This document outlines a six step approach to curriculum development for medical education. Step 1 involves identifying problems, including determining who is affected, the extent of the problem, current approaches, and barriers to solutions. The ideal is to fully understand the problem circumstances before developing solutions. Conducting a general needs assessment identifies the gaps between current and ideal curricula. The first exercise asks readers to analyze a curricular problem they face according to these Step 1 factors.

1. Curriculum Development for
Medical Education:
A Six Step Approach
Section 1: Problem Identification
David Kern
Patricia Thomas
Donna Howard
Eric Bass
John Hopkins University Press , 1998

2. Contents
 Step 1 Problem Identification and General
Needs Assessment
 Step 2 Needs Assessment for Targeted
Learners
 Step 3 Goals and Objectives
 Step 4 Educational Strategies
 Step 5 Implementation
 Step 6 Evaluation and Feedback

3. Goals of This Presentation
 Why is problem identification important in
curriculum design?
 What curricular elements need to be
included?
 How to compare a curricular problem with
an ideal solution.
 Completion of exercise 1

4. Step 1a problem Identification :
 The first step is to identified the health
problem or learning problem that needs to
be addressed in your practice. This could
be a disease state that has emerged in
your population, a national epidemic, or a
well known health problem that you feel is
not being satisfactorily addressed in your
current curriculum.

5. Complete Problem Identification
 Who does the problem effect:
 Patient
 Learners
 Medical Educators

6. What does it effect?
 What does it effect
 Clinical outcomes
 Educational effectiveness
 Educational outcomes
 QOL
 Other health care resources

7. How big is the problem?
 To what extent is this a problem in my
practice ?
 High Priority
 Medium Priority
 Low Priority

8. What is the current status?
 What is current being done about it ?
 Does anyone else have the same
pedagogical problems ?
 How are they resolving them ?
 Where are sources of possible solutions?

9. Are there barriers to solution?
 What are the barriers to problem
resolution?
 Time ,
 Personnel
 Money
 Knowledge
 Community issues
KNOWING THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH
YOUR CURRICULUM IS NOT ENOUGH ,
ONE MUST KNOW THE CIRCUMSTANCES
THAT MAKES IT A PROBLEM

10. Step 1b : ideal solution
 Now if you have unlimited resources ,
students, faculty, instructional materials,
time and money, how would you best
solve this curricular problem?
 This step will give you the basic idea of
resources that you will need to solve the
problem, even if all of them are not within
your reach.

11. General Needs Assessment
 The difference between the actual and
ideal curriculum model is the general
needs assessment, it will provide an idea
of your needed resources

12. Exercise 1
 Identify one curricular problem you are
experiencing, including:
 Who does the problem effect ?
 What is the extent of the problem?
 Have other medical educators faced and
solved the same problem?
 What are the barriers to successful solution?