Teaching + Learning Modalities

Curriculum in the MD Program is delivered through a variety of teaching and learning methods. The different types of instruction you may receive are summarized below.

Anatomy Labs

The faculty's anatomy lab is where you can perform cadaveric dissections. Guided by a professor, anatomy labs help illustrate the anatomy concepts you will learn in other parts of the program.

Clinical Clerkship

Years 3 and 4 of the MD Program are focused on workplace-based learning and referred to as a clinical clerkship where you will function as a member of the healthcare team and rotate through different clinical specialty areas with direct patient interactions.

Communication Sessions

Developing patient-physician communication skills is an important part of the MD Program. To learn how to take a patient’s medical history, you will be put in small groups to role-play scenarios under the supervision of a facilitator.

Students in Service (Community Service Learning)

Students in Service is a mandatory first-year program that partners you with a community agency where you will spend 20 hours focusing on a community or agency-identified issue of concern. The goal of this program is to facilitate the development of a commitment to social accountability and to help you build an ongoing relationship with a key community agency. If you have a strong interest in health advocacy, you can choose to participate in the Social Justice Community of Student Service (SJ CoSS) instead.

Discovery Learning (DL)

In DL, you will engage with clinical scenarios illustrating key concepts of basic science and clinical application. Non-medical expert objectives are also addressed, including discussion of social determinants of health, ethics and evidence-based medicine. You will develop collaboration skills by working as a team to address learning objectives and develop self-directed learning skills that can be applied throughout your clinical practices. You will practice giving and receiving feedback, including peer feedback.

Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE)

The LCE in Family Medicine provides first- and second-year medical students with early clinical exposure in a family physician’s office with a focus on history taking and physical exams with real patients and clinical scenarios. You will spend five half-day sessions per year integrating classroom learning with these clinical experiences.

Physician Discussion Groups (PDG)

PDG provides you with opportunities to discuss personal and clinical experiences with physician facilitators. PDG occurs in a safe, small group environment and encourages you to share issues of concern while developing your physician identity and exploring other domains of competency.

Physical Examination (PE)

These in-person sessions emphasize both theory and practice regarding rational, evidence-based clinical examination. For each session, one preceptor will be assigned to facilitate and demonstrate to each group of five to six medical students. Physical exam practice may be on a standardized patient or a fellow student who volunteers to be examined.

Patient Immersion Experience (PIE)

PIE partners small groups of medical students with a patient mentor who has a chronic illness with the goal of exploring the illness experience from a patient’s perspective. Gain an understanding of how a wide variety of factors influence a patient’s illness experience.

Self-Directed Learning (SDL)

Scheduled throughout the week, SDL gives you time to study and focus on areas of personal growth and interest.

Team-based Learning (TBL)

TBL is a whole class session guided by faculty facilitators. Reviewing the provided materials is required to prepare for the session as you will be applying the information to clinical cases in small groups. TBL sessions are graded based on individual and group readiness and peer assessment.

Large Group Instruction

Content experts provide large group lectures live and in person. A select portion may be provided as recordings due to the availability of some faculty/clinicians. Lectures may include active components such as demonstrations, interactive polls/questions or other formats at the discretion of the lecturer.

Workplace-based Teaching

In Years 3 and 4 of the MD Program, you will be embedded in a clinical learning environment to learn and apply the knowledge gained in non-clinical settings.