West Virginia's medical schools train modern doctors to be master learners

Just getting into med school is no easy feat; Marshall University only accepts 80 of around 500 applicants while WVU accepts 110 out of a pool of 5,500.

“It’s really a big deal getting accepted into any med school,” WVU Vice President & Executive Dean for Health Sciences Clay Marsh said. “Getting accepted is in and of itself a tremendous honor.”

Getting accepted is only the start of what can be a decades-long journey. Doctors typically get a four-year bachelor’s degree, an additional four year general medical degree, and then spend anywhere from three to seven years in residency (a medical internship) learning a specialization.

“It’s typical for doctors starting their practice to be in their late 20s to early 30s,” Marsh said. “It’s the amount of time it takes to really teach the curriculum.”

More than almost any other field, advances in medicine from new, breakthrough treatments has led to a shift in how medicine is taught, said Marshall University Joan C. Edwards Associate Dean Nitin Puri.

“The trend in medical education recently has been moving away from teaching content and leaning into teaching learning skills,” Puri said. “We know and we realize that physicians never stop learning.”

A practicing surgeon for many years, Puri said the methods he spent decades cultivating are no longer as applicable in modern medicine. Technology and its rapid advancement means practicing physicians will often spend as much time in class as they do in the operating room.

“The disease management that I learned as a medical student no longer applies,” Puri said. “We now don’t focus as much on teaching specific content so much as developing master learners.”

Marsh said that WVU Medicine has a rather novel way of staying abreast of the times. It strives to be the ones to discover the innovations.

“WVU does a lot of the cutting edge research that is finding the best and most effective treatments available today,” he said. “We want to be the ones discovering these innovations rather than strictly relying on the research of others.”

Another thing Puri said medical educators are emphasizing the important facets of treatments beyond raw knowledge.

“Medical education has been evolving as educators learn more and more what goes into a good physician,” Puri said. “What academia is catching up on is recognizing that all components of being a physician are equally important: knowledge, skill and attitude.”

Puri believes kindness and empathy are essential tools for a career that’s focused on providing treatment to people who are often having the worst experiences of their lives.

“Just knowing the medical answers is not enough; a physician has to be someone who is sensitive to the needs of the community, and has the right attitude towards healthcare and empathy towards patients,” Puri said.

While the nation has numerous medical issues, Puri said two of the largest can be seen quite distinctly in West Virginia: substance abuse and obesity. Puri believes some of the problems with treating these conditions comes with the false idea that they are entirely self-inflicted.

“On many diffrent fronts many of the medical needs are country is currently facing are related to substance abuse,” Puri said. “We at Marshall are doing a lot to train our students to recognize abuse as a medical disorder rather than a failure of character.”

Puri believes similarly that obesity is similarly not always a result of patients lacking willpower. Numerous other factors can contribute to weight problems in a person and in an entire community.

“Obesity is not as self-imposed as many people assume,” he said. “People in poverty has much higher rates of obesity for example because they simply can’t afford fresh produce or proper nutrients.”

With West Virginia having among the highest rate of obesity and substance abuse in America, Puri thinks that training West Virginian doctors to better treat and understand these conditions is of the upmost important.

“West Virginia has some of the highest obesity rates and highest substance abuse rates in the nation,” he said. “So addressing these problems is extremely beneficial at every level of medicine, from local to global.”

At the end of the day, Puri believes empathy top be the best tool of a doctor and the best tool of a medical educator. Stern kindness can be a great tool in cultivating budding physicians.

“My personal philosophy as a medical educator is to nurture and challenge,” he said. “I like to nurture my students because not everyone starts at the same spot and not everyone has a running start; people move at diffrent rates.”

While people do grow at diffrent speeds, Puri said he doesn’t give up on any student who puts the work in. The best doctors are cultivated under challenging but rewarding conditions.

“Every student should be given the opportunity to grow and into the physician they are destined to be,” he said. “At the same time medical educators must challenge them at every step, because rising to those challenges is what will develop them into better versions of themselves.”