In February 2020 when I was asked to submit some thoughts on trends in the future of health professions education, I had no idea that we were about to experience a once in a century pandemic that would profoundly change health care and the lives and education of health professionals in this country. As I write these personal reflections, we are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and cannot yet define what the “new normal” will be for health care, health professional education or society as a whole on the other side of the pandemic. Acknowledging this uncertainty, I believe that the trends I have identified will be more relevant than ever in the post-COVID world with some specific caveats. It is impossible, of course, to touch on all of the educational issues relevant to every health profession, but I believe I have identified high level trends that will impact all health professions education. The observations that follow are based on my personal experiences of four decades as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and several of its affiliated hospitals (Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women's, and West Roxbury Veterans Administration), two decades as a board member and chair of a graduate school of health professions education (the MGH Institute of Health Professions) and a decade leading the only national foundation devoted to improving the nation's health through innovations in health professions education (the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation). As I reflect on my five decades in health professions education my observation is that for the first four decades the pace of health-care delivery reform far exceeded the pace of health professions education reform. The passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, advances in science and technology to improve both diagnosis and treatment stimulated by rising NIH budgets in the 1960s and 1970s, increases in the costs of care leading to managed care and mergers and acquisitions in the 1980s and 1990s, the quality improvement and patient safety movements of the 1990s and beyond, and the rise in consumerism with more open access to medical information have all contributed to dramatic changes in the organization and delivery of health care in this country without a parallel transformation in the education of health professionals. Happily, I have witnessed in the past decade a significant openness and willingness to change in health professions education with notable experimentation in both prelicensure (undergraduate) and postlicensure (graduate) education. These changes are heartening, but much more needs to be done to keep pace with this rapidly changing health-care world and changing societal demographics and expectations. When I assumed the Presidency of the Macy Foundation in January 2008, I outlined a vision for educational reform that would better align health professional education with societal needs and with an evolving health-care delivery system. I felt that the health professions education enterprise must not view itself as a closed system in the ivory tower, but as one closely interconnected with the delivery system in which its graduates would work and with the society that they would serve. Health professions education needed to derive its curricular goals from outside rather than inside, and it in turn must be accountable to society in measuring and fulfilling those goals. This framework was very similar to that developed by the Lancet Commission1 2 years later in their work assessing health professions education worldwide. It is a framework that has been adopted by Canada and some western European countries. The themes to create this alignment became the funding priorities for the Foundation for a decade. The trends that I have identified grew out of this work to align health professions education with societal needs. The trends have been refined and modified based on experience and continuous monitoring of the external environment. In elucidating these trends, I am drawing on very personal experiences as a medical educator and Foundation President. For each of these six trends I will explain why it is important, provide some examples (drawn heavily from my Macy Foundation experience), identify some challenges, and speculate about the future. I will then conclude with some additional comments about the potential lasting impact of COVID-19 on health professions education and how the lessons derived from COVID-19 relate to these trends. The practice of medicine is more and more dependent on teams of professionals caring for complex patients and patients with multiple chronic conditions. Access to reliable, high-quality primary care is also enhanced by a team approach.2, 3 There is an increasing body of evidence that care delivered by highly functioning, collaborative teams leads to better patient outcomes. Yet, until recently, health professional education has been designed to keep the professions apart until the completion of the training process. This is in spite of the fact that interprofessional education (IPE) has been written about in the United States since the 1960s, and a 1972 Institute of Medicine Report (“Education for the Health Team”)4 strongly recommended IPE. There are many reasons why IPE did not gain traction in the United States; among these are the logistical obstacles, the strong cultures of each of the professions, the political dominance of physicians who as a group did not embrace IPE, and the lack of a sense of urgency about changing the design of the health-care delivery system. The tide began to turn in the last decade as several institutions demonstrated that logistical barriers could be overcome, educational leaders in many professions (including MDs) saw the advantages of IPE, and developed urgency about the for health-care reform that the of better health better patient and The was to that the to work in a team is a that be by all health I am that the Macy Foundation was a in this In the decade to the Macy Foundation and with IPE as the primary or In educational of Macy were IPE was the that the Macy Foundation in of its The reasons for the to the were that this to be a to of the alignment of IPE, the that IPE could have a impact on improving the health of the and the that by a of work we could this the in health professions education. all of the IPE medical and other health professional as and that since and were the and of the health professionals caring for changing the in those two professions would be for In this body of we derived five lessons that from the is and must embrace IPE and it a high as by and as an of in this the logistical and political barriers be with educational goals and must the for all IPE IPE experiences must be as as all other of the must be through work that advances patient care and their professional These experiences must be in a the educational of educational technology as and logistical barriers and to and patient must be to faculty since faculty have had or no experience with faculty or from other health of the other lessons is that IPE is at its when each has the educational education leads to strong education. This is with the experiences of those who have is the of of view and experiences that are to on the that leads to the outcomes. 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