July 26, 2022 | Lauren Woods - Schools of Medicine and Dental Medicine

UConn Medical School Selected for First ‘Creative Community’ of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME)

UConn is one of 10 medical schools nationwide selected to participate in the NBME's first Creative Community to innovate medical education. "The Clinical Skills Assessment Program at UConn has had a long history of success in teaching our students the skills they need to be excellent clinicians. This grant is both a recognition of that success and provides an opportunity for our school to contribute to the forefront of innovation in medical education,” says Dr. Laurie Caines.

Dr. Laurie Caines teaching primary care clinical care skills at UConn Health. Dr. Caines is director of UConn’s Clinical Skills Assessment Program. (Tina Encarnacion/UConn Health photo)

UConn School of Medicine is one of 10 medical schools nationwide prestigiously selected to participate in the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) first Creative Community to innovate medical education.

The Creative Community participation will support the work of UConn’s Principal Investigator Dr. Laurie Caines with a $150,000 grant over two-years to focus on identifying and developing enhancements to the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) specifically for clinical reasoning.

“It is a great honor to be one of the schools chosen to participate in the OSCE for Clinical Reasoning Creative Community,” shared Dr. Ellen Nestler, associate dean for clinical medical education at UConn School of Medicine.

“Clinical reasoning is a challenging skill to learn and to assess. It is a privilege to work with the NBME and other members of the OSCE for Clinical Reasoning Creative Community on a pilot project focusing on this important area of medical education,” said Caines, associate professor of medicine and director of UConn’s Clinical Skills Assessment Program.

Caines adds: “The Clinical Skills Assessment Program at UConn has had a long history of success in teaching our students the skills they need to be excellent clinicians. This grant is both a recognition of that success and provides an opportunity for our school to contribute to the forefront of innovation in medical education.”

The 10 institutions selected to participate in the Creative Community, include:

  • Duke University School of Medicine
  • Howard University College of Medicine
  • Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
  • Morehouse School of Medicine
  • Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
  • University of Central Florida College of Medicine
  • University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
  • University of Connecticut School of Medicine
  • University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine
  • University of New Mexico School of Medicine

The goals of the Creative Community are to: enhance the development, characterization and assessment of learner clinical reasoning skills; present patient groups without bias or stereotypes; minimize group differences in learner outcomes; and enable all institutions to better support learner skill development across the continuum of medical education and training.

The OSCE for Clinical Reasoning Creative Community is the first program to launch and the NBME plans to launch additional Creative Communities in 2022 and 2023. It is all part of the NBME Assessment Alliance, an initiative designed to facilitate productive and creative collaborations to bring medical school faculty, staff and students together with NBME staff to solve the pressing challenges faced by the medical education community today.