Curing the Curriculum

What is clinical courage? How do we push our boundaries without becoming reckless, and how do we grow into it as students and doctors? In this episode we sit down with Professor Lucie Walters, a rural generalist in Mount Gambier, South Australia. She explains clinical courage when your community has nowhere else to turn. Lucie walks us through the mnemonic she and her team built for doing this safely, reframes courage as a community act rather than a cowboy one, and shares some surprising findings about working at the edge of your scope. We also dive into longitudinal integrated clerkships. Instead of speed-dating through specialty blocks, students spend up to a full year in one rural community where, as Lucie puts it, "the curriculum walks through the door." She explains why interleaving beats block rotations, how supervisors turn into lifelong mentors, and why students on LICs report better wellbeing than their hospital-based peers.
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

Clinical Reasoning is the process every doctor uses to solve medical puzzles. From collecting evidence to connecting the clues and finally identifying the culprit in order to choose the proper way to handle it - basically detective work.
But how do we learn this? Is it just about building up knowledge, becoming the smart genius who can relate all the pieces of the puzzle? Or is it more complex? For sure it remains complex to assess students progress in clinical reasoning in such a way that they don’t loose motivation to continue to grow.
We talked to Ligia Cayres Ribeiro, Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and head of a research group on clinical reasoning and technology-enhanced learning. Ligia explains how to research such an abstract concept, what aspects are important to teach and why Dr. House might not be the diagnostic genius that we think.
To contact us with any reaction, suggestion or other interaction, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

Find a healthcare provider in the Netherlands who speaks your language on https://ikspreekmeerdan.nl/
Who gets to wear the white coat, and what does that ultimately mean for the people across from them? Look around a Dutch medical lecture hall, then look around a medical waiting room. The pictures don't match. So where are people leaking out of the pipeline to medical professional, and why does it matter for excellent patient care? We talk to Soumeya Mezian (medical student and multilingual translator) and Dr. Lianne Mulder (sociologist, PhD) about the Moroccan patient whose vitamin D was never tested, the Turkish woman who calls an igloo an oven, PhD vacancies that never make it online, and why "the curriculum is already full" is not a good reason to skip addressing these issues.
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

Why does filling out feedback forms feel like a ritual nobody believes in? What if the most powerful feedback you ever received wasn't on a form at all?
In this episode, we sit down with Professor Rola Ajjawi - physiotherapist turned feedback researcher, professor of medical education at the University of British Columbia, and editor-in-chief of Medical Education. Rola takes us inside the science of feedback cultures: why surgery and ICU produce wildly different learning conversations, how emotions can freeze or fuel your growth, and why starting with "what's your goal today?" might matter more than any assessment rubric. We talk about vulnerability, what feedback literacy means, and why uncoupling feedback from grades could change things. Whether you're a student trying to make it through your next clinical placement or a supervisor wondering why your feedback doesn't quite land, this one's for you.
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

“Climate change presents a fundamental threat to human health.” (WHO). Everyday we are confronted with discussions about being more green. But is that really a topic that a doctor should care about? At least our expertise lies elsewhere.
Luise Bödecker and Lukas Radema joined us for this episode to give a comprehensive overview about why we indeed should care. With a lot of passion, combined with philosophy and a research background in the field of planetary health they explain why it is ok to be hypocrite, how doctors react to being confronted with the underlying science, how we could teach the next generation and what role patients autonomy plays in this matter.
Despite being a potentially depressing topic, we managed to keep up an optimistic talk and Luise and Lukas gave quite some motivating perspectives. So join us for this episode to get an overview, understand why people are motivated to change things and get ideas about how everyone could contribute their bit.
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

In this episode we start the conversation about a topic that you cant ignore anymore. Everyone is talking about and to AI. We were curious how this is affecting the world of medical education.
Is it a huge problem that we outsource thinking? Can AI even “think”? Can AI replace teachers? How do we stay up to date with this rapid development?
Kai Yu Ma, assistant professor, teacher and researcher at the UMCG, joined us to talk about those questions and many more. We discuss the background of large language models, implementations in the curriculum as well as risks, chances and hypothetical possibilities.
The conversation gives some answers but probably even more new questions about what will come in the near future. Probably stuff to talk about again some time with different perspectives, so please feel free to let us know your thoughts and feelings on this topic.
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

Leadership isn't about titles or positions — it's about what you actually do. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Joshua Hartzell, retired Army Colonel and infectious disease physician, about why taking care of your team is the foundation of taking care of patients. From thanking your resident at the end of the day to stopping negative talk about other specialties, Josh shares practical wisdom from many years in military medicine. We discuss why silence is also feedback, how to give tough feedback when it matters, and why self-care alone won't fix a broken system. His book, A Prescription for Caring in Healthcare Leadership, is now available — and despite the title, it's not just for people in formal leadership roles. Students, residents, nurses, anyone navigating a team can find something useful inside. Oh — and why baking chocolate chip cookies might make you a better leader.
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum

What actually makes you a doctor? Is it the white coat, the stethoscope, or something deeper? In this episode, we sit down with Margreet Smit and Miranda Trippenzee from SCOPE - the UMCG's expertise centre for personal development - to explore professional identity formation in medical education. We dive into the difference between socialization (fitting in) and subjectification (becoming yourself), and why both matter when you're navigating medical school. Along the way, we discuss why medicine feels a bit like dating, why students are people first and how reflection can help you become the kind of doctor you want to be - without burning out in the process. From stress and performance pressure to curious, healthy professionals: this conversation is about making space for who you are while becoming who you're meant to be.
Check out SCOPE’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@scope-centerofexpertiseper1541/videos
To contact us, get in touch via email: hi[At]curemeded.com & follow us on Instagram @curingthecurriculum