LSUHSC Shreveport -- Admissions

The Curriculum

Why did you change the curriculum a few years ago?
Judging by licensure exams, residency match data and direct feedback from faculty and students, our traditional curriculum worked very well. Biochemists, microbiologians, anatomists, etc., decided what was taught in years one and two, but that has changed. A few years ago the Dean appointed a select group of clinical faculty who met regularly for nearly two years to address the following

Questions:

1. What do medical students really need to learn in the basic sciences, and
2. How can we teach them better?

Answers:

1. Starting with a clean slate, physicians determined what would be taught, and
2. Then professors were selected to give those lectures

Two obvious outcomes were:

. A lot of material was shifted into graduate courses or just plain eliminated, and
. A lot of redundancy was eliminated. Add these up, and you get a lot of time freed up.

In our curriculum, students can learn in the study format that works best for them, leaving time for research, enrichment or extracurricular pursuits.

Clinical relevance is the gold standard for what is taught in years one and two. Patient contact occurs early in the first year as does work with standardized patients. Large amounts of clinical material have been integrated in to the basic science courses at every turn. Significant amounts of material are introduced in small group sessions, where again, the emphasis is on clinical relevance.

Some students prefer multi-tasking?

Do the students like it? - Yes.
Student evaluation plays an important role in the continuous refinement of the curriculum, and the curriculum is definitely popular with students.

Where can I learn more about it?

A lot of detail follows:

Our school’s previous 2x2 curriculum, departmentally formulated and controlled, with its lecture-dominated format is now a fully integrated, systems-based one which incorporates significant amounts of self-directed study. The content of years one and two was determined by physicians, retaining only those aspects of the preclinical years that are essential to medical education. Added were more clinically oriented examples, especially in small group sessions. Lecture hours have been reduced drastically, allowing the student to learn in his/her own best way.

Years 1 and 2. Five full integrated core and basic knowledge courses occur in the first four months. Eleven system-based courses in the second half of year one and throughout year two follow. All are run by multi-departmental, multi-disciplinary teams of both clinical and basic science faculty. Each course combines the system-based knowledge for the particular system, (cardiovascular, pulmonary, neuroscience, etc.) and include introductory medicine course material, physical diagnosis skills, standardized patient and clinical patient exposures, plus the usual traditional knowledge based materials (anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, etc.). Most weeks have a thematic focus, which is triggered at the onset of the unit, and anchored at the end of the week, by clinical cases. Small groups, independent learning, computers/technology-assisted learning and problem solving are stressed.

Years 3 and 4. The traditional newly integrated medicine-pediatrics-family medicine component involves both in- and out-patient experiences. A series of team-taught, core content, multi-disciplinary, acute and chronic illnesses are included. Departments have cooperatively developed core content, team teaching, small group discussions to include problem-solving components and optimized assessment strategies. The acute disorders include asthma and otitis (pediatrics and family medicine) and diabetes mellitus and hypertension (family medicine and medicine). Once the concepts are taught and utilized in this course, students follow patients and have recurrent exposure to these concepts in the Comprehensive Care longitudinal clinic to assure competence and retention of material, with preceptor assessments of their knowledge at patient visits.

Instead of departmental-based courses in year four, there are selective offerings that assure multidisciplinary experiences for all students: 1) an acting internship; 2) outpatient care (including common themes such as office experience, financial related issues, etc.; 3) a community-based experience and; 4) a teaching-education experience in which the students have structured requirements for teaching and assessment of first and second year students, and thereby prepare themselves for their expected house staff experiences.

For more than you probably want to know, you can look at the Curriculum Website, from which PowerPoint presentations, problem sets, exams, and lots more goodies have been stripped. Our students get the whole nine yards, but you can still get a feel of what's going on in this skeletal version. (Plan on clicking on Previous-Site or the Back-Arrow a lot if you want to explore this site in detail.)

Every effort will be made to update the information contained on these pages as necessary. However, it is the responsibility of the user to determine that he or she is relying on the most current version of any particular information. Any questions about the material should be directed to the Office of Student Admissions at shvadm@lsuhsc.edu

Introduction/Welcome

General information and residency reqs

Timeline for the admissions cycle

The application process

Requirements for admission

For applicants invited to Interview

For accepted students

Curriculum

Multicultural Affairs

For Re-Applicants

Acceptable List

FAQ's

NRMP--the residency match

Important phone numbers and e-mails

The Curriculum