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Incorporating sleep medicine content into medical school through neuroscience core curricula
Rachel Marie E Salas1, Roy E Strowd2, Imran Ali2
1From the Department of Neurology (R.M.E.S., C.E.G.), Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD; Department of Neurology (R.E.S.), Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC; Department of Neurology (I.A.), University of Toledo, OH; Department of Neurological Sciences (M.S.), Rush University, Chicago, IL; Department of Psychiatry Behavioral Sciences (L.S.), Stanford University School of Medicine, CA; Department of Neurology (J.S.), Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY; Department of Neurology (B.V.V.), University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill; Department of Neurology (A.Y.A.), David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (J.B.J.), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD. rsalas3@jhmi.edu.
Objective:
To present (1) justification for earmarking sleep medicine education as an essential component of all medical school curricula and (2) various avenues to incorporate sleep medicine exposure into medical school curricula through (primarily) neuroscience and neurology courses.
Methods:
Per consensus of a team of leading neurology and sleep medicine educators, an evidence-based rationale for including sleep medicine across a 4-year medical school curriculum is presented along with suggested content, available/vetted resources, and formats for delivering sleep medicine education at various points and through various formats.
Results:
Growing evidence has linked sleep disorders (e.g., sleep-disordered breathing, chronic insufficient sleep) as risk factors for several neurologic disorders. Medical educators in neurology/neuroscience are now strongly advocating for sleep medicine education in the context of neurology/neuroscience pre and post graduate medical education. Sleep medicine education is also a critical component of a proactive strategy to address physician wellness and burnout. The suggested curriculum proposes a sleep educational exposure time of 2-4 hours per year in the form of lectures, flipped-classroom sessions, clinical opportunities, and online educational tools that would result in a 200%-400% increase in the amount of sleep medicine exposure that US medical schools currently provide. The guidelines are accompanied by the recommendation for use of technological education, to facilitate more seamless curricular incorporation.
Conclusion:
Even in this era with limited flexibility to add content to an already packed medical school curriculum, incorporating sleep medicine exposure into the current medical school curriculum is both justified and feasible.
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