Medical Education in the United States and Canada, 2020

For the third time this century, the Association of American Medical Colleges has coordinated a collection of reports from their member medical schools that collectively reflect the state of medical education in the United States and Canada. This introduction to the September 2020 supplement to Academic Medicine provides an overview of the collection, with 145 out of 171 eligible medical schools participating in the project. The authors observe trends and similarities across the reports from participating schools, structuring the introduction to mirror the main questions posed to the schools: highlights of each school's medical education program, curriculum description, curricular governance, education staff, faculty development and support in medical education, regional medical campuses, and initiatives in progress. Key findings from the authors include expansion of student enrichment tracks, early clinical encounters, focus on wellness, expansion in competency-based medical education, and continued evolution of approaches to assessment. The authors note that this supplement was produced before COVID-19, and although it robustly chronicles the prepandemic state of medical education, medical education has already evolved and will continue to do so. This view offers important opportunities to observe and study changes in the curricula.