Wells Gregg B, Baxter Douglas A, Day Leslie J, Boone Timothy B, Moreno Michael R, Gibson Jeremy L, Peterson Thomas V, Martinez-Moczygemba Margarita, Greene Ericka P, Sears Nicholas, Paolini Michael A, Pettigrew Roderic I
School of Engineering Medicine, Texas A&M University, Houston, TX, United States.
Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2025 Feb 28;12:1520976. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1520976. eCollection 2025.
The evolving needs in healthcare education and delivery have led to diverse MD-based dual degree programs offering trainees broader experiences and credential-based credibility after graduation. Medical schools typically implement multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary dual degree training with designs that separate the contributing disciplines chronologically and experientially. As a result, these designs fail to maximize the cohesive learning environment and outcomes possible with a transdisciplinary dual degree design, which integrates the contributing disciplines chronologically, experientially, and conceptually. Though rare, transdisciplinary dual degrees promise transformative educational outcomes and discipline convergence by dissolving traditional discipline boundaries and fostering a new learning environment and professional identity. Therefore, we hypothesize that a transdisciplinary dual degree curriculum yields novel-and potentially better-learning outcomes. ENMED, a transdisciplinary dual degree program collaboratively developed, sponsored, and implemented by Texas A&M University and Houston Methodist Hospital, is testing this hypothesis by training "physicianeers." This new type of healthcare professional trains simultaneously for the MD and Master of Engineering degrees, thereby integrating medical and engineering expertise to advance health system innovations. Supporting the hypothesis, ENMED's early experiences suggest its transdisciplinary dual-degree model leads physicianeer trainees to novel perspectives with the potential to transform healthcare systemically.
医疗保健教育与服务不断变化的需求催生了多种基于医学博士的双学位项目，这些项目能让学员在毕业后获得更广泛的经验和基于证书的可信度。医学院通常实施多学科或跨学科双学位培训，其设计在时间和经验上分隔了各个相关学科。因此，这些设计无法充分利用跨学科双学位设计所能实现的紧密学习环境和成果，跨学科双学位设计在时间、经验和概念上整合了各个相关学科。尽管跨学科双学位很少见，但它有望通过打破传统学科界限、营造新的学习环境和专业身份，带来变革性的教育成果和学科融合。因此，我们假设跨学科双学位课程能产生新颖且可能更好的学习成果。ENMED是德州农工大学和休斯顿卫理公会医院合作开发、赞助并实施的一个跨学科双学位项目，它正在通过培养“医学工程师”来验证这一假设。这种新型医疗保健专业人员同时攻读医学博士学位和工程硕士学位，从而整合医学和工程专业知识，推动卫生系统创新。ENMED的早期经验支持了这一假设，表明其跨学科双学位模式能引导医学工程师学员获得新颖的观点，有可能从系统上改变医疗保健。
