AACOM and AAMC Joint Announcement Regarding Shared Services

Expanding Access to Resources for Next Generation of DOs

As our organizations focus on educating the next generation of physicians and supporting the  nation’s MD and DO-granting medical schools, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) have a shared goal of ensuring a qualified and highly trained future physician workforce. AACOM and the AAMC have collaborated for many years to ensure future medical students have the training and tools they need to be successful health care providers, researchers, and educators.

Today, we are pleased to announce the conclusion of a collaborative business agreement that expands critical AAMC services and resources to the osteopathic medical education community, including students, faculty, and deans. Providing these AAMC services to osteopathic medical students supports the development of a highly trained physician workforce and helps to align the MD and DO communities who train and practice alongside each other in hospitals, academic teaching centers, and other clinical settings.

The following AAMC programs will be offered to AACOM members:  

• Careers in Medicine® (CiM): Choosing a medical specialty is one of the most significant decisions a medical student will make. The AAMC’s Careers in Medicine program delivers high quality career-planning services, resources, tools, data, and training to support physicians-in-training – and those who advise them – in identifying career goals, choosing a specialty, and applying to residency. CiM is highly valued by the DO community. With this agreement, access to CiM will be available at no charge to all OMS I students.

• Financial Information, Resources, Services, and Tools (FIRST): FIRST is designed to help medical students and their advisors navigate the complexities of financial aid, student debt, and money management. FIRST offers the Medloans® Organizer and Calculator (MLOC), which helps students keep track of their student loan information and calculate repayment scenarios.

• Visiting Student Learning Opportunities™ (VSLO®): Since 2012, osteopathic schools and their medical students have participated in the VSLO program, which provides a streamlined process that enables students to search for, and apply to, short-term elective opportunities to enhance their medical education.   DO schools currently utilize VSLO’s application system as Home institutions, sending their students to short-term elective opportunities in the U.S. Network. These schools will now have expanded options to become Host institutions, receiving visiting students for short-term elective opportunities. They will also have the option to join the VSLO Global Network, enabling students in pre-clinical and clinical training to participate in international electives and hosting visiting international students.

• Curriculum Inventory (CI): This program is designed to serve as the premier benchmarking and reporting tool on content, structure, delivery, and assessment in medical school curricula. The CI provides graphical interpretations of aggregate and historical curriculum-related data with the aims of assisting in curriculum evaluation, educating curriculum committees and faculty, enhancing medical education research, and informing legislators and the general public.

These programs will be available for eligible members of the osteopathic community in the coming weeks. The directors of each included AAMC program will participate in a webinar on July 21 to help new users from the nation’s colleges of osteopathic medicine understand and engage with each program. Learn more about these shared-services.

This collaboration delivers on the AAMC and AACOM’s commitment to our respective communities, helps avoid the development of redundant resources, and can serve as a model of cooperation and careful resource stewardship for the medical community.