How we do
Over the past five years, I have had the honor of serving in various leadership roles in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which represents the 131 accredited medical schools in this country and 17 in Canada. In November, I begin a one-year term as chair of the AAMC’s board of directors.
As I have observed medical schools during my time with AAMC, my understanding of what a school’s mission should be has become increasingly distilled. It can be summed up in just three words—doing what matters.
If this is our aim, how do we know when and if we are succeeding? Every day here at Emory, I see numerous and unmistakable signs of just such success.
At least twice each year, for example, our faculty lead groups of students, like those at right, to provide care in Haiti. This past year saw more trips than usual after the devastating earthquake in January. In venues like this, our doctors and doctors-to-be make the best of very bad situations, setting up makeshift clinics, enlisting and training locals, reading x-rays by sunlight, using camping headlights to perform surgery into the night. When they come back home, they work to raise funds to ensure that they can return to Haiti as well.
On the local scene, I see other signs. Faculty teach students not just the Krebs cycle and blood chemistries but also the healing power of heavy-dose compassion in interaction with patients. Faculty serve as good role models in other ways too, partnering with county officials to help rescue the elderly and disabled from abusive situations and providing more telehealth services in underserved areas throughout the state.
In research likewise, our faculty are concentrating their efforts to maximize impact, using genomics, for example, to learn why flu vaccines are often ineffective in the very young and old and working with colleagues at Georgia Tech to develop dialysis units for children.
Doing what matters may be open to interpretation, but I have found that seeing what we do turns out to be a sure and steady way over time to see just how we’re doing.
Thomas J. Lawley, MD
Dean, Emory University School of Medicine
