Academic Medicine: Competitiveness and Development

The School of Medicine and Health Sciences of the Tecnológico de Monterrey practices academic medicine conducting medical research and educating students while caring for patients. This fundamental triple helix enables us to form internationally competent, humanely sensitive and entrepreneurially spirited medical professionals.

The Tecnológico de Monterrey and other universities promote the creation of Academic Medical Centers (AMCs), medical associations with an international branch, to boost academic medicine. They are composed of one or more hospitals, a school of medicine and health sciences and some research elements. Health science students in AMCs do not only receive practical education and acquire experience in care-giving but also come into contact with medical research, which provides a foothold for a virtuous cycle that advances research, care and education.

Bettering medical education and advancing academic medicine in Mexico and Latin America are huge areas of opportunity. The QS World University Ranking 2017 in medicine includes only 25 Latin American and four Mexican universities. There are 150 faculties and schools of medicine throughout Mexico, but less than half are accredited by the Mexican Council for the Accreditation of Schools of Medicine (COMAEM). We cannot aspire as a country or region to be competitive on an international level without the creation of processes of certification and accreditation that validate the quality of the care we deliver, the research we perform and the education we provide.

We cooperate with AMCs around the world to form internationally competent professionals. The hospitals we operate have national and international accreditations of warmth and quality as measured through patient experience. All physicians working in them are certified. Our educational programs, like all regular medical schools, are certified by COMAEM and all 16 of Tecnológico de Monterrey’s specialization and the two doctoral programs are on CONACYT’s Quality Graduate Programs Register. Finally, 70 faculty members are a part of the National Researchers’ Institute (SNI) and work in seven strategic approach groups.

Medicine faculties traditionally stick to teaching only the field of medicine, but Tecnológico de Monterrey’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences teaches other areas of the medical field like biomedical engineering, nutrition and wellness, clinic and health psychology, health care management and odontology. We also offer a variety of master’s, specializations and doctoral programs. Tecnológico de Monterrey applies the “clinical professor” model, because being a docent is necessary to be part of an AMC. All physicians that have an office in the Academic Health Center of the Tecnológico de Monterrey are required to be part of the clinical professor model as well and be certified by each specialty’s national council.

There have been advancements in medical education through cooperation between public and private universities in Mexico in organisms like the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Studies (ANUIES) and the Mexican Association of Faculties and Schools of Medicine (AMFEM). In the latter, universities created the competence profile of the Mexican general physician, a manual listing competences all medical professionals must have, and the incremental quality model, which enables the raising of quality standards in medical human resource formation.

We need to develop our own abilities, retain and attract talent from elsewhere. AMCs are necessary to retain and attract medical talent and to be competitive. A national strategy is necessary to make academic medicine the objective of schools of medicine nationally. There are some AMCs in Mexico, such as Centro Médico Siglo XXI, national institutes of specialties, the university-hospital of UANL and those operated by the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico City and Guadalajara. The development of AMCs is an area of opportunity that requires combining the strengths of public and private organizations. It can attract investment both from the private and public health sectors and from abroad. It is necessary to intervene and promote research given the challenges health problems in Mexico present and to push the government to allocate more funds to health. Together, these steps can create a virtuous cycle that improves the development of the country.