News & Commentary

6.22.11

Macy Faculty Scholars: First Class

It is with great pleasure that we announced today the first cohort of Macy Faculty Scholars. These five scholars represent the next generation of innovators in health professions education. They will lead important curriculum reform in their home institutions, testing new models, approaches and content to better educate our future health care workforce. They will also participate in national faculty development programs and become part of a national network of Macy advisors and innovators.

Importantly, this class of Scholars also represents the new face of the health professions, which must become more diverse and which must increasingly work across professional and disciplinary boundaries in search of better health care system performance. Two of our Scholars are nurses. Four of our five Scholars are women.  One Scholar is the only African American member of her nursing faculty who is also in a leadership position within administration. Another Scholar will focus squarely on the problem of underrepresentation and racism, herself a member of an ethnic minority group.  Each is an advocate for important transformations, whether they seek to improve patient safety, build a more representative and culturally competent workforce, or bring better care to the underserved.

The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation has long been concerned with improving the education of health professionals as a way to improve the health of the public, in part by aligning medical education with the needs of society at large. We must reform medical education to face current and future challenges, and leadership is crucial to achieving that goal. It is particularly satisfying, then, to be able to harness the energies of an already distinguished group of educators and provide them with the support and resources needed to implement change.

By nurturing future leaders in health professions education we are addressing not just the need for educational change, but also the need for a cohort of leaders and innovators who, collectively, can help envision and put into practice the educational changes we need to meet the challenges facing the health care system. We hope and expect that the lessons learned and progress made by this promising group will be disseminated and contribute to broader efforts to reform education in the health professions.

We heartily congratulate this year’s scholars and look forward to engaging them throughout their two years as funded Macy Scholars and their promising careers ahead.