Brave New Pathways

Final HMS/HSDM Second Year Show sends off new curriculum

Image: Steve Lipofsky

Image: Steve Lipofsky

The final performances of Harvard Medical School’s long-running Second Year Show began in the future: the year 2032.

As the play's plot unfolds, the Pathways curriculum at HMS and the “Harvard Colgate School of Dental Medicine” has divided students into four dysfunctional tracks. Overachieving “gunners” are pushed to the brink of academic endurance in Alpha track, while their slower classmates in Delta track learn that the heart is a muscle before they all break for naps.

Meanwhile, the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program has become the MIT School of Medicine, where socially challenged students practice their clinical skills on robots.

Where did it all go wrong?

Three members of the “Class of 2036” travel back in time to get to the root of the problem in “Brave New Pathways,” the 109th annual HMS/HSDM Second Year Show, held Dec. 3-5 at Roxbury Community College.

Get more HMS news here

This year marked the last time the show will be produced by second-year HMS and Harvard School of Dental Medicine students. Because of changes in the actual HMS/HSDM medical education curriculum that took effect this year, the show will henceforth be put on by fourth-year students.

“Everyone involved wanted to make it the best show ever because it was the last one,” said student Laurel Fuentes, who co-directed the production and played HMS faculty member Beverly Woo.

The students did not disappoint. The three-and-a-half-hour show featured 12 musical numbers based on pop songs and Broadway hits, numerous choreographed dances, a spoof recruitment video, a live pit orchestra and a cast of more than 50 members of the Class of 2018.

Curriculum wars

The basic plot was straightforward: student protagonists North (played by Juhi Kuchroo), Alex (Lindsay D’Amato) and Jaiden (Dan Liebman), disturbed by the state of their schools’ medical and dental education, time-travel back to 2015 with the help of caricature versions of HMS Dean for Students Nancy Oriol (Francesca Barrett), Faculty Associate Dean for Student Affairs Alvin Poussaint (Chidi Akusobi) and Associate Director of Curriculum Services Evan Sanders (Enrico Ferro).

Image: Steve LipofskyThere, the students sneak into faculty meetings in which the new curriculum is being planned. They attend the very first Pathways classes and watch for signs of how the curriculum began to go awry.

At first, the faculty votes to adopt a benevolent, if simplistic, “annotated curriculum” proposed by professor Randy King (Ricardo Guerra). Medical Education Professor Richard Schwartzstein (Naveed Rabbani), however, wants something tougher. Schwartzstein teams up with former HMS genetics professor David Altshuler (Richard Ebright) at Vertex Pharmaceuticals to clone himself and take over education reform.

Schwartzstein and his clone (Krishan Sharma) then sing “A Whole New Me,” based on the song “A Whole New World” from the movie “Aladdin”:

A whole new me [Every test a surprise]
With new pathways to pursue [Every chance hand out F’s]
I’ll teach them everything
Take that, Randy King
And let me lead this whole new school with you

Image: Steve LipofskyThat’s when North, Alex and Jaiden start to notice worrying changes. Their investigation slowly leads them to the discovery that Schwartzstein’s clone has turned evil and run amok.

Once they capture the clone, free the real Schwartzstein and restore the proper Pathways curriculum, the students go back to the future and confirm that all has been set right.

Song, dance and parody

“One of the most fun aspects of being part of this production has been seeing people who have not played instruments or sung in a very long time, if ever, pull talents out of their past or discover undeveloped talents,” said student music director Ray Parrish. “Even though it’s not professional Broadway quality, people are so passionate.”

Dance was a particular strength of this year’s production, including a group number set to “Workout Gainz,” a parody of “Paper Planes” by M.I.A., choreographed by student Brian Yang.

Another impressive performance occurred during what may have been the first Second Year Show embedded within a Second Year Show: North, Alex and Jaiden attend a student-run performance modeled after “The Lion King” in which students Chidi Akusobi, Ryan Din, Tracy Makuvire, Chitra Mosarla, Victoria Robson, Priyanka Saha, Fangdi Sun and Brian Yang performed African-inspired dances they choreographed themselves while classmates sang “The Pathways of Life.”

Image: Steve LipofskyJuhi Kuchroo’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables” stood out in Act I, as did Dan Liebman’s rendition of “Part of That School,” based on “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid”:

And ready to know what the patients show
Ask ’em my questions and get some answers
What is an ulcer and why does it—What’s the word—

Burn

When’s it my turn
Wouldn’t I love
Love to explore a sore with a glove

Out of MIT
Wish I could be
Part of that school

Jokes and medical puns abounded (“If she were an immune response, she’d be acute inflammation”).

Many digs were aimed at this year’s revised curriculum features, such as subject integration. Fictional classes were called “Disparities in Anatomy” and “Guns, Germs and Feels.”

There were also “triple-flipped” classrooms. Schwartzstein’s clone explained:

Remember, for flipped flipped classrooms you will be called on to ask professors questions that simultaneously convey a mastery of the content and expose a key area for knowledge growth. The question should be complex enough to stump the professor.

If questions are particularly edifying […] I will then re-flip the flipped flipped classroom and have you answer your own question.

Additional highlights included a tableau of faculty around a conference table mimicking “The Last Supper”; a trio of cloned Melanie Hoenigs (Rebecca MacRae, Marissa Palmor and Victoria Robson); a truncated rendition of “Will the Real Rich Schwartzstein Please Stand Up,” sung by Lindsay D’Amato and based on the song “The Real Slim Shady” by Eminem; and a parody of the relationship between Paul Farmer (Christopher Calahan) and David S. Jones (David Osayande), based on the song “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” from the Book of Mormon musical.

At the end of the show, the fictional administration of 2032 announces that HMS will be adopting a brand new curriculum called Sidewalks. The curtain falls to the students’ cries of “No!”

Real-life resonance

Even while it poked gentle fun at HMS, “Brave New Pathways” provided food for thought for those currently navigating the transition to the new curriculum in real life.

“I hope people come away thinking change is the only constant but it doesn’t necessarily have to be scary,” said co-director Rob Smalley, who also played HMS faculty member Alexander McAdam.

“I think this show points out a lot of pitfalls that won’t come true, but does it in a thoughtful, rather than a cynical, way,” added Parrish. “It makes good lighthearted points about things to keep in mind as all of these transitions are taking place around here.

“This is a new era of uncertainty, and continuously checking oneself and what the school is doing is a good plan moving forward,” he said.