Four Year Curriculum Overview
Introduction
The four years of formal medical education constitute but a brief introduction to a broad, deep, and rapidly changing discipline. The mastery of medical knowledge and technical skills requires lifelong self-education.
The curriculum is designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to practice medicine. Students spend the first two years in the sciences basic to medicine, including anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, genetics, pharmacology, pathology, and behavioral science. Concepts and skills necessary to manage clinical illness, to understand the social issues in medicine, and to be well grounded in the ethics of medical practice are introduced early and explored in depth as the curriculum progresses. Emphasis is placed on prevention, diagnosis, and management of disease states and in the systematic application of these concepts to organ specific diseases.
Curriculum revision is an ongoing process. Courses and their content may change periodically throughout the year.
Exemption from Required Courses
Basic science departments may consider requests from students to be excused/exempted from formal class work in medical school courses based upon prior completion of a comparable course at a suitable institution. In such instances, the student usually is required to pass a qualifying examination given by the department after he/she documents enrollment in such a graduate level course. In rare instances, the department may only require documentation that an acceptable substitute was completed. However, because the School of Medicine graduation requirements stipulate that students must enroll in and pass all required courses of the school, students who are excused from formal course work nevertheless must be registered, pay tuition for all courses, and be carried on class rosters and grade sheets. The course master will be required to submit grades for such students.
