CWRU leadership

Educating Doctors of the Future

By August 4, 2013 No Comments

We launched the Western Reserve 2 curriculum six years ago. The class that graduates this spring will be just the third to experience its full swath of offerings. And yet, as fresh as that program feels to many of us, we must look at it anew.

In no way am I suggesting an overhaul. But consider how much has changed since our first students started in WR2. In 2007 Apple introduced the iPhone. The next year our nation faced its worst economic decline since the Great Depression. And two years after that Congress passed the most sweeping changes to health care since the 1960s’ Great Society programs.

Meanwhile, health care spending has continued its precipitous rise. When Western Reserve 2 began it accounted for just over 15 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Today, the figure is just under 18 percent, and experts predict it will top 20 percent by 2021.

Read more from Dean Davis