CLOSLER was created by the Miller Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence (MCACE), at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as a place to share insight, inspiration, wisdom, new thinking, and resources regarding clinical excellence from and for healthcare professionals around the world.
Our mission
Supporting a learning community focused on sharing thoughtful clinical stories and perspectives to stimulate reflection about providing exceptional care to every patient.
A tribute to Dr. William Osler
The name CLOSLER is a melding of the words “closer to Osler,” a tribute to Dr. William Osler, a true champion of experiential education and lifelong learning. Osler is most remembered for revolutionizing formal medical education by teaching at the bedside, and emphasizing that all clinical education should begin and end with the patient.
Osler made significant contributions to the medical education curriculum and learning communities at all of the institutions where he worked—McGill University, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and Oxford University. We’re partnering with physicians at these universities, and others around the world, to galvanize an online learning community devoted to disseminating best practices in delivering clinically excellent patient care.
The Miller Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
The MCACE was created in 2006 with a generous gift from Sarah Miller Coulson and Frank L. Coulson to support the pursuit of clinical excellence at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine through the Johns Hopkins Center for Innovative Medicine.
Four physicians (Drs. Christmas, Durso, Kravet, and Wright) worked with many to define clinical excellence, develop a systematic means of measuring it, and to then launch the Academy. Beyond recognizing and rewarding clinicians providing outstanding patient care, the Academy’s 70+ members collaborate on programs to advance excellence in patient care at Hopkins and beyond.
What is clinical excellence?
As described in our publication in the September 2008 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, clinically excellent physicians have achieved a level of mastery in communication and interpersonal skills, professionalism and humanism, and negotiation of the healthcare system. These physicians are exemplary with respect to diagnostic acumen, knowledge, and the scholarly approach to clinical practice. Above all, they exhibit a passion for patient care, and explicitly model all of the above to medical trainees and others around them.
We’ve organized CLOSLER around this definition of clinical excellence. On our homepage, you’ll see separate tabs for articles related to Connecting with Patients, Clinical Reasoning, Passion in the Medical Profession, and Lifelong Learning in Clinical Excellence.
Southern Medical Journal, June 2015. “Clinical Excellence in HIV Care”
Clinical Pediatrics, July 2014. “Clinical Excellence in Pediatrics”
The Clinical Teacher, July 2014. “The role of social media in clinical excellence”
Journal of Graduate Education, September 2012. “Advantages and Challenges of Working as a Clinician in an Academic Department of Medicine: Academic Clinicians’ Perspectives”
Primary Care Companion, April 2012. “Clinical Excellence in Psychiatry: A Review of the Psychiatric Literature”
American Journal of Medicine, February 2012. “Clinicians’ Perceptions About How They Are Valued By The Academic Medical Center”
American Journal of Cardiology, August 2011. “Clinical Excellence in Cardiology”
Academic Medicine, December 2010. “Creating an Academy of Clinical Excellence at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center: A 3-Year Experience”
Clinical Medicine & Research, December 2009. “Implications of Academic Medicine’s Failure to Recognize Clinical Excellence”
For more information about the elective, email ksimmers@jhmi.edu .
