Pritzker Initiative
“For medical education to flourish from one generation to the next, it has to reconfigure itself in response to changing scientific, social, and economic circumstances.”
-Abraham Flexner
That challenge from Abraham Flexner served as the basis for the medical education revolution of the early 20th century, and throughout its history, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine has met Flexner’s challenge through an unremitting examination and evaluation of the medical curriculum and its relationship to biomedical discovery. Today, we once again find ourselves in an era of rapid discovery and pathbreaking approaches to medical care, and we, like many of our peer institutions, will undertake a new initiative to create a blueprint for a 21st century curriculum.
The Pritzker Initiative: A Curriculum for the 21st Century was launched in the 2005-2006 academic year. This initiative will transform the program of medical education offered at the Pritzker School of Medicine to reflect the revolutionary discoveries of the last ten years and their application to patient care, while preserving the great traditions and core values of the school and its devoted teaching faculty.
The Pritzker Initiative will increase student-faculty interactions, create opportunities for discovery, reduce the number of large lecture classes, and replace them with small-group, hands-on learning under the direct mentorship of renowned faculty physicians, researchers, and clinical educators."
"Through the Pritzker Initiative, students will learn medicine at the cutting edge of biomedical science, translate that science into direct patient care, and acquire the moral foundation of the profession as they prepare to become future doctors and leaders," said Holly Humphrey, Professor of Medicine and Dean for Medical Education. "During an era of fragmented health care delivery, it is increasingly urgent that future physicians develop mastery in these fundamental areas. These are the kinds of doctors our patients deserve."
The goal of the Pritzker Initiative is to improve education for the next generation of leaders in all areas of medicine. It will enhance the educational experience of medical students while preparing aspiring physicians for careers that combine scholarly inquiry with clinical care. It also will increase the number of graduates who focus their scholarship and clinical practice on improving health care delivery in underserved areas.
"The University of Chicago has always been known as a teacher of teachers and this description has always been particularly apt for our medical school," said James L. Madara, MD, Dean of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago and Chief Executive Officer of the University of Chicago Medical Center. "Our goal is to train physicians who will change medicine by bringing new knowledge to the field and passing it on."
