Strategic Plan

Overview

A number of changes in the environment challenge us to rethink our approach to education, research and clinical practice. First is the changing nature of biomedical knowledge and practice. Advances in genetics and molecular and cellular biology, among others, are diminishing the traditional boundaries between disciplines and increasing the interface between basic and clinical science.

This strategic plan grew out of extended conversations within the medical school and the work of several task forces. Beginning with a day-long retreat in the fall of 2004, some 75 representatives of TUSM met regularly over the next eight months to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the school. What has emerged from those discussions is a "blueprint" to guide us over the next 5 to 10 years.

The Executive Summary of the Strategic Plan included below. Learn more or read the full text here

Executive Summary

Overall Strategic Assessment

Tufts University School of Medicine with the Sackler Graduate School for Biomedical Sciences is at a crossroads.

The school has a long, proud history of outstanding clinical education and basic science research, and we continue to be strong in these areas. Historically, this strong performance has emerged separately amongst education, research, and clinical care enterprises, with each pursuing and financing its mission zealously, but independently.

A number of changes in the environment challenge us to rethink our approach. First is the changing nature of biomedical knowledge and practice. Advances in genetics and molecular and cellular biology, among others, are diminishing the traditional boundaries between disciplines and increasing the interface between basic and clinical science.

This strategic plan grew out of extended conversations within the medical school and the work of several task forces. Beginning with a day-long retreat in the fall of 2004, some 75 representatives of TUSM met regularly over the next eight months to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the school. What has emerged from those discussions is a "blueprint" to guide us over the next 5 to 10 years.

We must address our challenges within financial and other constraints. For this reason, two overarching themes must inform our strategic choices.

• Focus: Our path forward lies in focused excellence. We can be good across the board, but we can be truly great in only a limited number of areas. Our challenge is to choose wisely and to invest our effort and resources with discipline.

• Integration: We need to build tighter links among the three "legs" of our mission—education, research, and clinical care—as well as across the University. Research opportunities, in particular, will benefit from collaboration with our clinical affiliates and other schools at Tufts.

Above all, we are an educational institution, committed to teaching and learning in an environment of collegiality and respect. Our vision, and our goal, is to improve human health through research and education in a dynamic learning community.

In that effort we are guided by the following institutional values:

• Excellence: to be outstanding at what we do

• Integrity: to be honest and consistent in our actions

• Collaboration: to work together across organizational boundaries to meet goals

• Compassion: to act with care when serving our patients and community

• Leadership: to educate physicians, researchers, and public health professionals who are leaders in their fields

• Creativity: to emphasize rigorous fundamentals while stimulating innovation

• Diversity: to embrace and support diversity in our community and educate physicians and researchers to live, work, and serve in a diverse nation and world

• Community: to work in fellowship with our colleagues, students, and neighbors

• Lifelong learning: to engender a love of learning at every stage of life

Medical Education

The rapid evolution of medical science, along with the changing role of the physician in society, poses challenges for the traditional approach to medical education. Our goal is to improve the quality of our education, preparing our graduates to be outstanding in medicine and related fields, by differentiating the educational program from that of other medical schools. In so doing, applicants will seek out TUSM on the basis of its distinctive approach and values.

Our strategy includes revision of the medical education program, as well as improvements and investments in our educational facilities and infrastructure. Components of our strategy include:

Curriculum revision The heart of our effort calls for a significant revision of the current medical curriculum, to include the following three components:

• A focus on "translational education" Just as "translational research" describes the integration of basic research and clinical medicine, "translational education" describes the integration of basic sciences and clinical education that will provide the foundation of the new curriculum. TUSM will strengthen and improve our existing medical degree program in light of significant changes in education, licensure, and accreditation at all levels of medical training and practice. Our goal is to ensure that TUSM graduates are highly competent, compassionate practitioners, who are lifelong learners in their chosen fields.

• Signature programs For students devoted to specialized study, TUSM will feature dual, joint, and combined-degree programs reflecting the distinctive capabilities for which Tufts University and its partner teaching hospitals are known.

• MedExplorations TUSM will greatly enhance the array of career exploration and enrichment opportunities available to students, particularly in the first, second, and fourth years. The offerings will include a series of special electives and Selectives at TUSM as well as at partner schools, and greater opportunities for independent study.

Student "societies" In order to facilitate the development of professionalism, enhance mentoring, foster teamwork, and provide better guidance regarding career choices, TUSM will introduce a program of student societies based on the pilot currently underway through the Office of Student Affairs.

Campus center We must build a campus center to improve the student experience and to accommodate new approaches to learning and advising. Under consideration for inclusion in the facility are:

• A clinical skills/simulation center to be used for student learning.

• A cafeteria to foster daily student and faculty interaction.

• Large function space for ceremonies and other events.

• Space for students to meet in large and small groups.

Simulation capability at TUSM and affiliates Due to the growing use of technology in the practice of medicine and changing licensure and certification requirements, we envision an approach to new teaching technologies, and particularly to simulation technology, that builds extensively on our existing electronic infrastructure, TUSK, and partnership with our affiliates. The plan includes constructing a network of simulation centers at our teaching hospitals and on campus, each with core functions plus a specialty area that can be leveraged and shared.

Scholarships We will introduce a scholarship program to help TUSM attract a cadre of outstanding students with interests aligned with our mission, core curriculum and signature programs. The scholarship goal is to raise endowment funds to support 25% of our students with half-tuition scholarships (about 168 total or 42 per year).

Admissions We will appoint a special committee to make recommendations for a new admissions process designed to increase the applicant pool of diverse, highly-qualified students, improve the yield for top students, and build strong and positive ties to TUSM with undergraduate institutions and matriculants. Our selection criteria for students should reflect our goals for the kind of physicians we graduate. Suggested process improvements should include how we better communicate who we are and what we do as a medical school, and should be applicant-focused.

Faculty development, recognition, and support A major effort will be required to assist faculty in developing and implementing the educational strategic plan, and appropriately recognizing and supporting their efforts.

Funding Resources are required for every phase of the educational strategic plan and, therefore, need to be maximized at every opportunity, from private and public sources, particularly for student scholarships and curricular innovation.

Research

TUSM’s research enterprise, organized into traditional disciplines and focused on individual achievement, served us well for much of the 20th century. But it must now be changed in order to better address the challenges of the 21st century. Our goal is to build the research enterprise to world-class status so that TUSM is known as one of the top 10 institutions nationally in at least three areas of research.

Our approach will be to focus on developing a distinctive capability in the following disease-oriented research areas and cross-cutting disciplines, with the goal of reaching the top 10 in at least three areas. Interdisciplinary and team science efforts will expand, and we will seek opportunities to collaborate with industry.

• Infectious disease Expanding the institution's capacity to improve global health by preventing diarrheal and other water-borne infections diseases and developing enhanced capacity to understand the genetic basis for variation in response to pathogens

• Neuroscience Building on existing institutional strengths to focus on vision, olfaction, audition and somatosensation and the prevention and repair of diseases affecting these processes

• Cancer Achieving designation as an NCI Cancer Center

• Cardiovascular disease Enhancing the institutional capacity to address molecular and translational aspects of vascular biology and disease, including efforts to exploit the technologies of regenerative medicine

These four thematic areas are supported by four cross-cutting research platforms:

• Genetics Developing a capacity for modern genomic research

• Clinical research and evidence-based medicine Advancing predictive medicine and strengthening links between basic science research and clinical care

• Regenerative medicine Expanding research in stem cell biology to address problems in bone, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and neural/neurosensory repair

• Drug and biologics discovery and development Building on current scientific and medical expertise to promote the translation of scientific discovery at TUSM into therapeutics and diagnostics

In order to achieve these goals, we must make a number of key investments in our faculty and facilities, as well as in our operations.

New faculty hires Over the next 8-10 years, we expect to hire approximately 30 new faculty members with demonstrated interest in disease-oriented, interdisciplinary and team research. Many will replace retiring faculty.

Research buildings To enable us to recruit and support scientists of high caliber, we will need to renovate research facilities.

Core facilities We will sustain a set of core facilities, under the leadership of a single administrative structure, to support the development of our strategic foci.

Educational support We will increase from 40 to 60 the number of stipends for graduate students in the Sackler School for Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

Research guidance To ensure that we use our resources efficiently and effectively, we will adopt a set of management tools. Advisory committees will also be assembled.

Business development A "business development" officer will be hired to serve the medical school. This person will have responsibility for learning the TUSM research portfolio and identifying projects and scientists that would be good candidates for partnering with industry or establishing "start-up" companies.

Clinical Partners

TUSM is unusual among medical schools in that we do not own or have governance of a teaching hospital. Clinical education takes place within a network of affiliated, independently operating academic medical centers. Our goal is to strengthen partnerships with our clinical affiliates to help them meet their challenges in an increasingly competitive milieu and to insure adequate clinical expertise and capacity to meet the medical school's education and research objectives.

TUSM will reorganize the manner in which it leads and oversees academic activities at affiliates, and also make critical investments to support clinical faculty more effectively.

Leadership and oversight A new Vice Dean has been hired as an essential first step. To support and enhance his efforts, we will institute or expand four elements of a leadership and oversight system:

• Appointments The appointments process will be streamlined.

• Promotions Where appropriate, faculty promotions will be facilitated and the process will be communicated more effectively with clinical faculty.

• Faculty development We will lead, support and encourage sharing of faculty development resources across partners.

• Information resources The use of TUSK and other resources will be promoted among affiliated faculty members.

Clinical departmental chair structure TUSM will revise the departmental structure so that responsibilities of the department chair are clear and academic activities across the system are coordinated.

• Roles and responsibilities will be formally adopted. Chairs will have aperformance review every five years.

• Duration of Service Appointments will be for an initial term of five years.

• Departmental councils For major departments, the clinical chiefs at major affiliates will form a council, to meet at least quarterly with the Vice Dean.

• Support TUSM will provide financial support directly to clinical chairs of major departments.

• Clinical chairs' meeting Chairs will meet frequently with the medical school Dean and Vice Dean.

Academic centers TUSM will help with administration of the academic effort at the major affiliates.

GME Council TUSM will establish a new Graduate Medical Education Council to help coordinate and share information and resources.

Physical infrastructure for academic"headquarters" TUSM will work with major affiliates to design and renovate appropriate space to house the academic centers.

Community of clerkship directors TUSM will create a new society to provide financial support and recognition and improve faculty development for clerkship directors.

Clinical research support TUSM will coordinate, encourage, and support the expansion of clinical research infrastructure across all sites.

Integration Across the Mission

We will work to develop a stronger campus identity and to improve our internal and external communications. Our approach will proceed on two fronts.

• Campus identity The urban landscape around our downtown campus encompasses approximately the neighborhoods of South Cove, Chinatown, and the South Station area. With the completion of the Big Dig, this area will undergo a significant transformation. We have an opportunity to make ourselves a more distinct and visible presence in the community. This sense of campus identity, in turn, will facilitate recruitment of faculty and students, improve morale, and hopefully stimulate a closer relationship with the surrounding communities.Increasing physical visibility through improved signage and street level enhancementswould be a low-cost first step.

• Communications Improvements to our programs and practices will be effective in meeting our goals if we can communicate them to key constituencies.

Conclusion

With completion of this phase of the strategic planning, Tufts University School of Medicine is focused on making the plan reality. Our earliest priorities will be revising the curriculum to provide an excellent clinical education suited for its time and the future, improving student academic life and raising funds for scholarships and simulation capabilities. In research, our immediate concerns are recruiting and supporting a new Chair and several faculty members for the Neuroscience Department who can spearhead the effort in neurosensory/motor repair. We are also working hard to build a research advisory structure and improve our management tools. We are beginning work with our clinical affiliates to strengthen and support the academic enterprise and build a GME Council. Across the board we are reviewing and improving our communications, starting with the website. Over the next decade, we expect to address all of the opportunities identified in this plan.

These challenges will be difficult, and our success will be determined by how well we handle the most challenging of these issues. We are at an inflection point in our history; faced with making significant choices in direction. We expect to remain true to our deepest commitments, but we must also give up some familiar and comfortable avenues and step out into new territory. It is an exciting time and we look forward to forging new and stronger partnerships with our faculty, students and partners through this effort.