A team led by Dr. Brigitte Smith, an associate professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery and the Department of Surgery’s Vice Chair of Education, has been selected as one of 11 teams to receive funding from the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program. The program is a $12 million investment by the AMA to advance physician training through personalized learning and advanced technology. Dr. Smith and her team will receive $1.1 million over four years to fund its project, “Graduate Performance Profiles to Enhance Learning Analytics and Precision Program Improvement in Vascular Surgery.”
Chosen from nearly 200 applicants, Dr. Smith’s team distinguished itself as an innovator and leader in precision education, advancing efforts to strengthen the physician workforce and support high-quality patient care. Precision education models use data and technology, including augmented intelligence (AI), to tailor learning to each learner’s needs. These models help medical students and physicians focus on developing the skills and competencies that matter most in diagnosing, communicating, and caring for patients.
“My team is absolutely thrilled and honored to have been selected,” Dr. Smith said. “The AMA is a unique funding partner, focused on supporting the grant teams and building a strong consortium in which all projects are accelerated through shared learning. I’ve never been more optimistic about the field of precision education and the possibility of real and lasting impact.”
This project will explore the extent to which Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs can intervene at both the program and individual trainee levels to ensure high quality care post-graduation. GME programs are responsible for ensuring graduates are prepared to provide excellent patient care. However, once residents graduate, there is wide variation in physician-level performance that affects patient outcomes.
This project will develop and pilot a comprehensive analytical platform that predicts post-graduate surgeon-level patient outcomes using multimodal GME data. The platform will provide surgery residency programs with comprehensive profiles of their graduates’ early career performance, including processes of care and patient outcomes, linked with measures of their performance during training. Predictive analytic models will enable programs to identify program factors that impact graduates’ performance and could be modified to enhance the competence of current trainees and future graduates. Collaborators on this project include Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, University of Florida, the Vascular Quality Initiative registry, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education with numerous institutions engaged as supporting sites.
“Technology and AI have the potential to reshape how physicians learn, practice, and care for their patients, and these grants will help bring that potential to life,” said AMA CEO John Whyte, MD, MPH. “As new tools emerge, we have an opportunity to build learning environments that are more engaging, more adaptable, and better aligned with the realities of practicing medicine. Our goal is to ensure that innovation strengthens the physician experience and creates a future where every physician is fully equipped to meet the needs of patients.”
The AMA’s investment across 11 team projects will expand access to cutting-edge technology and systems that make learning more efficient, effective, and focused on optimal patient care. The Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program was developed with national experts in augmented intelligence, assessment, and medical education and follows more than a decade of AMA leadership through its ChangeMedEd® Initiative, which has invested nearly $50 million in reimagining medical education.