Purpose  
The preclinical and clinical years of a medical curriculum have different yet intertwined purposes. Faculty in the preclinical years teach foundational concepts of the human body, while faculty in the clinical curriculum focus on applying the students’ wealth of knowledge to clinical care. These diverse faculty have little time to coordinate teaching approaches and faculty development efforts.  

Methods  
Twenty-seven faculty across the preclinical and clinical curriculum participated in a 90-minute workshop to bridge the gap between foundational science teaching and clinical application. Each of the eight clerkship directors was paired with two foundational science course directors across fourteen courses in the preclinical curriculum for small group discussion. Prompts for discussion centered around their shared experiences with students’ common struggles with learning the material, specific content areas where the foundational science and clinical reasoning overlapped, and ways to make this connection more explicit. Small groups reported key concepts to the larger group on large Post-it notes, followed by a whole group discussion. A round-robin format was then used to explore best practices in teaching methods, including teaching in small and large groups, asynchronous/online teaching, and simulation. Additionally, participants reviewed AAMC clinician educator milestones and set professional goals. 

Results 
This extended workshop experience fostered cross-curricular integration and communication with faculty at different points in the medical curriculum.  Post-session survey results indicated that the session was well-received, with 6 out of 13 respondents finding it "very helpful," 6 finding it "somewhat helpful," and one finding it "neutral." Notably, no respondents found the session unhelpful. Qualitative comments noted that the networking time was helpful, and that they would like more time for small group interaction and specific examples from courses. 

Conclusion  
Clerkship directors do not regularly interact with the faculty in the preclinical curriculum, so this time of faculty development was especially valuable to opening conversations for future collaborations and sustained cross-curricular faculty involvement in medical student education. The positive survey feedback underscores the session’s value to participants’ professional development.