The College of Medicine-Tucson (COM-T) prides itself in its pursuit of excellence in patient care, research and education. In an on-going effort to improve our medical education program, a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) system has been established linked directly to the expectations for educational process and outcomes as contained in accreditation standards to carry out improvements in a systematic way. See CQI policy.
Improve frequency and quality of direct observation of students taking a patient history and performing a physical exam in the clerkships.
Faculty and resident instructional development in the areas of teaching and giving feedback is underway in the clerkships. An item on the Clerkship evaluation form was added to monitor student satisfaction. Also, a checkbox on the midclerkship feedback form was added as a prompt for the faculty/clerkship director to verify whether the student has been observed.
Improve guidance in the selection of electives, career preference assessment activities, and information about specialties.
The student affairs advising structure was revamped in 2016 with four House Deans to deliver individualized and timely career planning services. Other improvment changes were to augment the website, the career/specialty resources for faculty specialty advisors and institute an annual student satisfaction survey to collect feedback and monitor the effectiveness of the program.
Improve access to library study rooms.
For AY 2018-19, weekday operation hours were reduced to 7AM- 7PM to reduce demand for access to rooms by non-UAHS users. After-hours access remains limited to UAHS-only students, staff and faculty.
