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MEDICAL EDUCATION Thibault Named Head of HMS Academy On Sept. 17, HMS dean Joseph Martin announced that George Thibault, the vice president of clinical affairs at Partners since January 1999, also has been named the first director of the Academy at Harvard Medical School, a program that began last February under the leadership of Daniel Lowenstein, HMS dean for medical education. As the first Academy director, George Thibault will oversee selection of the initial members. Photo by Jeff Cleary "We were seeking an established, talented, and highly respected faculty member for the position, and today we are very pleased to announce that we have found that person," Martin said on filling the new post. Education Takes the Stage Thibault, a 1969 graduate of HMS and professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has long been involved in medical education. Among his many other contributions, he has served as a medicine clerkship and residency program director at Massachusetts General Hospital; as chair of several New Pathway curriculum design committees and of the HMS Committee on Years III and IV; and as a founding member of the Academy. One of his new challenges as Academy director is to solidify an understanding of the organization in the Harvard medical community (see Focus March 9, 2001). "The Academy has been created first to focus attention on education, to remind us as a faculty that a major reason that Harvard Medical School exists is the education of students, and to highlight the important role of faculty in teaching in addition to their roles in clinical care and research," Thibault said. "We want to champion the teaching role of faculty; we want to help faculty become better teachers; and then finally, we want to innovate. We want to innovate because medicine has changed and we should be thinking about different ways to educate our students for this changing world." Thibault's first task is overseeing the choice of an initial round of Academy members; a call for membership is planned for the next couple of months. Though the membership count is still in flux as is the formal set of selection criteria, what is clear is that members will be a subset of the thousands of people across the medical community who are involved in teaching. Many of them, but not all, will be clinical faculty. Some may be residents, fellows, and students. To be selected as a member, an individual will have to have demonstrated distinct skill in teaching and be committed to devoting a portion of time to pursuing the Academy's educational goals. The work of the Academy will still be relevant to everyone who teaches—not just to members—emphasized Thibault, who will spend about a quarter of his time on directing the organization. Assisting in the leadership is the new full-time deputy director Jane Neill, who most recently was the assistant dean and program administrator at the Shapiro Institute. Issues like raising teacher compensation, improving methodology, and examining the content of teaching are high on the agenda. The UCSF–Harvard Academy Collaborative, a partnership between HMS and UCSF that was formed in the early stages of the HMS Academy, is an important source of corroboration and insight. Lowenstein helped create the academy at UCSF before coming to HMS last year. "The concept of a new structure for the support of our educational mission has resonated deeply at both institutions," Lowenstein said, "and we are now in a position to benefit from this truly symbiotic relationship. It is difficult to imagine a more qualified or inspiring leader for this effort than George Thibault." Addressing that relationship, Thibault said, "We are in constant touch with UCSF. The academy there has just gone through the first selection process for its initial faculty members. So we're learning from what they have done." In the future, the success of the HMS Academy will be reflected in whether the promotion of teaching faculty and quality of the student experience have increased. Another measure, according to Thibault, will be the amount of funding the Academy raises to support education. "Our aim is to bring in new resources that have been specifically devoted to paying for teaching time and educational programs," he said. "That's one of the very important goals of the Academy." —Robert Neal