Pre-Clerkship Resources

An entire­ly new pre-clerk­ship cur­ricu­lum was intro­duced in 2014. It is divid­ed into four mod­ules (M0-M3) spread through­out the first and sec­ond years of Med­ical School.

Year 1 begins with M0 – Foun­da­tions of Med­i­cine, a 4‑week course designed to bring the class up to speed on key top­ics, includ­ing cell biol­o­gy, bio­chem­istry, genet­ics, micro­bi­ol­o­gy, and their inter­con­nec­tion in the func­tion of the human body.

The remain­der of Year 1 is pri­mar­i­ly com­prised of M1 – Human Biol­o­gy and Health, which is divid­ed into sev­er­al sys­tems-based cours­es that focus on nor­mal anato­my and phys­i­ol­o­gy.

M2 – Health and Dis­ease fol­lows this by revis­it­ing each system’s patho­log­i­cal states and help­ing stu­dents devel­op a clin­i­cal approach to dis­ease. This mod­ule is intro­duced in the final 9 weeks of Year 1 and con­tin­ues on to rep­re­sent the major­i­ty of Year 2.

Pre-clerk­ship con­cludes with M3 – Con­sol­i­da­tion, a unique 10-week course that enables stu­dents to inte­grate all the knowl­edge they have gained, pri­mar­i­ly through the use of small-group tuto­ri­als and assigned stud­ies.

There are also sev­er­al lon­gi­tu­di­nal cours­es that run through­out the Pre-Clerk­ship Peri­od: Clin­i­cal Skills, Clin­i­cal Rea­son­ing, Indige­nous Health, Pop­u­la­tion Health, and Professionalism.

Near­ly all pre-clerk­ship cours­es have a midterm mul­ti­ple-choice exam at the halfway point, fol­lowed by a cumu­la­tive final mul­ti­ple-choice exam at the end. This includes most lon­gi­tu­di­nal cours­es as well.

Through­out the year, stu­dents are also assigned var­i­ous stud­ies, writ­ten assign­ments, and activ­i­ties that car­ry par­tic­i­pa­tion marks, which must be com­plet­ed.

One spe­cial set of exams is the Clin­i­cal Skills course, specif­i­cal­ly the OSCEs (Objec­tive Struc­tured Clin­i­cal Exam­i­na­tion). OSCEs are designed to eval­u­ate stu­dents’ phys­i­cal exam­i­na­tion and his­to­ry-tak­ing skills through the use of stan­dard­ized patients and sce­nar­ios. In Year I, there is a 2‑station FOS­CE (F for for­ma­tive), fol­lowed by 3 more OSCEs (2‑, 8‑, and 2‑station). The pat­tern in Year II is sim­i­lar, with three more OSCEs (2‑, 2‑, and 8‑station). Marks are com­bined between all 12 sta­tions annu­al­ly, with the pass mark deter­mined as 90% of the aver­age of the top 10 stu­dents’ marks.

Gross anato­my labs often seem intim­i­dat­ing to new med­ical stu­dents. Our cur­ricu­lum has begun to de-empha­size the dis­sec­tion por­tion of these labs, often pro­vid­ing stu­dents with pro­s­ect­ed spec­i­mens to study (i.e. cadav­ers that have already been dis­sect­ed and have struc­tures iso­lat­ed and dis­played). The labs also uti­lize clin­i­cal cas­es and diag­nos­tic imag­ing in con­junc­tion with the cadav­er­ic spec­i­mens to teach human anato­my.

Scrubs or a lab coat are high­ly rec­om­mend­ed; lock­ers are avail­able out­side of the lab. A dis­sec­tion kit is use­ful, espe­cial­ly if you plan to go on your own time. Most groups find shar­ing a kit works well.

These ses­sions, like oth­ers, will be what you make of them – so be respect­ful and try your best! Remem­ber that most doc­tors don’t need a thor­ough under­stand­ing of eso­teric anato­my to do their day-to-day jobs – and even those sur­geons who do may not have enjoyed their very first gross lab. So relax! If you’re look­ing for a resource, Rohen’s Col­or Atlas of Anato­my: A Pho­to­graph­ic Study of the Human Body is like­ly the best.

CPAs, or Com­pre­hen­sive Patient Assess­ments, are designed to be a med­ical student’s first inter­ac­tion with real patients. There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent CPAs to account for the dif­fer­ences between disciplines.

Miss­ing a class? Don’t stress — it hap­pens to every­one at some point. Whether it’s due to ill­ness, per­son­al com­mit­ments, or unex­pect­ed cir­cum­stances, there’s always a way to han­dle it. We’ve put togeth­er a sim­ple guide to help you nav­i­gate your next steps and ensure you stay on track. Check out the dia­gram below to see exact­ly what to do based on your sit­u­a­tion, includ­ing who to noti­fy and any fol­low-ups you might need to complete.

Look­ing to make the most of your sum­mer? Browse the options below for research, clin­i­cal, and com­mu­ni­ty-based expe­ri­ences avail­able to stu­dents dur­ing the break.

Med­ical School can be incred­i­bly chal­leng­ing but it should also be a pos­i­tive and reward­ing expe­ri­ence. You can’t prop­er­ly learn or care for oth­ers if you don’t care for your­self.

Be sure to also take a look at our Well­ness page for tips about per­son­al well­ness. When in doubt, con­tact Dr. Avi­va Gold­berg, Dean of Stu­dent Affairs – she’s the best! We at the MMSA are also here for you, please feel free to drop us a line any­time if you’d like to speak with a peer.

Stu­dents are giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to request spe­cif­ic ​“Clerk­ship Tracks,” i.e., the order in which they will expe­ri­ence their core rota­tions. This typ­i­cal­ly occurs near the end of Winter/​beginning of Spring of Med II. We encour­age stu­dents to seek out men­tors in upper years for advice regard­ing the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of each Track. Some gen­er­al top­ics to consider:

• Rotat­ing through dis­ci­plines, you are ​“on the fence” about ear­ly, in order to eval­u­ate career interest
• Rotat­ing through dis­ci­plines you are keen on lat­er on, in order to bet­ter impress attendings/​residents

At the end of Med II, you will get to choose your Med III Selec­tives. In addi­tion to your core clerk­ship rota­tions, many rota­tions allow you to choose a sub­spe­cial­ty to rotate through.

Enjoy your last sum­mer! Med III will begin with Mod­ule 4 – Tran­si­tion to Clerk­ship, a 5‑week peri­od that uses tuto­ri­als, sim­u­la­tions, and real patient encoun­ters to accli­mate stu­dents to the clin­i­cal duties and sce­nar­ios that they will soon find them­selves in. It ends with one week of shad­ow­ing on each student’s first core rotation.