Kaiser Permanente medical school CEO envisions new ways to train doctors

Less than two years ago, Dr. John L. Dalrymple took on the challenge of becoming dean and CEO of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.

The new medical school opened in 2020 and has graduated two classes. A gynecologic oncologist, Dalrymple previously served as the senior associate dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School.

Dalrymple tells Chief Healthcare Executive® he’s excited about the prospects of coming up with new ways to train doctors.

“My passion has been around thinking of innovative ways to train the next generation of physicians, and the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine was at the forefront of innovation and thinking about our future health care leaders,” he says.

As the medical school aims to establish itself, the institution has offered free tuition to its first several classes, including those who enroll in 2026. The school has received accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. All of its graduates have been accepted into residency programs.

In a recent conversation, Dalrymple talks about why the medical school’s education model differs from other programs and how he’s hoping to see even greater transformation in the school’s curriculum in the years ahead.

“We are indeed a new school, but we are also an innovative school that is focused on the future healthcare delivery of our delivery system in our country, and with that, is training the future generation of providers and leaders,” Dalrymple says.

Coaches and small groups

The Kaiser Permanente medical school’s education model already differs from other institutions.

Most medical schools offer two years of biomedical science and two years of clinical science and clinical rotations, Dalrymple notes. The Kaiser Permanente school also incorporated a third pillar of health system science. Students work with doctors from the Kaiser Permanente health system.

The school also has a focus on learning in small groups, typically eight students with two faculty preceptors: one from the biomedical science faculty, the other one in clinical science.

Students are linked to the preceptors over the course of the first year.

“They get to see and develop relationships with preceptors, with patients. They get to see the natural history of some conditions, and with that, the preceptors get to evaluate and see students grow and develop over time,” Dalrymple says.

Students are assigned coaches who work with small groups of students.

“They work and sit alongside the students through their four years and really help them develop the skills and tools needed to actually help them become the best, well-rounded physicians, as well as sort of helping them develop their own identity as physicians,” Dalrymple says.

In addition, the school has moved away from traditional cadaver labs for instruction. The school utilizes plastinated anatomical specimens, virtual reality, and radiologic imaging.

Dalrymple says it’s “a different way of thinking about teaching anatomy.”

Attracting students

Since the school is five years old, it doesn’t have the recognition or reputation of other medical colleges yet.

Still, Dalrymple raves about the quality of the students who have enrolled in the school.

“Our students are amazing in terms of their backgrounds, their academic experiences, their life experiences, their characteristics and behaviors in terms of how they are focused on medicine,” he says. “Our students, as well as the faculty and staff that we recruit, are all very mission-aligned.”

The prospect of free tuition helps attract students to the new medical school, but Dalrymple also says it helps the school attract a broad mix of students, including those from families with modest incomes.

“Students take on a huge debt as they go through medical school, and this was an opportunity for us to attract students from across the spectrum of those interested in medical school, regardless of their background, from those who had means and family resources to those who didn't,” he says.

With students not having to worry about tuition, they are also getting the opportunity to pursue the areas of medicine they wish, including training to deliver primary care in underserved areas.

So far, 38% of the school’s students have opted to pursue a primary care residency in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.

“We want to encourage our students to pursue any field that's important to them, but we certainly want to make sure that we provide and emphasize the importance of primary care and preventative health care,” he says.

The medical school maintains a commitment to diversity, and Dalrymple says it’s important to have a physician workforce that reflects its communities.

He also says that’s a key to improving health equity and ensuring better care nationwide.

“It is our responsibility to ensure that we train a workforce that is able to provide that care across the country in any community, not just in academic communities, but in rural communities, in large cities, small cities, the urban spaces, rural spaces,” he says.

The school is also placing a premium on the well-being of its students, and Dalrymple says that was a factor in his decision to lead the institution.

Surveys by The Physicians Foundation have shown significant levels of burnout among doctors and those still in medical school. Dalrymple says a medical education is obviously demanding, but the school is trying to make sure students are as healthy as possible.

“Even though we certainly want to make some efforts to enhance the learning environment for students and residents as well as practitioners, we want to make sure that our students have those skills that allow them to recognize what is important to them,” he says. “How can they alleviate stress? How can they deal with adversity, and what are those resiliency skills that they need to develop?”

'A different model'

The medical school has just embarked on a five-year strategic plan, and Dalrymple says the focus is on “re-imagining physician training.”

The plan involves focusing on research and transformational health care practices, as well as cultivating leaders to make a difference in the future, he says. The strategy also calls on deepening community engagement efforts to improve health.

The medical school curriculum employed by most schools has been in place for more than a century, Dalrymple says. But he’s hoping the school can think about training doctors to meet future needs.

“For me, the vision is, how can our school, with the power of Kaiser Permanente behind us, with our unique opportunity, evolve how we think about physician training and development to meet the future needs? I would like to see how we leverage technologies, think about what our community needs, think about what a primary care provider does now and needs to do in the future, and project towards that and train towards that,” he says.

“This, in my mind, is our opportunity to really advance medical education to meet our future needs,” Dalrymple says. “So in 20 years, I would love to see a different model of medical education that is embraced by most medical schools around the country.”