Presented By: Anamika Sengupta, University of Illinois College of Medicine

Purpose 
21st century medical education is rapidly implementing integrated curriculums to emphasize interdisciplinary connections. By this virtue of integrating basic and clinical sciences (within lectures and small group sessions), these curriculums have spawned development of integrated and interdisciplinary assessments. Existing literature suggests these assessments indeed help medical students develop essential critical thinking and problem-solving skills for future preparedness in the rapidly evolving world of modern medicine. This study aims at discussing the steps involved in creating such assessments via interdisciplinary faculty collaboration and evaluating the long-term impact of such assessments on student preparedness.   

Methods 
The section describes the invested efforts made in a Texas-based osteopathic medical school toward integrating basic and clinical sciences across all evaluations (formative, cognitive and small group activity-related exams) of their integrated and student-centered curriculum. It details the processes involved in developing common vignettes that could accurately assess closely-related scientific and clinical objectives, with emphasis on their interdisciplinary connections through focused and concise examinations. 

Results 
This section describes students' initial challenges in response to the integrated assessment items and how with time, training and continued collaboration (alongside content faculty and academic advisors), their performance improved significantly. This progressive achievement, in addition to being a testament to their preparedness for board exams, also demonstrated their holistic development as versatile physicians of the future. 

Conclusion 
Integrated assessment in a medical curriculum seeks to synthesize information from diverse disciplines of medicine, different stakeholders (patients, physicians, insurance and pharmaceutical companies) and data sources to offer a platform for a more holistic approach to the human system and to the treatment of associated diseases. Within those boundaries, medical students would grow predictably versatile with greater appreciation of the human body in addition to overcoming interdisciplinary barriers and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills as impending 21st century physicians.