Aquifer Sciences Update: Phase Two is Underway

Pilot School Program Teams Are Now Authoring Virtual Patient Cases and Integrated Illness Scripts

After a highly competitive process, Aquifer is pleased to announce that twelve pilot schools were selected to work on Phase Two of the Aquifer Sciences Initiative. Pilot schools were chosen from a nationwide call for participation. The Aquifer Sciences Leadership team is grateful for the overwhelming interest in this project from institutions across the country and thanks to all school applicants for their excellent submissions. The choices were difficult, and the team is confident that the selected pilot school teams will be instrumental in advancing our innovative efforts to re-engineer basic science medical education.

Work is now underway at each school, with teams of clinical and basic science educators—along with senior medical students—working together to create Virtual Patient Cases and Integrated Illness Scripts for clinical conditions routinely encountered in core clinical rotations.

Congratulations to the Phase Two Pilot School Program Teams:

Case Authoring Schools:

• Eastern Virginia Medical School
• Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans
• University of California Davis School of Medicine
• University of California San Francisco School of Medicine
• University of Minnesota Medical School
• University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health

Integrated Illness Script Authoring Schools:

• Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
• Loma Linda University School of Medicine
• Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
• University of Utah School of Medicine
• Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine

The Aquifer Sciences Initiative aims to provide healthcare education programs with the teaching and learning resources they need to ensure all graduates seamlessly acquire and apply basic science foundational understanding to patient care. The new tools will promote cognitive integration and allow students to self-assess and grow their foundational understanding through safe practice in making clinical decisions.

The Phase Two work leverages Aquifer’s unique pedagogy and learning objectives drawn from Phase One of the Aquifer Sciences Initiative: the recently released Aquifer Sciences curriculum and database, which was developed in collaboration with the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) and is open and available to anyone in the medical education community. Virtual Patient Cases and Integrated Illness Scripts authoring completion is targeted for the Summer of 2019, with beta-testing to follow. Aquifer is grateful for the hard work of all of our contributors on this project and looks forward to making these important new teaching and learning tools available.