Which pathway did you choose? From my understanding it is only for two years but you can continue into MS3 if you want? From the looks of the curriculum it is built in with your other classes - but are they actual classes or workshops that you participate in? Or is it like a side project while you are mostly focused on your other classes?
It jumps out at me as something a little different than other schools. At least from what I've seen, most other schools have a set curriculum and tell you to do research in the summer if you want - I haven't seen much in terms of structured experiences about specific paths like bioethics or health systems management.
Here's my take on how applicants should look at the Scholarly Pathways of MCW:
First and foremost, they are a supplementation to the standard material that every med school in the country offers. What I mean by that is that the various Pathways are a means to personalize a part of your med school education. No two students have the same experience or learn the same things because each person focuses on things interesting to themselves. I know it sounds really generic; but, at their core, Pathways are a framework for independent learning.
So your next question is how does it work: During the first semester the new M1s are given a high level introduction to each of the Pathways. From that, they pick 1 which they will participate in for the remainder of the year. Each Pathway has once a month events called "core-sessions" where all students in that Pathway (M1-M3) get together to participate in didactics / discussions / simulations / PBL / etc. - however the session is organized. Examples are Physician Scientist might have a session where they evaluate scientific papers, Clinician Educator may have a session on preparing lessons plans, Bioethics my have a session about court cases that defined patient rights, Quality may have a session teaching process mapping... you get the point. My understanding is that each core session is intended to give you tools to help in your individual learning. Outside of the core sessions, students have protected time 1 afternoon per week to focus on their individual learning. Each pathway has different things that can be counted towards individual learning - bench research, community activities, reading journal articles, online courses, etc. This is where the majority of a student's Pathways time is spent - doing things that are interesting to them.
If at the end of M1 year a student wants to switch into another pathway, that is totally cool. In terms of time commitment, every M1 gets overwhelmed initially by the thoughts of Pathways, but that is just because most are not used to non-structured educational activities. In terms of time commitment, Pathways are low but they can be as much as a student wants. And when it comes to summer research, some people continue to work on a Pathways related project over the summer between M1 & M2 years, while others choose to work on something completely unrelated. And some students do no research during that summer, which is also fine.
