Building a Standardized Subinternship Curriculum: A Strategic Framework for Success

Developing a national medical education curriculum presents challenges including institutional differences, multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and varying perspectives on educational best practices. Factors that contribute to successful curriculum design and implementation include a systematic approach, careful planning, intentional collaboration, and active inquiry. Modeled after Kern’s 6-Step Approach for Curriculum Development for Medical Education, we authors provide a practical and iterative framework for other medical education leaders to utilize when creating and disseminating large-scale curricula across institutions. We share insight and tips from the experience of developing a national family medicine subinternship curriculum that was based on specialty values and competency-based assessment. We provdie an example of how this framework can be best utilized for development of durable and relevant curriculum that will provide a reliable standardized clinical experience that is also flexible enough to allow individual institutions to customize the rotation to their unique characteristics.