Although educational materials from organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Thoracic Society (ATS) are available, the materials cannot be easily accessed for various educational levels and for different health fields. The National Tuberculosis Curriculum Consortium (NTCC) project aims to address these limitations to enhance TB education for students at various levels of education and for different health fields such as medicine, nursing, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, respiratory therapy, pharmacy, and public health.

Objectives of the NTCC The NTCC is funded by the National Heart,Lung,and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).This is a five-year project and the consortium is currently in the second year of the project.There are three main goals with specific aims of the NTCC: Goal 1 ' To establish the consortium as a test-bed environment for designing, implementing, and evaluating programs to strengthen TB curriculum.

' Cultivate a network of investigators from 30 nation- wide medical and allied health schools.

' Create a TB website with various portals accessible to consortium faculty, participating school instructors and students, and the general public.

' Develop sets of TB competencies as standards for evaluating TB curriculum and student knowledge, clinical skills, and attitudes by targeted health fields and educational levels.

' Conduct needs assessment for TB curricula, instructors, and students at participating schools.

' Develop curricular enhancements and instructional material and strategies to improve TB programs, such as creating course modules to integrate TB into mainstream courses.

' Design and implement a program plan based on prioritized goals and objectives to meet the specific needs of each medical or allied health school.

' Evaluate program effectiveness by surveying instructors and testing students.

Goal 2 ' To promote and impact curricular and educational materials and training opportunities.

' Collaborate with associations of educators and present work of consortium at conferences.

' Work through the certification process by reviewing past exams and serving on test-writing committees.

Goal 3 ' To expand and increase access to educational materials and training opportunities.