Each of the college’s four regional medical campuses have rural sites available for
the required clinical clerkship in family medicine. In addition, the college is providing
student training opportunities in a migrant workers’ center in rural southwest
Florida. These settings provide student training in the required clinical skills, but also
serve to promote cultural awareness and the mission of the college of medicine to
prepare physicians who will care for the underserved.
The legislative study on geriatrics education directed that medical education
at FSU should require a continuum of content and experiences to prepare the
physician workforce for the aging U.S. population. Therefore, the law directed
that FSU students study the health and treatment of aging patients throughout
the four-year curriculum. The law also directed that the school establish an academic
leadership position in geriatrics. In response to this directive, the college
of medicine established a department of geriatrics, one of only five in U.S. medical
schools. With the assistance of the faculty in the Department of Geriatrics,
the first two years of the curriculum contain integrated content on health and
disease of the aging human. The clerkship years require experiences and content
with the same goals, and there is a required geriatrics medicine clerkship in the
fourth year.
HYBRID CURRICULUM
A study of best practices used in delivery of the first two years of medical education,
the basic science years, led to the recommendation that the FSU College
of Medicine use a combination of lecture and small-group, case-based instruction.
The law establishing FSU’s medical school includes this directive and also
one requiring a continuum of clinical experiences throughout the basic science
years, including experiences with underserved and elderly populations.
The PIMS curriculum for the first year of medical education was used as
a foundation with years added sequentially, relying on best practices, until the
four-year curriculum was in place. The basic science years were then integrated,
with the first year becoming more clinically oriented and hybrid in presentation.
There is a strong clinical emphasis throughout years 1 and 2. Just over half of the
class sessions in the first two years occur in small groups. The clinical skills curriculum
is a continuum throughout the first three years, beginning with training
in basic clinical skills, communication, history taking, and physical examination
and progressing through training in diagnosis and management of complex medical
problems in the third year.
INTERDISCIPLINARY DEPARTMENTAL STRUCTURE
An interdisciplinary departmental model for faculty other than those in family
medicine and geriatrics facilitates the delivery of an integrated curriculum.
The basic science faculty have academic homes in the Department of Biomedical
Sciences and the Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences.
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