Abbreviated pre-clinical curriculum.

[Cyberdyne 101]

I'm curious about your thoughts regarding an abbreviated pre-clinical curriculum and if it influences (or has influenced) your decision when choosing a med school. Schools with a one year pre-clerkship structure include Vanderbilt, Duke, Michigan, and Harvard (let me know if I'm missing any schools).

Baylor, Cornell, NYU, SUNY-Downstate, Penn, UNC, UA-Phoenix, UVA, Columbia, (Hopkins?), Stonybrook, Vermont, Yale, Case, and UCSF (again, please let me know if I'm missing any schools) have a 1.5 year pre-clinical curriculum.

Edit: It's an anonymous poll.

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[Keladry]

Downstate changed last year to 1.5 year pre-clinical.

ETA: I have no strong opinion on 1.5 vs. 2 year. 1 year seems ridiculous, though - I had no idea some schools did that. If I had applied and gotten into any of the 1 year places, it definitely would've affected my decision.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

This was just edited. Earlier, I posted an older schematic. It's possible that there's additional time in the 3rd year to prepare for Step 1 (i.e. during the flex time and the research block).
https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/ume/curriculum-20-schematic-class-2017-and-beyond

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Cornell
http://weill.cornell.edu/education/curriculum/

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

UCSD

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Downstate changed last year to 1.5 year pre-clinical.

ETA: I have no strong opinion on 1.5 vs. 2 year. 1 year seems ridiculous, though - I had no idea some schools did that. If I had applied and gotten into any of the 1 year places, it definitely would've affected my decision.

Thanks for weighing in. I'm not sure if I would choose a school with a 1 year pre-clinical curriculum if a comparable school with a 1.5 or 2 year curriculum accepted me.
Although, I would like to hear from someone that actually favors a shortened structure (particularly a 1 year format).

 

[gyngyn]

Thanks for weighing in. I'm not sure if I would choose a school with a 1 year pre-clinical curriculum if a comparable school with a 1.5 or 2 year curriculum accepted me.
Although, I would like to hear from someone that actually favors a shortened structure (particularly a 1 year format).

Wash U could probably eliminate the entire first two years!

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Wash U could probably eliminate the entire first two years!

Lol-how?!

 

[gyngyn]

Lol-how?!

The median MCAT for accepted students is 38. They could probably self study their way to a 260 USMLE in a couple of months!

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

The median MCAT for accepted students is 38. They could probably self study their way to a 260 USMLE in a couple of months!

Yeah I figured it had something to do with that. I guess the same could be said about Pritzker, Penn, and Yale. A 37 is not too shabby either.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

The median MCAT for accepted students is 38. They could probably self study their way to a 260 USMLE in a couple of months!

So can an accepted student with a <34 MCAT feel confident about Duke?

 

[gyngyn]

So can an accepted student with a <34 MCAT be confident at Duke?

Do you mean because they don't teach? I figure they must have tutors or something...
Maybe someone from there can come in and tell us how they do it.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

In what way? Do you mean because they don't teach? I figure they must have tutors or something... Maybe someone from there can come in and tell us how they do it.

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm assuming-lol.

 

[mik30102]

Unless I'm understanding it wrong I cant see how the quality of education would not suffer terribly in a 1 year curriculum. I'm sure you can cut off some repeated information to get to 1.5, but 1 year seems like its going to be all memory dumping with no time to take all of that information in... I also think your missing vermont for 1.5

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Unless I'm understanding it wrong I cant see how the quality of education would not suffer terribly in a 1 year curriculum. I'm sure you can cut off some repeated information to get to 1.5, but 1 year seems like its going to be all memory dumping with no time to take all of that information in... I also think your missing vermont for 1.5

I think there are certain ppl that can thrive in that environment. But you have to be absolutely sure before taking on that challenge.

 

[infinitessimal]

I can't vouch for other schools, but I spoke to a rep from Vanderbilt about this recently (they just reduced it to a one-year) and she told me a few things to consider: first, there is an increasing amount of detailed information to be learned "pre-clinically", so much that if it was all reviewed, even two years wouldn't be enough. Second, there is a lot of content in the preclinical years that one learns and then forgets immediately, and that would better serve some specialties than others. They condensed it to one year so that only the most essential material was learned by everyone; after clinicals, the idea is that you would choose a concentration based on your preferred specialty, and take the immersion blocks as electives that go much deeper in content in your chosen concentration. So essentially, rather than trying to put two years of material into one, they did a more general first year with the two more detailed immersion years.

 

[infinitessimal]

[repeat post]

 

[Serous Demilune]

Hofstra takes Step 1 at least a month earlier than the traditional 2 yr schools, and stony brook is 1.5 now.

In terms of clerkships, it's awesome to have an extra period of electives to explore different specialties before the deadline for ERAS applications. 1 year pre-clinical sounds way too short though.

 

[Spinach Dip]

I see nothing wrong with giving students more hands-on experiences at the cost of sitting in lecture for a dozen extra months.

 

[DermViser]

I can't vouch for other schools, but I spoke to a rep from Vanderbilt about this recently (they just reduced it to a one-year) and she told me a few things to consider: first, there is an increasing amount of detailed information to be learned "pre-clinically", so much that if it was all reviewed, even two years wouldn't be enough. Second, there is a lot of content in the preclinical years that one learns and then forgets immediately, and that would better serve some specialties than others. They condensed it to one year so that only the most essential material was learned by everyone; after clinicals, the idea is that you would choose a concentration based on your preferred specialty, and take the immersion blocks as electives that go much deeper in content in your chosen concentration. So essentially, rather than trying to put two years of material into one, they did a more general first year with the two more detailed immersion years.

I'm pretty sure the actual students at Vanderbilt feel differently. Those "little details" are stuff you need to know for Step 1 regardless of specialty. And you're not likely to learn them from clinical electives. 1.5 years or even 2 years is more than enough time to learn basic sciences with the right timings.

This is nothing more than M.Eds at Vanderbilt making a name for themselves in academia. It's why they're grabbing all the 40+ MCAT scores bc those people would flourish regardless of where they are to cover up for the deficiencies that come out bc of the program.

Not to mention they've switched from a mainly lecture based to a team-based, PBL type format.

 

[mvenus929]

UVA has a 1.5 year curriculum as well.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

I can't vouch for other schools, but I spoke to a rep from Vanderbilt about this recently (they just reduced it to a one-year) and she told me a few things to consider: first, there is an increasing amount of detailed information to be learned "pre-clinically", so much that if it was all reviewed, even two years wouldn't be enough. Second, there is a lot of content in the preclinical years that one learns and then forgets immediately, and that would better serve some specialties than others. They condensed it to one year so that only the most essential material was learned by everyone; after clinicals, the idea is that you would choose a concentration based on your preferred specialty, and take the immersion blocks as electives that go much deeper in content in your chosen concentration. So essentially, rather than trying to put two years of material into one, they did a more general first year with the two more detailed immersion years.

Did they elaborate on how students are prepared for step 1?

 

[alpinism]

Unless I'm understanding it wrong I cant see how the quality of education would not suffer terribly in a 1 year curriculum. I'm sure you can cut off some repeated information to get to 1.5, but 1 year seems like its going to be all memory dumping with no time to take all of that information in... I also think your missing vermont for 1.5

I think there are certain ppl that can thrive in that environment. But you have to be absolutely sure before taking on that challenge.

I see nothing wrong with giving students more hands-on experiences at the cost of sitting in lecture for a dozen extra months.

Re: the shortened curriculums, it depends on the school itself since there are a number of different ways make the transition. For the most part, 1.5 schools use a combination of trimming minutiae and extraneous information from lectures (absolutely a good thing), removing repeated material (both good and bad since it makes it harder to understand and retain concepts), offering less electives, increasing time spent in school per week, and reducing summer break.

Another key thing to remember, is that many schools also shift lectures into the "clinical years" during rotations. This is how schools can get away with a 1yr pre-clinical curriculum. Basically they do everything in a 1.5 but with an even more intense schedule and less time off. Then, they'll cram those lectures you missed into your rotations. In reality you'll be spending as much as 1/4 to 1/2 of the time in lecture multiple times per week instead of seeing patients or being in surgery. For example, in our radiology clerkship we spend more time in lecture than in the reading room going over films. This is another reason why some shortened preclinical schools also take step 1 after rotations.

The moral of the story is this: there really is no such thing as "more hands on experience" and "less time in lecture." You might get a little, but not nearly as much as you'd think. It also really sucks to be in the middle of a seeing a patient or doing a procedure and have to got to lecture at 3pm. Looking at Vandy's curriculum, this is exactly what they do and I've heard Duke does the same as well.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Re: the shortened curriculums, it depends on the school itself since there are a number of different ways make the transition. For the most part, 1.5 schools use a combination of trimming minutiae and extraneous information from lectures (absolutely a good thing), removing repeated material (both good and bad since it makes it harder to understand and retain concepts), offering less electives, increasing time spent in school per week, and reducing summer break.

Another key thing to remember, is that many schools also shift lectures into the "clinical years" during rotations. This is how schools can get away with a 1yr pre-clinical curriculum. Basically they do everything in a 1.5 but with an even more intense schedule and less time off. Then, they'll cram those lectures you missed into your rotations. In reality you'll be spending as much as 1/4 to 1/2 of the time in lecture multiple times per week instead of seeing patients or being in surgery. For example, in our radiology clerkship we spend more time in lecture than in the reading room going over films. This is another reason why some shortened preclinical schools also take step 1 after rotations.

The moral of the story is this: there really is no such thing as "more hands on experience" and "less time in lecture." You might get a little, but not nearly as much as you'd think. It also really sucks to be in the middle of a seeing a patient or doing a procedure and have to got to lecture at 3pm. Looking at Vandy's curriculum, this is exactly what they do and I've heard Duke does the same as well.

Thanks for the input! How do you feel about board prep at these schools?

 

[alpinism]

Thanks for the input! How do you feel about board prep at these schools?

They seem to be doing fine and continue to have solid averages. Likely because your board score is largely from core M1/M2 subjects and self study. Im sure the shortened curriculums continue to retain most of the essential high yield information. Also, at this point most schools doing this have high GPA/MCAT averages and students who are very competitive. They'd likely get good scores regardless of the type of curriculum.

 

[DermViser]

They seem to be doing fine and continue to have solid averages. Likely because your board score is largely from core M1/M2 subjects and self study. Im sure the shortened curriculums continue to retain most of the essential high yield information. Also, at this point most schools doing this have high GPA/MCAT averages and students who are very competitive. They'd likely get good scores regardless of the type of curriculum.

Also the people who did "Curriculum 2.0" have yet to take their Step 1s yet. They recruit high stats people (who are highly intelligent, likely to be proactive) to mask any deficiencies. I think having those lectures moved to MS-3 clerkships is ridiculous. So students are even less clinically proficient than they already are.

 

[tnara]

UVA has a 1.5 year curriculum as well.

And it is awesome. Still only ~4 hours of class a day (not all required attendance), and 4th year starts in March, so lots of time for electives. And Step scores haven't suffered from it.

 

[DermViser]

And it is awesome. Still only ~4 hours of class a day (not all required attendance), and 4th year starts in March, so lots of time for electives. And Step scores haven't suffered from it.

And I don't think they've "removed" lectures the way Vanderbilt has. 1 year is absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Of course maybe that's why Vanderbilt made the first year P/F.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

And I don't think they've "removed" lectures the way Vanderbilt has. 1 year is absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Of course maybe that's why Vanderbilt made the first year P/F.

What about ppl with an MCAT in the 96th+ percentile?

 

[DermViser]

What about ppl with an MCAT in the 96th+ percentile?

What about them?

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

What about them?

I guess you already answered my question. You said you wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

 

[tnara]

And I don't think they've "removed" lectures the way Vanderbilt has. 1 year is absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Of course maybe that's why Vanderbilt made the first year P/F.

I don't think so. We have lectures during some clerkships of course, but usually only a couple hours a week. The 3rd-year workload is completely manageable.

When I interviewed at Duke their 1-year pre-clinical curriculum sounded completely terrible. No thanks.

 

[CrimsonKing]

What about ppl with an MCAT in the 96th+ percentile?

My MCAT was 99.99 percentile. I probably could have studied well enough to do nicely on Step 1 with only 1 year of preclinicals.

However, there's a lot more that we learned during our second year that has been extremely helpful so far on rotations. Even with that increased knowledge, there's still so much to learn as a clinical student if you're actually trying to become a skilled clinician.

Shortchanging that education, especially to create extra time for something as useless (to pure clinical practice, at least) as research years is not something that I would be down with. We have as much lecture time as the 1.5 preclinical programs, but we take a long summer between M1 and M2 for research. It was tough enough to learn everything that was needed in that time frame, and I think even less time is silly.

In the end, as grating as the preclinical years are, I do feel that they are needed.

 

[DermViser]

I don't think so. We have lectures during some clerkships of course, but usually only a couple hours a week. The 3rd-year workload is completely manageable.

When I interviewed at Duke their 1-year pre-clinical curriculum sounded completely terrible. No thanks.

Do you go to UVa or Vanderbilt? All clerkships have some "lectures" that take you away from clinicals. That's not what's the issue here.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

At this point, only Duke students would know.

 

[tnara]

Do you go to UVa or Vanderbilt? All clerkships have some "lectures" that take you away from clinicals. That's not what's the issue here.

UVA. I was just saying that they haven't removed lectures from the preclinical years to cram them into the clinical years.

 

[DermViser]

UVA. I was just saying that they haven't removed lectures from the preclinical years to cram them into the clinical years.

Correct. I was referring to Vanderbilt.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

So this is somewhat analogous to the Duke basketball team. You either love them or hate them.

Would any Blue Devils care to chime in?

 

[BamaNicole]

UA Phoenix has a 1.5 year curriculum. I think the second years take step one in march this coming year.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

FWIW, the median MCAT for Duke and Vanderbilt is 35. The median for Harvard is 36.

 

[DermViser]

UA Phoenix has a 1.5 year curriculum. I think the second years take step one in march this coming year.

Is that a relatively new school?

 

[AndyQC]

Is that a relatively new school?

Yeah. I think it's four or five years old (IIRC).

 

[vasovist]

I'm pretty sure the actual students at Vanderbilt feel differently. Those "little details" are stuff you need to know for Step 1 regardless of specialty. And you're not likely to learn them from clinical electives. 1.5 years or even 2 years is more than enough time to learn basic sciences with the right timings.

This is nothing more than M.Eds at Vanderbilt making a name for themselves in academia. It's why they're grabbing all the 40+ MCAT scores bc those people would flourish regardless of where they are to cover up for the deficiencies that come out bc of the program.

Not to mention they've switched from a mainly lecture based to a team-based, PBL type format.

Do you work for an anti-Vanderbilt PR agency or something? A quick look through your post history shows nothing but hate for Vanderbilt's new curriculum. I don't particularly care where it stems from, but the kind of discourse "This is nothing more than M.Eds at Vanderbilt making a name for themselves in academia." is a little unproductive.

 

[DermViser]

Do you work for an anti-Vanderbilt PR agency or something? A quick look through your post history shows nothing but hate for Vanderbilt's new curriculum. I don't particularly care where it stems from, but the kind of discourse "This is nothing more than M.Eds at Vanderbilt making a name for themselves in academia." is a little unproductive.

If you look at the video - the medical student expounding about how great Vanderbilt's curriculum 2.0 is, is sitting at a desk reading First Aid for the USMLE Step 1, is a Class of 2013 graduate who got also got his Masters in Education at Vanderbilt: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/05/founders-medalists/ -- "As a curriculum committee co-chair, he helped plan Vanderbilt’s new medical school curriculum."

If one were to actually listen to the words he says in that video promo, one might easily think that he actually went thru Curriculum 2.0 itself so he can validly comment on how great it is. However, once you know the truth that he actually was involved in the revamping of the curriculum, you can see that this is his pet project, and has no actual skin in the game. I'm sure it makes for a great journal article in Academic Medicine though.

 

[BamaNicole]

Is that a relatively new school?

Their first class graduated in 2011

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Do you work for an anti-Vanderbilt PR agency or something? A quick look through your post history shows nothing but hate for Vanderbilt's new curriculum. I don't particularly care where it stems from, but the kind of discourse "This is nothing more than M.Eds at Vanderbilt making a name for themselves in academia." is a little unproductive.

I agree that DV's opinions can be harsh at times and I often disagree with him. On the other hand, a one year pre-clinical curriculum is a serious commitment and is possibly career altering. Is it merely the ppl in the 96th+ percentile that thrive under these circumstances?! Is a student with a 30-32 MCAT at a disadvantage here? Are these schools relying on the rock stars to keep their step 1 score averages high at the expense of others? Pre-meds do not have the luxury of rotations when selecting a med school. We are entitled to know the advantages and drawbacks of a shortened pre-clerkship track.

 

[StIGMA]

Didn't read the thread, but:

1.5 year isn't much different than the 1 year, because:

1.5 year schools (which generally have the summer off) end up being about 14 months of pre-clinicals (Sept-Dec (4), Jan-June (6), Sept-Dec (4)). There is a summer break.

1 year tends to be the full 12 months. There is no summer break.

So the difference is not actually half a year of didactics, but ~2 months of didactics.

 

[Serous Demilune]

Didn't read the thread, but:

1.5 year isn't much different than the 1 year, because:

1.5 year schools (which generally have the summer off) end up being about 14 months of pre-clinicals (Sept-Dec (4), Jan-June (6), Sept-Dec (4)). There is a summer break.

1 year tends to be the full 12 months. There is no summer break.

So the difference is not actually half a year of didactics, but ~2 months of didactics.

You'll probably need that summer break to start looking at Step 1 prep materials.

 

[StIGMA]

You'll probably need that summer break to start looking at Step 1 prep materials.

That doesn't generally happen. Most students use the time for research, volunteering, or vacation. Many of the 1.5 year schools go straight into clinic, with Step1 after the clinical rotations.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Read @darkjedi's posts in this thread:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/1-5-year-pre-clinical-curriculum.1030349/
A 1.5 year pre-clinical curriculum seems to be working well at several schools.