To Be...A Spartan MD

With the first semester of the new Shared Discovery Curriculum in the books, data is showing that students are getting a good grasp on the content they're learning at a faster pace, consuming the material 50 percent quicker. “Students even at seven weeks were already clinically performing essentially at the level of students who were at the end of their first year in the previous curriculum,” said Dr. Aron Sousa, senior associate dean for academic affairs for the medical college. “It’s the experiential learning aspect of the program that’s making this happen.” Among the many differences between what has been the traditional model of medical education and the College of Human Medicine's Shared Discovery Curriculum include early and ongoing clinical experience for students that integrates the basic and clinical sciences. Whereas schools typically split the learning of the sciences and the clinical experiences, students in Shared Discovery are learning with a hands-on ap...