Focus on Faculty:  CMSRU's Faculty Assembly 

James K. Aikins, MD

Mark J. Pello, MD

Perry J. Weinstock, MD

Faculty involvement in decision making at an institution of higher learning is generally accepted as having a positive effect on the function of that institution.Being a brand

new school, CMSRU has the ability to embrace faculty opinion and participation organically through the establishment of our Faculty Assembly.

The full Faculty Assembly will meet at least twice annually to discuss and establish medical school policies and practices that are in the purview of the faculty; to advise the CMSRU administration on matters related to teaching and research; and to review the objectives of the educational program. All active committees of CMSRU will have faculty representation with half of the membership appointed by the dean and half elected by the faculty. Committee elections are being held on an ongoing basis as committees are strategically "stood up." Watch for election emails from Annette C. Reboli, MD, Vice Dean of CMSRU.

In 2011, CMSRU faculty elected officers of the Faculty Assembly. Perry J. Weinstock, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Head, Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and Director of Clinical Cardiology at Cooper was named president; Mark J. Pello, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery and Head, Division of Colorectal Surgery at Cooper was named Vice President; and James K. Aikins, Jr., MD, Associate Professor of Ob/Gyn and Director of Research for Cooper's Division of Gynecologic Oncology, was named Secretary.

"Drs. Weinstock, Pello and Aikins are renowned for their commitment to medical education, as well for their clinical expertise," said Dr. Reboli. "They will do an excellent job in leading the Faculty Assembly and helping faculty to become engaged in medical school activities."     

Crafting the learning spaces for our new building was an exciting endeavor! Rather than fitting our innovative curriculum into a pre-planned or existing building, we created a new building that was fully driven by the new curriculum. Some of our favorite spaces to plan were the Active Learning Rooms - a total of twenty-five located on two floors in the building. These spaces are designed to be the "home" for our students for the first two years of school. Driven by our case-based curriculum, which involves primarily small-group discussion and self-directed learning, we designed spaces where students could collaborate in small groups - using either faculty-facilitated discussions or student-driven sessions. Up to eight students will be assigned to each room, which will be equipped with all the latest tools and technologies. 

Each room will have individually-assigned desks and storage spaces, a flexible conference table area, an exam table, and white boards. Each room will also house a large, 65 inch monitor that will be connected to an iPads as the input interface. It also can be driven by student laptops - all facilitating sharing of information, images, and driving collaborative discussion and learning. A camera will be mounted above the exam table to be used in simulated interview/exam situations, so that immediate review of captured video is possible within the room itself. The room (as well as the entire building) is part of the campus wireless network.  

How did mercury come to be a standard therapy for syphilis - and who figured out that the treatment was worse than the disease? Why did postmenopausal women in the 1960's believe that estrogen was the antidote to aging - and what changed our minds?  

The Scholar's Workshop, a continuous four-year course, is the setting in which CMSRU students will develop critical thinking skills and proficiency to answer questions such as these, and more. In this course, students will learn to use a set of enduring tools that will allow them to critically assess historical advances and misconceptions in medicine, understand the methodology and ethics of scientific inquiry, use the best available evidence to help guide treatment decisions, and design systems to optimize the delivery of care to patients.

Faculty will guide students - working in teams - though a series of hands-on projects aimed at developing their proficiency with the toolkit, as well as with their team-building, teamwork, management and leadership skills. The projects are designed to align with other aspects of the curriculum, which is vertically-integrated and organ-based. This vertical integration reinforces what students learn about health and disease at a molecular and cellular level with what they see in patients - both "simulated" (standardized patients) and in their clinical activities in ambulatory and inpatient settings.

Students In the third and fourth year, working with faculty mentors, will develop novel projects of original research in basic science, clinical medicine, or disciplines of performance improvement, patient safety, public health or systems engineering. They will present completed projects to the school community as a capstone at the end of their fourth year. 

By now, you should have received an email from Barbara Miller, Library Director, with the subject line "Help Select Cooper Library Journals." As the library staff finalizes plans for the new CMSRU Medical Library, they are welcoming input from faculty to determine the best resources to include in their collection.   

"We are committed to maintaining the same level of resources that we currently have through UMDNJ, so please tell us what you rely on and what, if anything, you would like to see added," says Ms. Miller.  "We want to provide the best collection possible for our faculty and students and now is the time to make decisions on what to include."

Please email suggestions to Barbara Miller at  miller-barbara@cooperhealth.edu.