INSIGHT 2:
There is a pressing need to move beyond existing healthcare and workforce development frameworks.
Areas of Inquiry and Research Questions
Inquiry Area 1: Reimagining the Mission and Purpose of Medical Education
Participants reflected on how medical education must evolve to center community wellbeing, collaboration, and advocacy rather than individual achievement. They questioned the purpose and structure of current medical training, the incentives that shape career choices, and how education might better prepare students to engage in systems-level change.
The discussion explored the idea that medicine encompasses multiple “missions” and examined how clearly defining and embracing a social mission could meaningfully shape how future healthcare professionals are trained to serve communities and engage in systems-level change.
The conversation also focused on how medical education might be reimagined to intentionally integrate community advocacy and interprofessional collaboration. Participants considered whether alternative models, such as requiring work or community-based experience prior to medical school (similar to how business school admissions often requires work experience) could strengthen workforce development. They further considered whether or not historical examples of people coming together to help build the foundations of health education could inform training models today.
Research Questions
- How have medical school admissions changed over time? What is different today (requirements, volume, qualifications) from the past?
- How do you democratize and incentivize moving students through the system with what they need to become proficient in practice, not just what institutions want them to do?
- What frameworks reimagine a more interdisciplinary, interdependent curriculum to provide exposure for choice – who do I want to be? How do I want to heal? And with whom?
- How do we encourage more students to get into health economics (an area of study around policies, and systems)? What incentives work? What “pay-offs” are there?
- Why do we have internships and residency after medical school as opposed to during? What are other models that might better support medical school training?
- How do we create an intergenerational, interdisciplinary, and interdependent way of training people to understand “what is health?”
- What might we learn from other countries with regard to health are workforce preparation?
Inquiry Area 2: Redefining Accreditation and Licensing
Participants questioned the assumptions underlying U.S. training and licensure, noting that international systems may offer models for preparing health workers more holistically. They emphasized that meaningful transformation in medical education must be accompanied by changes in accreditation and licensure, which often reinforce rigid hierarchies, discourage collaboration, and limit innovation in care delivery. The discussion also underscored the need for intergenerational collaboration and a shared “we” mindset, with input from all levels of care, as well as a reassignment of responsibility and accountability to both individuals and institutions.
Research Questions
- What are the ways that pathways to accreditation can be reimagined?
- How does the current landscape of, and approaches for, licensure in the United States affect healthcare practices? What can we learn from other countries?
- What other types of licensing models can sustain growth?
Inquiry Area 3: Building a Sustainable, Community-Driven Workforce
Participants emphasized that health workforce development must move beyond transactional definitions of success and toward models grounded in community wealth-building and collective care. They expressed concern about burnout, educational debt, and inequitable incentives that continue to undermine public health and primary care. They also noted that the current system was never designed to prioritize health or care. To counter this, participants highlighted the need to create space for social-emotional learning and trauma-informed care, reduce school debt to better incentivize careers in public health and primary care, and reassign responsibility and accountability to both individuals and institutions.
Research Questions
- How can medical and public health education systems reduce financial barriers and promote access to care-focused careers?
- What models of community wealth-building and cooperative training can sustain workforce wellbeing?
- How might new approaches to debt reduction, stipends, or service-based incentives reshape workforce diversity and stability?