Early Clinical Leadership

Early Clinical Learning in Vista capitalizes on the well-established student-faculty longitudinal relationships and experiences that were built in LInC and seeks to preserve these relationships in an updated and modernized framework with a focus on student wellness and scheduling standardization.  Clinical learning will be integrated within each discovery phase block of learning with student performance and participation contributing to block grading and will occur every week on Wednesdays.  An early clinical learning leader will work with students in the discovery phase of the curriculum, learning community mentors, doctoring and clinical skills group leaders, core small group faculty, simulation educators and iCELS, and with block leaders toward competency based clinical education and skills. (See the EPC presentation describing early clinical learning in the discovery phase of Vista).    

Early Clinical Learning Director (ECL) 

The ECL Director role spans the entire academic year.  We would consider up to 2 individuals in this role.  The block leadership responsibilities apply to this role and additional role description for ECL Director includes: 

• Overseeing MS1 & MS2 Wednesday content/curriculum including small group curriculum, physical diagnosis, hospital sessions, longitudinal clinical experiences (LPP), standardized patient (SP) practice interviews, social determinants of health experiences, near-peer transitions experiences and simulation education.  
• Coordinating with simulation leaders in iCELS, the small group leaders, the physical diagnosis and hospital session directors 
• Directly overseeing the social determinants of health curriculum, near peer transitional curriculum and the practice SP session 
• Organizing Wednesdays: content order, faculty recruitment, collaboration with longitudinal consultants, assessment development, & section organization.  
• Responding to student feedback and continuous content improvement over time 
• With LCMs and small group facilitators, oversee clinical student assessment (including meetings and retest/remediation planning) 
• Participation in (sampling of) sessions through faculty observation and feedback at a minimum rate of twice per block.  
• Meets participation requirements for relevant curriculum committees including the Discovery Phase Curriculum Committee 
• Completes and presents early clinical learning report at the Discovery Phase Curriculum Committee annually and contributes to the annual report on Clinical Education to the Longitudinal Threads Curriculum Committee 
• Manages urgent clinical learning issues including unexpected faculty absence.  LCM absence would be addressed by the learning community leadership.  Together alternative materials will be developed for missed sessions due to faculty absence or other unexpected situations.   
• Overseeing the collecting, tracking, and reporting to block leaders of assessment generating assignments and activities from clinical Wednesday activities 
• Coordinating with Block leadership to ensure Wednesday content aligns with the associated block 
• Coordinating with Learning Community Leadership to ensure faculty understanding of physical diagnosis and hospital sessions curriculum 
• Understanding the overall school approach to clinical skill assessment to ensure that our evaluation framework is based on competencies, reflects specific EPAs and is aligned with clinical years approaches.   
• Early Clinical Section Directors will work under the direction of the Early Clinical Learning Director (ECL) 
• Hospital Sessions Director 
• Physical Diagnosis Director 
• DCS small groups Director 
• Simulation (outside of Vista Call) 

Section Directors will work under the direction of the Early Clinical Learning Director to: 

• develop, refine and continually update objectives related to their activity,  
• prepare educational activities for unforeseen faculty absences that align with educational objectives when live learning cannot occur,  
• assist in the arrangement of makeup sessions when students miss activities or require additional opportunities for learning clinical skills,  
• designing and revising assessment activities 
• Participation in sampling of sessions and providing faculty observation and feedback at a minimum of once per block 
• Section leaders will, in rotation, attend the discovery phase curriculum committee 
• Contribute to the annual early clinical content report to the discovery phase curriculum committee 
• Reviewing student feedback about the activity and creating quality improvement initiatives specific to the section at least annually

Updated SEPT 8 2023 | cjb