Building a Dream Team to Change Medical Education in Southern Nevada
Meet Karin Esposito, MD, PhD, Senior Executive Dean for Academic and Student Affairs
As both an MD and a PhD, Karin Esposito is particularly well equipped to develop medical school curriculum. As a member of Roseman University College of Medicine’s Dream Team, assembled by Dean Joe Greer, MD, to shape new thinking at this emerging school of medicine, Dr. Esposito is thrilled and invigorated by the opportunity to build a curriculum that integrates the community model into the educational model.
“I came here knowing that Las Vegas is underserved by physicians, and that medical students in Nevada do not truly reflect the state’s demographics,” she said. “We want to build a pipeline with a diverse student body of individuals who are committed to staying in Nevada to practice medicine. It’s both a huge challenge and an opportunity that I am excited to tackle.”
Dr. Esposito, who received her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology, as well as her MD, from the University of Miami, completed her residency training in psychiatry at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Her research interests span basic and clinical research, education research and hospital-based quality improvement research. Her diverse background well qualifies her to help build Roseman’s curriculum.
“Because of Roseman’s focus on treating the whole patient, which includes the patient’s household and therefore, the surrounding community, we plan to follow households longitudinally,” she said. “Students will be organized into practices where, together, they will learn how to treat entire households. We believe this is the future of successful patient care, particularly in underserved areas.”
This model will also need to be embraced by our faculty, she said. “Our faculty members will also need to be hands-on, making home visits and responding to community needs. We are interested in recruiting doctors as faculty who are ready for innovation and change. There is so much happening with technology, data and metrics, our doctors will learn how to work with these different models to create a new generation of doctors better equipped to respond to their communities.”
Charged with overseeing Roseman’s accreditation – no small task – Dr. Esposito is shouldering significant responsibility. But she believes the school’s GENESIS model will help to set it apart. GENESIS includes a curriculum that teaches students about the social, economic, and cultural elements of the community they serve; a delivery model that makes accommodation for the patient’s circumstances, bringing medical care and attention to where patients live – including home visits; and a humble attitude that puts doctors on equal footing with the patients and communities they serve.
Dr. Esposito, who has been part of the accreditation process before at other medical schools, values and respects the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) process in a country and within an industry where medicine is self-regulating and includes an emphasis on continuous improvement. “A shared focus on continuous improvement bodes well for Roseman and its GENESIS approach to medical education.”
