All U.S. medical schools now endorse Decade

Getting their support was a goal of Project 100, the U.S. Bone and Joint Decade's musculoskeletal education initiative.

It has taken about three years, but every medical school in America now endorses the U.S. Bone and Joint Decade 2002-2011.

In March, the last school agreed to sign a proclamation endorsing the Bone and Joint Decade (BJD) and its musculoskeletal health initiatives.

Just as each U.S. state was asked to sign a proclamation saying that it recognized the years 2002-2011 as BJD, Decade organizers approached every U.S. medical school - about 125 in all - requesting they sign a similar statement. It read as follows:

“This Medical School recognizes the importance of musculoskeletal diseases and the disability caused by these conditions in our society. We support the goals and objectives of the United States Bone and Joint Decade, and declare our commitment to advance education, research and patient care for bone and joint diseases.”

Building contacts

In the process, Decade organizers obtained helpful contacts at the schools. Soon, it is hoped, those contacts could provide an entrée for establishing musculoskeletal curricula at the various medical schools currently without them.

Joseph Bernstein, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, directs the Decade’s medical school education initiative called Project 100. “The goal of Project 100 is to have 100% of American medical schools offer a required course in musculoskeletal medicine by the end of the Decade,” according to information at the Decade Web site.

Bernstein and about seven other physicians tackled the job of getting the endorsements. “It was just a matter of speaking to all of the deans’ offices and letting them know how important it is to declare their commitment to musculoskeletal education,” he said.

To get the last few endorsements, the group took advantage of the wide network of Decade participants. “What really pushed us over the hump was a meeting of the U.S. BJD [organizers] at the National Institutes of Health last October, where I had a chance to make a plea from the podium,” Bernstein said. He identified the missing schools and to help contact the missing schools.

“With only one or two exceptions, we had all of the schools covered,” Bernstein told Orthopedics Today.

Other projects underway

Although it is unlikely that those on the campuses of these medical schools will see any immediate changes stemming from the Decade endorsements, in time it is more likely they will notice some differences. Project 100’s many related projects may directly impact them in the coming years, Bernstein said.

For example, approximately 14 schools are now using the new textbook Musculoskeletal Medicine, published by the American Academies of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Family Physicians and Pediatrics. “We’re hoping to have many more schools use it once they start building courses.”

Representatives of the Decade plan to meet the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) on May 1 in Philadelphia to compose a musculoskeletal subject examination. At the meeting, they will select some questions from the NBME database for such specialties as surgery, rheumatology, neurology and internal medicine, and compose new questions if needed. The goal is for the examination to be fairly representative of all of the specialties that practice musculoskeletal medicine, Bernstein noted.

A pilot run of the musculoskeletal subject examination is scheduled to take place in September at Washington University, St. Louis, under the direction of Dr. Martin Boyer, with a complete nationwide rollout expected next year.

In the meantime, getting basic musculoskeletal courses in place at the medical schools remains the focus of Project 100.

For more information:
More information on Project 100 can be found at the Bone and Joint Decade Web site: usbjd.org.