The Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence is an initiative sponsored through the Center for Innovative Medicine. It was made possible because of the support and generosity of the Miller-Coulson family.
The Academy was created with a mission to recognize masterful physicians who are steadfastly committed to clinical excellence for the benefit of the patients and communities that we serve.
At university medical centers, doctors divide their time primarily across three main activities: research, teaching, and patient care. Typically, research accomplishments are associated with the majority of the reward and recognition; promotion criteria are heavily weighted toward success in research. This model limits the doctor’s incentive to devote a great deal of time to patient care (or teaching), and as a result, some terrific doctors choose to (i) decrease the amount of time spent with patients in order to spend more time on research, or (ii) take positions in ‘non-academic’ settings where there is no expectation related to discovery and advancing knowledge.
The Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence hopes to change this here at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. We value and want to retain the best doctors within our institution. Through the acknowledgement of their expertise, holding them up as the clinical role models worth emulating, and advocating that their clinical accomplishment should be recognized by the greater institution, we expect to make the care experience for our patients outstanding.
The Academy is developing programs that shine a spot light on excellent clinicians and excellence in patient care. Select examples of the initiatives include: (i) an annual symposium devoted to excellence in patient care, (ii) the blog ‘Reflections on Clinical Excellence’ which is serving to promote discussion and sharing of perspectives, and (iii) a new curriculum that will serve to help clinicians advance along the continuum from clinical competence to clinical excellence – irrespective of where they fall on the continuum.
It is an exciting time to be a clinician at Hopkins!
