Excellence requires continual reevaluation. This conviction and the desire to examine the Medical School’s needs at the start of his tenure prompted new dean Jeffrey Flier to launch the current Strategic Planning Process.
This effort involves a review by academic, scientific, and administrative leaders at the School focusing on its technology infrastructure, commitment to the social sciences, and connections to other Harvard schools. The planning process also is revisiting some questions left unresolved by the curriculum reform initiative.
“We think we’re the greatest medical school in the world,” said Flier. “But in order to maintain that, you have to be assessing all the time. Every 10 years or so, you should be asking, are we organized properly to have a leading position and also to move forward?” Flier said that he launched the planning process because he wants to know from the beginning that not only is the School as good as it can be, but that it is positioned to be even better when he hands the reins over to the next dean.
Currently, strategic planning advisory teams are looking at the School’s operations to make recommendations in four areas—technology, biomedical research, social sciences and global health, and medical education. It is as if HMS launched four satellites into space with telescopes trained back onto Boston, taking close-up pictures of these important sectors of the Medical School. Such a broad perspective, Flier said, will allow him as the new dean to make better decisions about programs and budgeting than would be the case if he had to consider isolated proposals filtering in from individual departments. This strategic review will have the added advantage of helping to prepare for HMS’s next accreditation review in three years, according to the dean.
No final proposals have come in yet from the committees. But Flier says there is emerging consensus on several broad goals.
One is enhancing the opportunities for scholarship by medical students. An idea from curriculum reform that was postponed was to have students tackle an in-depth scholarly project before graduation. “I’m interested in that developing further. I’m hoping not to have all these discussions recommend it again and then not to do it,” Flier said.
A second shared belief is that HMS could use a standing faculty oversight committee and an Office of Tools, Technology, and Facilities to manage the School’s far-flung technological undertakings.
“Biomedical research, more than ever, is influenced by new technologies that make it possible to pursue certain questions. Often, the people who develop new technologies are also generating a lot of new science. We develop some new technologies here, but given the strength of the School, maybe we do less than might have been expected. Some institutions have found a better organizational structure for understanding the needs and for promoting the careers of people who have those kinds of skills.”
Another emerging consensus holds that social sciences, not just at the Medical School but the University as a whole, could be better coordinated. A proposed Harvard-wide Standing Committee on Social Sciences and Medicine/Health would coordinate grant applications, serve as a conduit for communication and shared data among social scientists at the different schools, and assist the mission of helping both developing and developed countries with health care policy and delivery.
Flier plans to sign off on a final plan of action by April, but he is flexible on implementation. He understands that some recommendations will be carried out quickly while others will require a year or two of study before they materialize. “You can’t implement seven or eight major initiatives at once, both because of the time that it takes to get leadership together and because of the need to arrange funding,” he said.
In addition, the strategic planning committees might recommend programs pairing medical faculty with colleagues and students in other Harvard schools. “To the extent that we recommend inherently cross-school programs, we will have to have cross-school agreements,” said Flier.
Visit the HMS strategic planning website for details.
