one of the selling points of mizzou is the early clinical experience. During your m1 year your morning classes will all be science based, and the afternoon classes are patient interviewing based. After teaching you the basics of getting a history and taking notes, starting the second block (october) they will assign you to what's called an ace experience (which is essentially like a mini-rotation) three times a block. Depending on your facilitator, it'll range from either a laid-back shadowing experience to talking to the patient by yourself and doing a full physical exam.
Also, throughout every block there will be several standardised patient assessments (which are basically hired actors and actresses) and you have to talk to them and take notes as if they were real patients. For instance, if you learn about alcohol and substance abuse during one of your afternoon lectures, later on in that week you will actually talk to an sp and try to convince them to quit smoking or drinking. (it's essentially role playing)
lastly someone else mentioned something about the clinic, and yes 98% of the m1 class is involved with medzou. It's basically a community clinic where you work with physicians and upper classmen together and help columbia residents who are on the lower socioeconomic side. Currently i've signed up for the program but haven't gotten a shift quite yet so i can't give any personal experiences, but all my friends who have done it all said that they've loved it.
