Review the minutes of the November 4, meeting.

MOTION:  Accept minutes as previously distributed. PASSED

1. R. Cameron (Director of Basic Science)-did not attend the meeting.
2. J. Sorrento (Director of Clinical Courses)-the committee discussed having MCS in the 3^rd year. Their plan is to have MCS intergrated into the 3^rd year clerkships, including the surgery clerkship by Spring 2003.
3. A. Jaffe (Evaluation)-late.  Nothing to report.

     4.    R. Barraco (Teaching/Learning Strategies)-Nothing to report.

ACTION: The Clinical Course Directors will work on integrating MCS into the 3^rd year clerkship.

1.  Continuation of consideration that Fourth-Year requirements for students in the Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Program be reduced-F. Schiavone

2.  Continuation of consideration of a Proposal to Assign Separate Transcript grades for each component of the Systems Course-S. Morrison.  After much discussion about showing all the separate grades for the Systems Course the committee decided that only one grade will appear on the students' transcripts.  This is how it is recorded at present.

3.  Discussion of the merits of including grades of low pass & high pass on the transcript, and/or reporting them in the medical student performance evaluation (Dean's Letter) for clerkships.  The Curriculum Committee cannot make changes.  They can suggest to the Faculty/Senate committee what changes they would like.  One of the medical students polled her class and said that her class voted 82 students of the class of 2005 would not like to see changes on this issue.  The third and fourth year clerkship comments are included in the Dean's Letter verbatim.  In the transcript, the grades of high pass and low pass aren't shown.

4.  Distribution of October 2002 survey taken by Tarid Ahmad of the First-Year Class about their general thoughts on the curriculum.  T. Ahmad's summary of the Breadth of Responses to the October 2002 Survey of the First-Year Class about the Curriculum was distributed to the Curriculum Committee. 

5. Proposal to shift Neurology Clerkship to the Third Year-R. Pourmand.  (Attachment for initial justification was distributed.)  Dr. Pourmand is requesting that the Neurology clerkship be moved to third year instead of its present fourth year location.  This would be an advantage to students wanting to do an early match in Neurology.  The way the clerkship is set up now, the students take it after their application for residency has been submitted.    Another advantage to having Neurology in the third year is Step II has a fair number of neurologic questions.  Also, medical students who will take Neurology in their third year, would be better qualified to function in an ambulatory setting as a subintern.  Possible the most important reason to have the Neurology clerkship in the third year is that neurology is an essential clinical discipline that needs to be mastered in order to practice most specialties.

   Those clinical members of the committee who spoke all expressed concurrence with these views.  The issue was then raised of how time could be made available for Neurology in the third year.  There was strong sentiment that the current 4-week elective block not be eliminate.  Suggestions were made that 4 week ambulatory experience currently spread between Medicine, Family Medicine and Pediatrics could be extracted and shifted to the fourth year.  Several members expressed the view that any action affecting parts of three different clerkships was unwise.  A suggestion was made to switch Family Medicine to the fourth year.  Family Medicine was viewed as an integrative discipline whose study would benefit by prior exposure to more focused clerkships.  After discussing these alternatives, a motion was made to support moving Neurology to the third year but direct the issue of how this was to be accomplished to the Clinical Course Directors' subcommittee.

ACTION: Postponed.  Dr. Schiavone would like to speak with Dean Barry Rifkin, from Dental School, before discussing this item at the Curriculum Committee meeting.

ACTION:  No changes on the transcript.  The Systems course will remain the same, showing one grade for all the different sections of the course.

MOTION:  Internal grades and comments have often been included in the Dean's Letter for residency applications.  The motion was made that this policy received explicit approval of the Curriculum Committee.  The Dean shall have the freedom to include in his letter any information he deems appropriate.

ACTION: PASSED

ACTION: Tarid Ahmad didn't attend the meeting, so there was no discussion on the survey.  This was tabled for another time.

MOTION:  The Neurology Clerkship shall be a mandatory requirement in the third year of our curriculum.  The subcommittee of Clinical Course Directors is charged with recommending how this should be accomplished.  If they fail to agree on a plan, the Curriculum Committee will devise one.

ACTION: PASSED

The next Curriculum Committee meeting will be held on January 6, 2003 in the OVP Conference Room from 8:00-9:30 am.