Preparing america’s entrepreneurial workforce: Reinventing the medical curriculum

Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) is a topic that has become vital to the healthcare sector and its ability to develop, integrate, and advance technologies for the improvement of patient care and outcomes. Despite the opportunities that result from innovation, there remains a deficit across the nation of formal educational training in this area in medical schools and residency programs. Given the current and projected exponential growth in technologies related to devices, medical diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital health solutions, it becomes a paramount initiative to ensure that our medical providers are well trained in I&E. In order for our medical workforce and trainees to become key stakeholders in this process, we must put high-yield educational programs and resources in place to enable these learners to become facile in the development and proper implementation of these new technologies. The missions of an academic medical center and academic departments focus on teaching, scholarship/research, and expertise of clinical care. This chapter will discuss how a formalized implementation of an I&E educational curriculum in a medical school and residency programs can stimulate a culture of change and growth in I&E at academic medical centers that can be sustainable.