Curricular Monikers: What's in a Name?

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Introduction: An increasing number of North American medical schools are assigning unique names ("monikers") to their undergraduate curricula, but it is unclear as to how often this occurs, and what kind of names schools are choosing. Method: A manual review of the 160 websites that corresponded to Schools of Medicine that were either fully or provisionally accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). Results: 31.5% of the 143 U.S. allopathic medical schools and only one (5.8%) of the 17 LCME accredited Canadian medical schools currently associate a unique curricular name with their undergraduate medical education programs. Use of a constant-comparative technique suggested that schools that did assign a curricular name to their programs had selected names that aligned to one of eight over-arching themes. Conclusions: While curricular names were somewhat less commonly applied in schools located in the western United States, no specific trends in thematic choices predominated in any geographic region. However, the impact of curricular themes on current and/or prospective medical students remains an area for continued exploration, as does the longitudinal question as to whether thematically named curricula succeed in delivering their intended results.