Because the four statements that did not reach consensus were substantially related to OGME, the Medical Education Summit II (MES II) Steering Committee was charged with assessing issues related specifically to OGME. As a result, the research completed by the steering committee and the reading materials provided to attendees before the summit focused on literature and data relating to OGME and its milieu. As it did with the first summit, the steering committee again restricted participants, this time to approximately 100 members of the profession in official capacities representing all stakeholders in OGME issues, including students, residents, and new “physician-in-practice” leaders. Of the MES I participants, only those directly involved in OGME were invited to participate in MES II.
The steering committee performed a detailed analysis of all aspects of OGME and divided the topics into the following three components:
The steering committee prepared question sets for each of these three topics and identified the main controversy in each topic.
Funding for MES II, which was held November 10, 2007, through November 12, 2007, in Lombard, Ill, was generously provided by the AOA, AACOM, the OHF, the Osteopathic Founders Foundation, and the Osteopathic Institute of the South. The summit kicked off with an introduction of the issues and the pertinent history, followed by presentations by nationally recognized experts in each of these areas. These experts delivered a provocative set of point/counterpoint presentations on each controversial topic. Participants also benefited from the general reactions and overview of two noted experts: Barbara Ross-Lee, DO, and David Leach, MD. Dr Ross-Lee, the vice president of health sciences and medical affairs at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, spoke about the changes in the profession in the bigger context of our history and where the profession can go. Dr Leach, the recently retired director of the ACGME, spoke about the unique nature of the osteopathic profession in the context of the type of medical care the public needs and deserves.
For MES II, groups were divided into a series of three breakout sessions to identify solutions and approaches, analyze barriers and facilitators, and develop action plans, respectively. Each breakout session had nine groups—seven to eight people in each group—and, like MES I, was moderated by a trained external facilitator overseen by a steering committee member. The final breakout session used the affirmed concepts to develop action plans.
At the conclusion of the development of the action plans, the entire group prioritized those plans. Summit participants were asked to vote only for items not yet in progress. In addition, participants were clearly instructed that concepts resulting from MES II would be advisory to the two governing boards (ie, the AOA and AACOM).