EC Gynaecology

Introduction: The Medical School Objectives Project (MSOP) focuses on the competencies integrated in medical school curricula. As student education in informatics was not deemed as intrinsic to achieving competency, the penetrance and format of integration have varied across medical institutions.

Purpose: The primary goal of this study was to describe the integration of medical informatics (MI) currently in curricula across medical schools within the United States.

Methods: This is an IRB-approved cross-sectional national survey conducted between January and April 2022. The survey focused on the presence of medical informatics in curricula across US-based allopathic and osteopathic medical schools.

Results: The response rate was 40% (77 out of 192) with up to 50% of respondents reporting formal integration in their UME curricula. The material was offered in elective format (67%), integrated into existing required courses (23%), and as stand-alone required courses (10%); however, only 20% reported seamless integration into the curriculum. In-person lectures (63%) and online modules (27%) were the main formats utilized with 61% initiating learner exposure in the preclinical years. The topics included clinical decision support (46%), reference searching (24%), EHR use (23%), and security and ethics in healthcare (19%). Up to 37% of the educators were informatics-credentialed faculty, 27% had supplementary training permitting informatics mentoring, and the rest were medical librarians.

Conclusion: Undergraduate medical education has no required medical informatics curriculum, resulting in varied exposure and training among medical schools. Students may benefit long-term from competencies set up by educational regulatory bodies.

Keywords: Competency; Curriculum; Informatics; Medical Education; Students; Survey

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