July-October, February-April

Graded Pass/Fail Only.

This is a non-clinical elective.

This elective has 4 sessions in real-time over Zoom. There are no in-person sessions. Students will have 4 Zoom meetings on Thursdays at 1 pm. Students cannot take this elective if they have interviews scheduled that conflict. Please do not schedule interviews on Thursdays during this elective. 

This elective is NOT offered in May, June, Nov, Dec or January.

To better prepare its graduates for meeting the competency of practice-based learning and improvement as future residents, Loyola’s SSOM will offer an elective in Quality Improvement (QI). The goal of this elective is for medical students to cultivate the skills needed to identify challenges in providing quality patient care and employ QI tools needed to address them. In doing so, medical students will appreciate the role that QI initiatives play in bettering both individual patient care and health systems at large.

The student will be evaluated by the Course Director based on her evaluation of the student’s basic skill levels as reflected in her fund of knowledge, acquisition of new knowledge and successful development, implementation and analysis of a VIRTUAL Quality Improvement initiative.

Objective assessment tools:

1. Faculty will rate knowledge based on their interaction with the student.

2. Assessment of communication skills will be based on direct faculty observation.

3. Assessment of professionalism will be based on direct faculty observation, compliance with course expectations and evaluation of the final QI project. (Course expectations include attendance at quality meetings, completing of readings, etc.)

4. QI skills will be assessed by direct faculty observation and evaluation of the project.

5. Assessment of presentation skills.

Grading will be Pass/Fail. A passing grade will be assigned to a student who completes the necessary requirements of the elective.