The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has named Rubens Pamies, M.D., vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean for graduate studies at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, to a 19-member External Advisory Committee for the AAMC’s Institute for Improving Medical Education (IIME).
The institute’s mission is to boost the health of Americans by fostering innovations in medical education that will better align the knowledge, skills and professionalism of medical students, residents and practicing physicians with the needs and expectations of the public.
In 2003, the IIME and the AAMC convened an ad hoc committee of 10 medical school deans to review the U.S. medical education system and recommend strategies for change. The group issued a 14-page report, titled “Educating Doctors to Provide High Quality Medical Care, A Vision for Medical Education in the United States.” The report identifies opportunities for improving the three phases of physician education — medical school, residency training and continuing medical education.
Dr. Pamies and other members of the external advisory group will translate the deans’ recommendations into actions, which may be adopted by medical schools and accrediting agencies.
“I’m honored to be part of the group that will set the direction for medical education in the coming decades,” Dr. Pamies said. “Health care needs are changing as the country becomes more diverse and new challenges, technologies and diseases emerge. Medical education has to change with it so that health care workers are trained in the complexity of medical problems and in such new medical fields and concerns as genomics and bioterrorism.”
Dr. Pamies’ involvement with the IIME also will keep UNMC students and faculty members abreast of new developments in medical education on a national level.
Michael Whitcomb, M.D., AAMC’s senior vice president for medical education and director of the IIME, will work with the external advisory committee to map out an agenda for the institute. Michael Johns, M.D., executive vice president for health affairs at the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University and former dean of medicine at Johns Hopkins, will chair the committee.
A native of Haiti, Dr. Pamies has been involved in academic medicine for 15 years. He has served as director and founder of the minority affairs division at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa and chief of the division of general internal medicine and associate professor at Case Western University School of Medicine. At Case Western, he also served as associate dean for academic programs and associate dean for student affairs. In 2000, Dr. Pamies was named professor and chairman of the department of internal medicine at Meharry Medical College and chief of service for the department of internal medicine at Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital. In 2001, he was appointed professor of medicine for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He joined UNMC in September 2003.
He also has been active in advancing medical education, especially that of minority groups. He has served as chairperson of an AAMC committee looking at issues concerning minorities in medical education and has been active in the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), the oldest and largest medical student organization dedicated to people of color and underserved communities.
Dr. Pamies is co-editing a book on health disparities with David Satcher, M.D., who served as the U.S. surgeon general from 1998-2002. In 2000, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine established the “Dr. David Satcher-Dr. Rubens J. Pamies Scholarship for Academic Excellence for Minority Students.”
For more information about IIME, including the report, visit http://www.aamc.org/meded/iime.