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Despite military, medical, and teaching career, 'I'm learning there's a lot I don't know yet'

This summer Dr. Scott Moser begins his newest role at the Wichita campus, associate dean for curriculum, and gives up some others, among them a clerkship directorship and a student advisory position.

Dr. Scott Moser jokes that he spent his high school and college years in Manhattan, Kansas, dodging classes by his mother, a high school business teacher, and his father, a chemistry professor at Kansas State University.

Moser, full-time faculty at KU School of Medicine-Wichita since 1998, may have had the natural youthful inclination to avoid spending that kind of quality time with his parents, but like them he's since devoted his life to education.

This summer Moser begins his newest role at the Wichita campus, associate dean for curriculum, and gives up some others, among them a clerkship directorship and a student advisory position.

He'll continue to do other things he enjoys, practicing medicine a couple days a week and advising for the JayDoc Community Clinic, as he assumes his new job, which he said, "I'm still trying to figure out. I'm learning there's a lot I don't know yet."

Overseeing and integrating curriculum

Moser is assuming many of the duties of Dennis Valenzeno, Ph.D., who is retiring. Valenzeno came to Wichita in 2011 to establish the first- and second-year curriculum as the school expanded to four years of medical education.

In addition to taking charge of that curriculum, Moser will work to bridge the traditional divide in medical education, where the first two years have been front-loaded with the basic sciences - involving lots of classroom time - and the second two years have emphasized a hands-on, clinical focus. "There is concern that the existing model was not the best educationally for students," he said.  

The mission of "integrating" the curriculum will provide more clinical exposure in the first two years, while reinforcing and building on the basic sciences foundations as doctor training shifts to a clinical emphasis during the second half of medical school. The goal, of course, is to make better doctors.  

"I am interested in taking the medical school curriculum to the next step, making it more valuable to students, more beneficial. Making sure the way we teach and evaluate students is clear and meaningful and creates great physicians," he said. 

Training for medicine, training for teaching

Growing up in Manhattan, Moser always had a great interest in science. A high school career interest survey identified "physician" as a possibility. While an undergrad at K-State, he volunteered at the local hospital and heard the story of a missionary surgeon from Bangladesh at a conference. That sealed the deal for medicine.  

Married right after college, he and his wife moved to Houston so he could attend Baylor College of Medicine, which he paid for through an Air Force scholarship. Moser graduated in 1980 and did his residency in family medicine at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.  

Like many medical students, Moser debated extensively on his choice of specialty, a decision made more difficult because "I liked to do everything."  

"There were several things that interested me in family medicine. I enjoyed doing procedural things but not enough to stand around an operating room for hours," he said. Similarly, he enjoyed delivering babies but not some of the other aspects of obstetrics and gynecology. What finally drew him to family medicine was the growing emphasis on medical care in a bio-psycho-social context - the links between health problems, mental health and a patient's life in general.  

"That was very interesting to me," Moser said, emphasizing the social barriers to receiving care he continues to see through his role at JayDoc.  

After residency, Moser served three years at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, where he was the medical director of the family medicine clinic and had the chance to work with family medicine residents. "I enjoyed practicing medicine, but I also enjoyed teaching and the administration pieces."  

Moser's next step after his military commitment was private practice in Newton, Kansas. He felt the draw of teaching and when the opportunity came to work with residents at Wesley Medical Center, he joined its teaching faculty. After nine years there, he moved to the KU School of Medicine-Wichita campus in 1998 to "focus on teaching medical students full-time."  

Looking back at his 17 years on campus, Moser mentions several accomplishments that make him particularly proud. One is helping recruit and support the community doctors that host medical students in their practices. Another is obtaining the funding and helping develop the Objective Structured Clinical Exam that students use with standardized patients.  

"I think that we've had a lot of success in turning out students who want to go into family medicine when they graduate. That is an important part of meeting the medical needs for Kansas, and I can't take credit but I've been a part of that," he said. "I feel a great responsibility to provide medical services for future generations. To be able to look back and see ways we accomplished that is very meaningful."


KU School of Medicine-Wichita