American College of Cardiology

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 30TH BETHESDA CONFERENCE. THE FUTURE OF ACADEMIC CARDIOLOGY. BETHESDA, MARYLAND, OCTOBER 26-27, 1998.
JACC Vol. 33, No. 5, April 1999:1091-1135

30th Bethesda Conference:
The Future of Academic Cardiology*

Task Force 3: Teaching

Gabriel Gregoratos, MD, FACC, Co-Chair, Alan B. Miller, MD, FACC, Co-Chair

RECOMMENDATIONS

The academic cardiology unit must:

1. Promote and develop excellence in teaching.
2. Provide balance between cognitive/clinical and technical skills.
3. Develop and incorporate methods of evaluating effectiveness of teaching.
4. Insure that the training curriculum of medical students, residents and fellows includes appropriate cardiovascular content and is periodically reassessed.
5. Develop appropriate incentives to enhance the academic value of teaching. Such incentives include financial, professional (promotion) and personal rewards.
6. Develop and support appropriate promotion criteria for clinician-educators.
7. Guarantee faculty sufficient time and resources (e.g., conference space, teaching materials and so forth) devoted to effective teaching at all educational sites.
8. Develop and implement innovative teaching tools and methods.
9. Work with other components of the health care delivery system to insure an adequate patient base for education.

To assist academic units to accomplish these goals, the American College of Cardiology must take a leadership position in:

1. Educating the lay public, government, political establishment, media, payers, industry and health care providers on the importance of medical teaching and education.
2. Helping to identify the costs of education.
3. Developing a national forum to "teach the teacher."
4. Working with other groups to identify and ensure an adequate and stable funding base for medical education (e.g., all payer pool).
5. Assisting academic units with the development of innovative teaching and evaluation techniques.

TASK FORCE 3 REFERENCE LIST