The role of relationships in the professional formation of physicians: case report and illustration of an elicitation technique.

Objective: Studies of physicians' professional development highlight the important effect that the learning environment has in shaping student attitudes, behaviors, and values. The objective of this study was to better understand the interplay among relationships and experiences in mediating the effects of the learning environment.

Methods: We randomly recruited 2nd- and 4th-year students from among volunteers at each of five medical schools.

Enhancing the informal curriculum of a medical school: a case study in organizational culture change.

Background: Calls for organizational culture change are audible in many health care discourses today, including those focused on medical education, patient safety, service quality, and translational research. In spite of many efforts, traditional "top-down" approaches to changing culture and relational patterns in organizations often disappoint.

Objective: In an effort to better align our informal curriculum with our formal competency-based curriculum, Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) initiated a school-wide culture change project using an alternative, participatory approach that built on the interests, strengths, and values of IUSM individuals and microsystems.

Toward an informal curriculum that teaches professionalism. Transforming the social environment of a medical school.

The social environment or "informal" curriculum of a medical school profoundly influences students' values and professional identities. The Indiana University School of Medicine is seeking to foster a social environment that consistently embodies and reinforces the values of its formal competency-based curriculum. Using an appreciative narrative-based approach, we have been encouraging students, residents, and faculty to be more mindful of relationship dynamics throughout the school.