Dr. Rakhi Naik, associate professor in the Division of Hematology, has been named the new Director of the Organ Systems Foundations of Medicine (OSFM) course for Year 1-2 medical students at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. OSFM is the largest course in the pre-clerkship medical school curriculum, encompassing individual courses organized by organ system, each under the leadership of one or more course directors.
We also want to recognize and thank Dr. Henry Fessler for his extraordinary leadership of Organ Systems Foundations of Medicine for over 12 years. In addition to overall OSFM leadership, he led the creation of the OSFM Pulmonary course and the Advanced Critical Care Clerkship, as well as overseeing transformation of the OSFM curriculum to ensure sustainability of learning during the pandemic.
An associate professor of medicine in the division of hematology at the School of Medicine, Dr. Naik also serves as a director of the highly regarded OSFM Hematology course for Year 1 students, Firm Faculty for the Longcope Firm of the Osler Residency Program, and Director of the Hematology Fellowship Track at Johns Hopkins. At the national level, Dr. Naik serves as Chair of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Hematology-Focused Fellowship Program (HFFTP) Consortium, an initiative to expand the Hopkins Hematology Fellowship Track model to 10 institutions around the United States. Early in the pandemic, Dr. Naik led her OSFM Hematology faculty who joined with the Office of Medical Student Curriculum and Office of Online Education to be the first course to transition to online teaching and assessment. Following her success with managing the shift to online learning, she subsequently assisted many other course directors to ensure that learning transitioned smoothly for all courses for our first- and second-year students. She is well known for her collaborative work with faculty and students to create innovative models for education at the undergraduate and graduate medical education levels.
In her new role, Dr. Naik will work closely with the Associate and Assistant Deans for UME and the Associate Course Director to establish strategic priorities for the OSFM course for the next 5 years and will have overall responsibility for fully integrating multiple disciplines (e.g., physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and introduction to therapeutics) within the course.
