Innovative curriculum greets new med school students

In the summer of 2015, 170 students became the first to enter U-M’s Medical School under a new curriculum designed to better prepare them for the modern world of patient care. Highlights of this new educational experience include:

• Immersion in the clinical care world of the U-M Health System from their very first semester.
• A new “doctoring” course to help them learn the many intangible skills that physicians need, along with new opportunities to build leadership skills.
• A choice of an expanding offering of Paths of Excellence, a way to focus their passions in areas such as ethics, health policy, global health, medical humanities and scientific discovery.
• More chances to learn about, from and with students enrolled in U-M’s other health professions schools, including Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Public Health, Kinesiology and Social Work.
• The opportunity to enter one of four new houses within the M-Home, the learning community newly launched by the Medical School to build ties among classmates, members of other class years and dedicated faculty advisors and coaches.
• And access to a new and much larger medical learning space, in a renovated Taubman Health Sciences Library.

Rajesh Mangrulkar, M.D., associate dean for medical student education and Joseph Kolars, M.D., senior associate dean for education and global initiatives, led a team of more than 300 faculty and students in developing the new educational model.