A Preclinical Curriculum for Professional Identity Formation through Reflection, Social Analysis, Team Orientation and Enrichment

Objective or purpose of innovation
Our SOM has one of the most diverse student bodies in the country; we are committed to ensuring that students have similar baseline opportunities. We developed a required, innovative, longitudinal preclinical course to develop reflective practices and critically analyze the historical and social contexts underpinning medical practice in the US. We explicitly discuss the “hidden curriculum” and provide credit for work previously done as extra-curricular by some resourced and informed students, not accessible to all. Background and/or theoretical framework and importance to the field
The I-RESTORE (Identity Formation through Reflection, Social Analysis, Team Orientation and Enrichment) course is informed by professional identity formation literature and draws on structural competency training, emphasizing concepts including structural inequality and racism.

Design
Structure: two weeks in the first year, four week block during the summer after, two weeks in the second year. Includes mandatory sessions on communication, advocacy in medicine, and group coaching sessions, in addition to elective sessions on career exploration, leadership and personal development, life-long learning, and inter-professional experiences. The summer block is a selective, focused experience in research, community engagement, lifestyle medicine, global health, or an externship.

Outcomes
Survey results: students appreciate panel discussions on career exploration and roles in healthcare teams, self-reflection exercises, coaching sessions, and opportunities to engage in activities including yoga and nutrition-focused cooking classes. Students expressed disappointment that elective sessions were scheduled simultaneously, forcing them to make selections.

Innovation's strengths and limitations
Students value this novel curriculum and identify the need for careful logistics management to optimize opportunities for varied experiences. We will continue to collect student surveys and observe impact on student well-being and patient care in the clinical years.

Feasibility and generalizability
LCME standards include competencies on professional identity formation, structural competency, and inter-professional work; this course represents a model to integrate theses skills into the preclinical curriculum. We recommend that social scientists and medical anthropologists inform program design to ensure conceptual rigor.

References
Please list references below.
Kalet, Adina, Lynn Buckvar-Keltz, Verna Monson, Victoria Harnik, Steven Hubbard, Ruth Crowe, Tavinder K. Ark, Hyuksoon S. Song, Linda Tewksbury, and Sandra Yingling. ""Professional identity formation in medical school: one measure reflects changes during pre-clerkship training."" MedEdPublish 7, no. 41 (2018): 41.
Lovell, Ben. ""What do we know about coaching in medical education? A literature review."" Medical education 52, no. 4 (2018): 376-390.
Metzl, Jonathan M., and JuLeigh Petty. ""Integrating and assessing structural competency in an innovative prehealth curriculum at Vanderbilt University."" Academic Medicine 92, no. 3 (2017): 354.
Morse, Robert, Eric Brooks, Kenneth Hines, and Daniel Lara-Agudelo. ""Most Diverse Medical Schools."" US News and World Report. 2022. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/medical-school-diversity-rankings.
Neff, Joshua, Seth M. Holmes, Kelly R. Knight, Shirley Strong, Ariana Thompson-Lastad, Cara McGuinness, Laura Duncan et al. ""Structural competency: curriculum for medical students, residents, and interprofessional teams on the structural factors that produce health disparities."" MedEdPORTAL 16 (2020): 10888.
Sarraf-Yazdi, Shiva, Yao Neng Teo, Ashley Ern Hui How, Yao Hao Teo, Sherill Goh, Cheryl Shumin Kow, Wei Yi Lam et al. ""A scoping review of professional identity formation in undergraduate medical education."" Journal of general internal medicine 36, no. 11 (2021): 3511-3521.
Toubassi, Diana, Carly Schenker, Michael Roberts, and Milena Forte. ""Professional identity formation: linking meaning to well-being."" Advances in Health Sciences Education (2022): 1-14.