saying specifically at Sinai but medical education in general, go through the Krebs cycle and spend an hour, two hours, or a day going through it? Should we just assume the student has that information, and not cover it at all, and go straight into a system we would not otherwise have time for? And I think that there is a transition going on about those concepts now that has been going on for a while. Yes. Also, Sinai has changed its entrance requirements for the new FlexMed students, as an expansion of the HuMed program. I understand the philosophy behind that but if there are things that should be shifted to the undergraduate level, do you think FlexMed students would miss that boat? I think that is one of the challenges of early assurance/acceptance programs. If we as an institution were to make those changes, what would we have to do to those prerequisites for the early accepted students? As we currently teach, I think there is a long history that shows it is not a problem for the HuMed students. Their performance in medical school is fine. They perform well and by most metrics are not distinctly different from premed cohorts. But I do think you’re right. As medicine evolves, we always have to be willing to respond and make changes to medical education. But I think that our programs are constantly evaluating the needs of our students, so we will respond appropriately. There is a lot of discussion around the changes to the MCAT exam and how that is going to change undergraduate education and medical education as well. We’ll have to be nimble in order to adjust to those things. Definitely. Shifting gears a bit, what is a normal workweek like for you? How do you spend your time? My time is divided into four different areas: my leadership of the HuMed program, my laboratory work, the graduate school work and my medical education work – teaching within Physiology and being the Associate Course Director. It depends seasonally where we are, but typically I spend not enough time in the laboratory. However, I have a really talented graduate student who is independ-
Dr. Hanss on vacation with his family ent and works well. We meet almost daily but it still is not enough. Right now, I’m working on preparing lectures for the week as you well know. I have all these lectures this week so I’m spending time preparing. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time answering emails. That is bit of a time sink. In the graduate school I direct one of
industry or biotechnology – the Biotechnology/Entrepreneurship track. It’s going to go hand-in-hand with a PhD program that is currently under development and will be a component of that. So that will give students an opportunity to take courses that will support not just the scientific elements but also business ele-
“As medicine evolves, we always have to be willing to respond and make changes to medical education.” the Masters programs and oversee several others. With one program in particular, the Masters of Biomedical Sciences, we’re doing curriculum development and expansion and developing new tracks. We’ll be accepting students specifically into those tracks this year. That’s exciting. What are some of the tracks? Basically, of the students that are in that program, most of the students are looking to go into either medical school or graduate school. A small minority are interested in preparing for industry jobs. As of now we have two informal pathways that focus on medical school and graduate school preparation. This year we will be formalizing these two tracks and adding a third for students who want to go into
ments. It will support internships, science and research components in translational labs or industry labs so there will be exposure to that type of research as well. It will be a formal classroom curriculum and research experience curriculum. With all that is changing in healthcare, do you think there needs to be a stronger emphasis on the business side of medicine and the policy/economics aspect of it, among medical schools? I think policy is important. We’re going through a big change in healthcare policy right now. The more informed the physician is, the better he or she will be able to respond to those changes. I think that physicians are not only caring for patients but they’re running a small business, and I don’t think that they’re
“It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.” - Sir William Osler 3