Curriculum Competencies and Objectives Academic Calendars
The Office for Undergraduate Studies designs, schedules, and evaluates the CMS curriculum. Working with the Educational Affairs Committee of faculty and students, this office implements the CMS curriculum by scheduling classes, gathering student and faculty evaluations, and analyzing student performance against national standards. The Office for Undergraduate Studies places major value on the coordination and integration of all the curricular elements. In addition, the Office for Undergraduate Studies directly manages several interdisciplinary courses in the CMS curriculum. Ms. Sally Venus provides support for each of the following:
Essentials of Clinical Reasoning (ECR) is a course designed to facilitate students' acquisition of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will be necessary to develop students into excellent student clinicians. Students have lectures and labs throughout the year with a focus on history taking, physical examination, communication skills, and knowledge best described as the "art of medicine". All of this learning is done in the context of clinical reasoning. Clinical reasoning is one of the ultimate competencies that students acquire during their training. Therefore everything that will be done during the course of the year will emphasize knowledge, skills and attitudes as they relate to developing excellent clinical reasoning skills. Students will learn and be evaluated in a variety of settings. Students will be involved in interactive lectures, laboratory time that will be facilitated by faculty preceptors which will focus on history and physical exam proficiency, small and large group clinical reasoning sessions, practical experiences in radiological interpretation and laboratory interpretation. Students will have to utilize their own independent learning skills while engaging another student partner in practicing the physical exam. Students will have access to a complete video library of the clinical exam, in addition to having small group or one on one opportunity with faculty to practice their skills. Students will have the opportunity to practice skills on Standardized Patients and at times real patients from the community may be used. Upon completion of this course the students should be skilled and efficient in basic techniques of interviewing, history taking, and physical examination, communication, and other areas defined as the "art of medicine". The course covers fall, winter and spring terms, in both first and second year.