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"I could have a better program if I didn't have to spend so much time writing the curriculum.

The above quote, attributed to an anonymous program director, reflects the frustration many program directors have felt with the process of curriculum development. This frustration is compounded when programs are cited for the lack of an adequate curriculum. Some may view the focus on curriculum development as a symptom of bureaucratic excess. An alternate and more plausible view is that ultimately residency programs will be stronger if based on well thought-out educational blueprints. While it is tempting to fantasize that the right mix of patients, faculty and residents will result in a strong program, often this is not the case. It is particularly challenging to develop strong educational programs in Emergency Medicine (EM). EM faculty are in large part inexperienced educators. Most EM programs are young and many have been accredited just within the past few years. The subject material is extremely broad and the clinical experiences are fragmented. Success under such circumstances generally demands a prospective, carefully thought-out plan of action. In the world of education, this plan is called a curriculum.

"Curriculum" is defined in the Dictionary of Education as "a general over-all plan of the content or specific materials of instruction that the school should offer the student by way of qualifying the student for graduation or certification." Thus the curriculum is the road map that explains how the medical school graduate will ultimately develop into a skilled emergency medicine specialist.

It is important to note that curriculum is defined as an educational plan rather than an all-inclusive list. The quality of a curriculum is judged by the amount of information it conveys rather than the number of trees that were sacrificed in its production. Unfortunately, some programs respond to the uncertainty surrounding curriculum development by producing several hundred page documents that are exhaustively detailed, yet fail to adequately describe the educational program about which they are written. This may reflect an incomplete understanding of the role the curriculum should play in a residency program.

This manual was written to offer practical advice to program directors struggling with writing and using their curricula. Unlike most publications on the subject of curriculum development, this manual was not written by education theorists but by emergency physicians who are also educators. The goal was to produce a readable and reasonable document, devoid of technical jargon, that would discuss the essentials of what is needed and why it is needed. It is not intended to be an all encompassing treatise on curriculum development. There are many other excellent references on this subject, and several are listed in the bibliography.