Bringing the future home - Advances in Education

At the end of the 2005–2006 academic year, the medical school celebrated the "topping off" of a new 162,000-square-foot, $58 million medical education building, scheduled for completion in the spring of 2007. This building incorporates some of the space of the school's original anatomy and physiology buildings constructed in the heart of the campus in 1917. But the new facility is designed for a future the school's founding fathers would be astonished to see.
First, it makes possible expansion of class size, by 15% in 2007 and by 30% in 2015, a year in which the United States is projected to have a shortage of more than 200,000 physicians.
Second, it permits implementation of a totally revamped medical curriculum, which will take advantage of dramatic changes in technology: for example, allowing students in the anatomy dissection laboratories to simultaneously view MRIs

and other images of what they are dissecting.
Third, the building's highly sophisticated patient simulation spaces will boost Emory's leadership in this arena. For early-phase students, fully equipped examination or emergency room venues will provide realistic settings for "patient" encounters enacted by robots or actors. Meanwhile, more experienced students will practice minimally invasive surgery and other laparoscopic and robotic procedures in specially designed simulation laboratories. Virtual reality technology will allow space to be manipulated one moment to resemble a neuro-ICU and the next, a gymnasium crowded with disaster victims—or almost any other patient care setting these future doctors are likely to encounter.
Fourth—and this is something that the school's forefathers would especially appreciate—the building radiates regard and concern for students. A student commons will be the first-ever designated gathering place on campus where an entire medical school class can be together at once, while spacious student lounges and quiet nooks and crannies will allow for a variety of study styles. Students and faculty alike can grab coffee and sandwiches and, it is hoped, easy interactions. A beautiful atrium, filled with natural light, is part of an effort to create human space that enhances learning.

Next chapter: Advances in Research>>

Previous chapter: Introduction<<

Main Menu

Printer friendly

E-mail to a
friend

Make a gift

The curriculum—a focus on the whole patient

After two years of planning, involving hundreds of medical faculty and students as well as key members of Emory's schools of nursing and public health, the medical school has completed a major curriculum overhaul, designed to reflect the extraordinary advances taking place in science and to meet the needs of an ever-changing health care environment. The graduating class of 2011 will be the first to experience all four phases of this new curriculum.
     Most traditional medical curricula, including the one being replaced at Emory, begin with two years focused on basic sciences such as anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology. At the impetus of its own basic science faculty, Emory's new medical curriculum begins first with a focus on the whole patient before proceeding down to cells and molecules.
     This curriculum has four phases. In phase I, called Foundations of Medicine, basic science and clinical faculty work together to teach the fundamentals of science within a clinical setting. Students engage in clinical experiences from day 1, working in small, problem-solving groups and in teams with physicians and other clinical colleagues. This whole-patient approach provides a conceptual framework of the human body as the curriculum proceeds from the major systems and organs to how the body interacts with its environment at the cellular and molecular level. Elective time is available, and volunteer experiences are expected.
     The more discipline-based blocks of the next phase, Applications of Medical Science, continue students' immersion in clinical experience, with strong mentoring and continual assessment of core competencies.
     During the Discovery phase, students become involved in research and consolidate their training as lifelong learners. For many students, this five- to 10-month phase will result in their first presentation at a national meeting or publication in a peer-reviewed journal. For some, it may expand to a joint MD/PhD, MD/MPH, MD/MBA, or other degree.
     The final Translation of Medical Sciences phase includes sub-internships in key areas, electives in others, and a mandatory Capstone Course to integrate the previous four years, provide updates on the most recent scientific and medical advances, and re-emphasize often-overlooked issues, including how to work with other health professionals; medical, legal, economic, and ethical principles; and cost-containment principles.

Flexibility means possibility

One of the more unique aspects of the new curriculum is how it can be individualized, whether a student wants to practice in a multi-cultural urban center, devote a career to vascular biology research, or one day become surgeon general. Another noteworthy aspect is the infusion of the curriculum, again from day 1, with predictive health and public health perspectives and training (an approach made more powerful by Emory's school of public health and by Emory's proximity to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

In the meantime, students soar

Even before launch of the new curriculum, applications to the medical school have continued to be high—49 for each first-year position. The entering class in 2006 was among the most diverse ever admitted, both racially and in terms of country of origin. The average MCAT score (33.3 now for two years running) is the highest in the school's history. Emory's 455 medical students also continue to perform extremely well compared with their peers at other schools. The most recent pass rate for first-time takers of part 1 of the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam was 98%, and the majority of Emory's medical graduates consistently receive their top choices for residency training.
Emory has 61 MD/PhD students. Some of these are in a joint program with Georgia Institute of Technology, with which the medical school shares a biomedical engineering department that is a leader nationally in research awards from the National Institutes of Health. The medical school also has 16 MD/MPH students and 390 students in five allied health programs, including a physician assistant program ranked third in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and a physical therapy doctoral program ranked eighth.

Top