Penn’s medical school received an $8 million gift to redesign the way it trains doctors

The University of Pennsylvania has received an $8 million gift to redesign how it trains doctors at the Perelman School of Medicine, Penn officials announced Thursday.

Incorporating technology, AI, and data to create customized learning pathways for Penn medical students is an overarching goal. The effort comes at a time when increasingly easy access to medical information and changes in care delivery are leading medical schools nationwide to revamp their curricula.

The gift to Penn is from New York-based RTW Foundation, a philanthropy associated with the life sciences investment firm founded by Perelman School graduate and Penn Medicine board member Rod Wong. Penn said the gift from Wong, and his wife, Marti Speranza Wong, is the largest single donation to support curriculum innovation at the medical school, which dates back to 1765.

At a news conference announcing his donation Thursday, Wong recalled his time at the medical school right after its last major overhaul of the curriculum in 1998. One update under Penn’s “Curriculum 2000” revamp was recording and making lectures available online — a relatively innovative move at the time (YouTube wouldn’t be created for another several years).

“Technology has changed, and obviously we’re at this same inflection point because of AI and data science,” said Wong, who is managing partner and chief investment officer at RTW Investments LP.

The vast majority of the $8 million gift will go toward hiring data scientists and engineers, supporting faculty, and building and acquiring the platforms needed to deliver the new curriculum.

Technology will be incorporated into new training techniques, such as by using augmented or virtual reality to assist in learning anatomy, developing knowledge needed to diagnose illnesses and develop treatment plans, and mastering clinical skills such as IV placement and suturing.

For example, students can practice taking a person’s medical history or doing a physical exam on a virtual patient, while an AI agent is there to give feedback in real time.

“It’s really adaptive to the individual learner, but you do it at your own pace, on your own time,” said Lisa Bellini, executive vice dean of the medical school and a leader on the project.

The redesign will take place over the next three years as school leaders consult with stakeholders and work on building the platform.

Some of Wong’s gift will be used to create a biannual endowed lecture in business and entrepreneurship that will bring leaders in medicine and healthcare innovation to campus. The gift will also establish the Roderick Wong Entrepreneurship Pathway, which will provide mentorship, workshops, and project-based learning to students with business interests.

“We really need to incorporate the fundamentals of how best to use technology responsibly within the practice of medicine and create something incredibly enduring, because you’re not going to go through this exercise every three years,” Bellini said.

The Perelman School of Medicine is embarking on its curriculum revamp at a time when medical education is evolving at many schools.

Some medical schools have concentrated the traditional two years spent learning science into one year to give students more time to learn how to interact with patients and collaborate with other medical professionals.

A three-year medical school option is offered at institutions such as the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine to speed doctors into the clinic and reduce students’ debt loads.

Like most medical schools, Perelman has a standard curriculum where students take foundational science courses for a stretch of time and then transition to the hospital to gain clinical experience.

This can lead to some students repeating courses that they already mastered in college.

“If you were a biochemistry major as an undergrad, do you really have to take biochemistry again?” said Jennifer Kogan, vice dean of undergraduate medical education and a leader on the redesign project. “How could you better use that time to achieve whatever your career goals are?”

Leaders at Penn want to give students the flexibility to adjust their timelines based on their skill sets and goals.

Instead of setting a fixed time for how long a class or rotation will take, a student who masters a skill more quickly should be able to move on and devote their time to other interests, such as research or entrepreneurship.

Many students at Penn pursue dual degrees or research fellowships that end up adding a fifth year of medical school. Penn leaders hope adding flexibility to the curriculum could enable students to instead finish in four years or “maybe even three,” Kogan said. (The possibility of a three-year path is not yet guaranteed but will be explored.)

“It will be better set up to support students like me who have had to use significant federal loans to finance their way through medical school and might have benefited from the condensed training timeline,” said Alex Nisbet, a fourth-year medical student at Perelman who spoke at the signing event.

The school will leverage data and AI to assess how individual students are progressing in what they’re calling a “precision education model.”

Though parts of the program will be piloted over the next three years, the first class to see the full implementation of the curriculum will be in the fall of 2029.