | Conditions
    • Online eye exams spark legal battle over health care access

      Joshua Windham, JD and Daryl James | Policy
    • FDA delays could end vital treatment for rare disease patients

      G. van Londen, MD | Meds
    • Pharmacists are key to expanding Medicaid access to digital therapeutics

      Amanda Matter | Meds
    • Why ADHD in women requires a new approach [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 4 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Forced voicemail and diagnosis codes are endangering patient access to medications

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Meds
    • How President Biden’s cognitive health shapes political and legal trust

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Conditions
    • The One Big Beautiful Bill and the fragile heart of rural health care

      Holland Haynie, MD | Policy
    • America’s ER crisis: Why the system is collapsing from within

      Kristen Cline, BSN, RN | Conditions
    • Why timing, not surgery, determines patient survival

      Michael Karch, MD | Conditions
    • How early meetings and after-hours events penalize physician-mothers

      Samira Jeimy, MD, PhD and Menaka Pai, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • Forced voicemail and diagnosis codes are endangering patient access to medications

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Meds
    • How President Biden’s cognitive health shapes political and legal trust

      Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD | Conditions
    • Why are medical students turning away from primary care? [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The One Big Beautiful Bill and the fragile heart of rural health care

      Holland Haynie, MD | Policy
    • Why “do no harm” might be harming modern medicine

      Sabooh S. Mubbashar, MD | Physician
    • The hidden health risks in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

      Trevor Lyford, MPH | Policy
  • Recent Posts

    • Beyond burnout: Understanding the triangle of exhaustion [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Facing terminal cancer as a doctor and mother

      Kelly Curtin-Hallinan, DO | Conditions
    • Online eye exams spark legal battle over health care access

      Joshua Windham, JD and Daryl James | Policy
    • FDA delays could end vital treatment for rare disease patients

      G. van Londen, MD | Meds
    • Pharmacists are key to expanding Medicaid access to digital therapeutics

      Amanda Matter | Meds
    • Why ADHD in women requires a new approach [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Mission statements of medical schools: Here’s why they matter
4 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...