Lebanese American University, PHMI partner since 2007, opens new medical school
Friday, October 30, 2009
On September 1st, Lebanese American University (LAU) welcomed the inaugural class of the Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine.
LAU is a not-for-profit private institution, chartered in the United States, which also operates schools of arts and sciences, business, engineering, and architecture on its campuses in Beirut and Byblos. LAU also has the only pharmacology program outside the U.S. that is accredited by a U.S. agency. In 2007, LAU entered into a long-term relationship with then-Harvard Medical International, with the goal to mold an American-style education program with a strong focus on active learning and research. A PHMI team led by Dr. N. Lynn Eckhert has collaborated with LAU on curriculum development, physical infrastructure planning, development of faculty and admissions standards, and faculty development.
The School of Medicine has commenced the first year in a temporary facility. Construction of a state-of-the-art permanent home is underway. LAU has recruited 108 doctors and researchers hailing from Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. LAU has established clinical affiliations with Clemenceau Medical Center and the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, both in Beirut. LAU has also acquired Beirut’s Rizk Hospital, which it plans to develop into an academic health center.
The institution is led by founding dean Dr. Kamal Badr. A graduate of the medical school at the American University of Beirut, Dr. Badr completed a four-year nephrology fellowship at Harvard Medical School before serving on the medical faculties of Vanderbilt University and Emory University in the U.S. Prior to his appointment at LAU, he chaired the internal medicine department at his alma mater in Beirut.
In a welcome message to LAU’s inaugural class of 28 medical students, he wrote, “You should look at the next phase of your academic life not simply as enrollment in a program leading to the MD degree, but rather as a unique opportunity to share with us the exhilarating task of creating a new paradigm in medical education in Lebanon and the region.”
The LAU School of Medicine will have a four-year medical curriculum which integrates basic science and clinical education from the beginning. LAU plans to develop signature education programs in women’s health, adolescent and pediatric medicine, geriatrics, neuroscience, and genetic medicine, as well as high-quality centers focused on areas such as cardiac and vascular disease, cancer, and metabolic disorders. “The integrated curriculum we have embraced, with its reliance on small-group, self-directed, patient-based learning and its emphasis on the patient, rather than the disease, will develop in our physicians depth of character and insight into human nature,” said Badr.
To support practical learning, the School of Medicine will feature a multidisciplinary Simulation and Skills Assessment Center, where students from the university will play the role of standardized patients. In August, two LAU faculty members—one a member of the basic science faculty and the other a professor of drama from the Arts and Sciences—spent a week at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (where PHMI’s Dr. Eckhert served for many years in senior leadership), where they observed the use of simulation and standardized patients. Nadia El Asmar, MD said that LAU will be the first school in Lebanon to use standardized patients for teaching.
In April, the school held its first founding faculty meeting on the Beirut campus. This was followed in May by a faculty development workshop delivered by Eckhert along with PHMI faculty Tom Aretz, MD and Connie Bowe.
Dr. Eckhert will spend October and November at the School of Medicine to help oversee the implementation of the new curriculum. In the spring, Dr. Bowe will return to LAU to work with the leadership and faculty on assessment of the education program.
“The excitement at LAU is infectious,” said Eckhert. “Dean Badr has assembled a stellar faculty who will bring innovative teaching to medical education in Lebanon. The students are bright, energetic, and enthusiastic about this new school. I am looking forward to joining them for October and November.”
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