PURPOSE
Contemporary medical schools are being charged to meet the demands of
health care delivery now and into the future (Skochelak and Stack, 2017).
Newly forming medical schools have the opportunity to design systems that
reflect the human and complex system needs of healthcare delivery (Maurana et
al., 2024). Leadership undertakings in schools and beyond are suggested as
important to build effective care teams and to create ethical organizations
where providers and patients can flourish (Chen, 2018; Shale, 2011).
METHODS
Medical student leaders at newly forming U.S. medical schools are using a
novel framework for flourishing to “become” the health care providers of the
future. In these unique environments, students, faculty and the schools
themselves have the opportunities to embed concepts such as character,
caring, practical wisdom and flourishing into “the way things are done.”
These schools and their student leaders will share practical examples of what
embedding a framework for flourishing looks like and means to them and their
peer classmates.
RESULTS
Programming has demonstrated both individual and group level impacts.
Individual students report having increased skills in reflective capacity and
awareness of their ongoing articulation of meaning and purpose within
medicine. Collectively, students express feelings of social connectedness and
group belonging. Such impacts are noted as potentials for increased feelings
of flourishing (VanderWeele, 2017).
CONCLUSIONS
While student-led undertakings are noted as posing an increased workload
onto busy medical students, they are also cited for having positive benefits
for the individuals engaged and for creating better environments for students
to learn and develop (Annan, 2023). Learning from and encouraging such
programs could result in creating the vision for the medical schools and
medical professionals of the future.