Dr. Chang is a medical oncologist who has served as the chief clinical science officer at Houston Methodist Academic Institute for the last five years and led the Dr. Mary and Ron Neal Cancer Center at Houston Methodist for more than 15 years.
“My new role is a natural transition,” she told Becker’s. “I’ll continue focusing on cancer research and education, in addition to overseeing other disciplines including neurosciences, heart and vascular, transplant, orthopedics and sports medicine, gastroenterology and infectious diseases.”
Dr. Chang said she renews her goal of pushing the frontiers of research and discovery each year.
“We have come so far in scientific research and education,” she said. “When I first started my career in cancer treatment and research, it was chemo, chemo, chemo. That’s all we had to offer desperate patients. We have more tools in our toolkit today and have drastically improved patient outcomes in most disease fields. However, until we can make these diseases chronic or cured, we’re not done.”
As she steps into her new role, Dr. Chang hopes to continue to grow the system’s education programs and overcome some challenges.
Challenges in medical education, residencies
Medical education is facing a number of challenges.
“First and foremost, we need assurances that funding and support of academic medicine continues for faculty educators and leaders, programs and initiatives that support the increasing requirements of certification, accreditation and lifelong learning and competency,” she said. “We always have to think decades ahead in medical education.”
Like the rest of medicine, recruitment efforts are a challenge as there are fewer physicians nationally. However, a greater challenge for academics is finding diversity of thought, experience and perspective across all levels.
“That means ensuring equitable promotion and professional development that invites underrepresented perspectives to the table,” Dr. Chang said. “Houston Methodist has always done a good job systemwide, but we need to keep pushing this focus in medical education so that future physicians can meet the needs of everyone in diverse cities like Houston and states like Texas.”
The field is also facing threats to residency programs. Dr. Chang said these include adequate protected time and financial support for academic endeavors, limited residency position growth amid increasing demand, and lack of CMS funding or state funding.
Residency programs also require more reshaping to meet the needs of the patient populations they serve. Even after graduation, there is a demand for greater professional identity development to help reduce burnout and suicide within medicine from student to healthcare provider.
Lastly, there’s a need for more competency-based medical education, and tools and assessments that accurately measure competency, Dr. Chang said.
Growth on the horizon
About twenty years ago, Houston Methodist had no accreditation council for graduate medical education programs or positions. Now it has 52 programs and 423 positions and Dr. Chang said she is looking to continue that growth.
“The expansion of our academic programs will depend on the changing landscape of medical education and the directions we need to take to stay ahead of the curve in academic medicine,” she said.
Currently, the system is eying partnerships with Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M University, Rice University, University of Texas Medical Branch and several hospitals to expand their programs externally.
Internally, Dr. Chang is evaluating national and local trends and needs and getting input from stakeholders to decide which medicine programs to expand.
“Expansion of our academic programs will focus on our current core areas such as cancer, neurosciences, heart, orthopedics, organ transplants and gastroenterology,” she said. “But we will also look to expand our graduate medical education programs by expanding existing programs, such as primary care, as well as developing new specialty programs like a surgical fellowship for colorectal surgery and medical fellowships like diabetes and critical care. We also expect to expand some of these programs to our other hospitals across the greater Houston region.”
Beyond programs, Dr. Chang is exploring how to use artificial intelligence in training programs to improve assessments of knowledge and competency and standardize individualized feedback.
