Curriculum

All MD/PhD students will be expected to complete the following MD/PhD-specific courses:

1. Molecular, Cellular, & Genomic Foundations - 1st semester of Year 1

2. Biomedical Science for MD/PhDs (BMS) - Fall and Spring of Year 1

3. Problem Solving in Biomedical Sciences - Year 2

4. Medical Scientist Grand Rounds (MSGR) - MD1 throughout time in the PhD-phase. Students writing their PhD dissertation may apply to the Director to be excused from this course.

5. Clinical Refresher - provides MD/PhD students with an individualized program to facilitate their transition from the PhD/research to the MD/clinical years. An eight-week course is designed to facilitate the transition from PhD training years to clinical medicine years. The course incorporates practical and didactic sessions to help students regain familiarity with history taking, physical examination skills, written and oral presentations, and clinical reasoning. MD/PhD students will receive a full day orientation re-introducing the fundamentals of history taking and physical examination skills. The course is split into four sections: Clinical Basics Orientation, Supervised Patient Care, Inpatient Shadowing, and Individual Patient Care. From these four sections there will be six weeks of direct patient encounters, during which students will practice their oral and written presentations and participate in didactic case discussions led by field experts. The course incorporates board-style questions into each weekly topic, thereby introducing the concept of multiple-choice format clinical reasoning. By the end of the course, you will be able to conduct history and physical examinations, present in both written and oral forms, interpret and assimilate clinical data to create differential diagnoses, and review pathophysiology of common disease processes.