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Designing a First Year Integrated Course to Meet the Mission & Values of a New Medical School
Author(s) -
Guttmann Geoffrey D.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.296.2
Subject(s) - curriculum , enthusiasm , presentation (obstetrics) , medical education , gross anatomy , medical school , medicine , psychology , pedagogy , anatomy , radiology , social psychology
It is exciting to design a new medical school curriculum because you have a table rasa or clean slate with which to work. The design of the curriculum has to fit within the culture that is being built in the medical school. In constructing the curriculum, it is important to evaluate the mission and values that will be the guiding principles. The Commonwealth Medical College's (TCMC) mission involves serving “society using a community‐based, patient‐centered, interprofessional and evidenced‐based model of education” and “utilizes innovative techniques.” Two of the three major first year courses integrate the basic sciences and particularly the anatomical sciences within the spiral curriculum. Gross anatomy, histology, embryology, radiological anatomy, clinical anatomy and physiology are components of the Human Structure and Function (HSF) course that runs 17 weeks. Pathology, microbiology and pharmacology play a role in HSF but are not studied to the same depth as in the second year. The other first year course is Brain, Mind and Behaviour (BMB), which follows a patient presentation approach, used by the University of Calgary. BMB will initiate students to applying clinical reasoning to their learning and integrating all basic sciences. Much enthusiasm and support for our curriculum comes from our community clinical faculty, who have volunteered to participate in the teaching and learning program at TCMC.