Vision Statement………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Mission Statement……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Educational Program Values…………………………………………………………………………………. 1
Principles of the UFCOM Medical Education Program……………………………………………… 2
Medical Student Code of Ethics……………………………………………………………………………… 4
Competency-based Curriculum……………………………………………………………………………… 5
Graduation Learning Outcomes: Institutional Learning Objectives…………………………… 5
Professionalism…………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
Interpersonal and Communication Skills……………………………………………………… 6
Patient Care………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
Medical Knowledge…………………………………………………………………………………… 6
Practice-based Learning and Improvement………………………………………………….. 7
Systems-based Practice……………………………………………………………………………… 7
Curriculum Organization……………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Timeline Schematic………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
Required Courses and Clerkships…………………………………………………………………………. 11
The University of Florida College of Medicine medical education program will be a model for the development of physicians, scientists, and scholars of the highest quality to improve the health of the people of Florida, the nation and the world.
Our goal is to educate future physicians, scientists, and scholars to provide the highest quality patient care and service to society. We will develop innovative and compassionate leaders in clinical care, research, education, and healthcare policy reflecting the people of the state of Florida. Our educational programs will promote an environment where all patients and members of the community are treated with respect and dignity. Our graduates will champion the highest professional standards, continue to learn in a reflective and self-directed manner, and serve the needs of their patients within the local and wider community.
The UFCOM strives to create a patient centered community of learners from a variety of lived experiences who learn from each other and embrace growth throughout their medical education. We value: Excellence, Trust, Accountability, Innovation, Teamwork, Community, Integrity, Compassion, Humanism and Empathy in our educational program and care of all patients.
Principles of the UFCOM Medical Education Program
What do UF-COM graduates look like?
UFCOM graduates are prepared to become leaders and scholars who are committed to clinical excellence and humanistic patient-centered care and who adhere to the highest professional standards.
Principle 1: General professional education is the foundation of the curriculum.
- The core curriculum focuses on development of the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors essential to the practice of medicine and prepares graduates to pursue careers in any of the medical disciplines.
Principle 2: Learning and professional development are most effective in a humane environment – one that fosters respect, personal integrity, service orientation and personal well-being among all members of the community.
Principle 3:The curriculum fosters development of leadership skills, the highest standards of professionalism and a humanistic approach to patient care.
Principle 4: The curriculum is focused on the care and wellness of the patient.
- The curriculum emphasizes a patient-centered approach to care.
Principle 5: Effective healthcare delivery is provided in the context of the family, community and healthcare systems.
– The influence of culture, social context and economic status on an individual’s health is integrated throughout the curriculum.
Principle 6: The educational program and assessments are based on defined learning outcomes within core competency domains.
- Students will be accountable for their learning.
- Outcomes-based assessments ensure achievement of educational goals and learning outcomes.
- Formative and summative assessments including self-reflection combined with self-assessment are essential components of the curriculum.
- Competency domains:
– Professionalism
– Interpersonal and Communication Skills
– Patient care
– Medical knowledge
– Practice-based Learning and Improvement
– Systems-based Practice
Principle 7: The curriculum is based on adult learning principles and development of lifelong learning habits.
Principle 8: The curriculum utilizes an integrative approach to learning of the sciences essential for providing high quality healthcare.
- Biomedical, clinical and psychosocial sciences will be integrated with clinical skills, clinical experiences and professionalism throughout the curriculum.
- Core material is taught within a clinical and public health context.
Principle 9: The curriculum is responsive to emerging and dynamic needs of society including local and global health disparities.
Principle 10: The curriculum emphasizes acquisition of new knowledge, discovery and scholarship.
Principle 11: The curriculum emphasizes evidence-based practice.
- In curriculum development
- In patient care
Principle 12: The curriculum emphasizes a collaborative and inter-professional team approach to healthcare delivery with a commitment to quality and patient safety.
Principle 13: The curriculum incorporates flexibility.
- To accommodate differences in students’ learning needs.
- To promote development of professional and scholarly interests.
Principle 14: Faculty, pedagogical methods and learning environments are selected to maximize learning.
- Faculty development is an essential component of effective teaching.
– Effective mentorship is essential for students’ personal and professional development.
MEDICAL STUDENT CODE OF ETHICS1
As we learn and subsequently practice the art and science of medicine, we pledge to:
- Do no harm to our patients.
- Put the welfare of our patients above our own self-interest and any consideration of financial gain.
- Be respectful of the wishes of our patients consistent with our obligation to do good.
- Maintain the highest standard of honesty and integrity.
- Treat all people with respect, dignity, impartiality, empathy and compassion.
- Foster a just and supportive community.
- Strive to eliminate social barriers to health, health disparities and inequality within our profession.
- Acknowledge and minimize our implicit and explicit biases as we relate to others.
- Be just and impartial in allocation of scarce health care resources but always advocate first for the rights of our patients.
- Be consistently attentive to the need to protect the privacy of our patients and to maintain their personal health information in the strictest confidence.
- Share our knowledge freely with patients and colleagues.
- Maintain balance between our personal and professional lives and nurture our spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being to better care for our patients and loved ones.
- Maintain a commitment to life-long learning.
- Be fiscally aware and responsible.
- Conduct ourselves with grace and humility.
- Act always in a way that brings honor to ourselves and our profession.
1This Medical Student Code of Ethics (“Code”) is an aspirational pledge. Students are not required to pledge or recite the Code for participation in the University’s College of Medicine Program.
Competency-based Curriculum
The University of Florida College of Medicine’s curriculum is competency-based. Prior to graduation, a student must demonstrate competence in six areas of training to satisfy all education requirements. Students receive formative assessments and summative evaluations in courses and clerkships by level of mastery in the assigned competencies. Competency is the currency of the education program. The College of Medicine’s primary goal is to graduate practicing physicians who can be responsible for the health and well-being of their patients. This responsibility carries with it special requirements regarding the character, abilities, and knowledge of our graduates.
Graduation Learning Outcomes: Institutional Learning Objectives
Graduates must adhere to ethical standards, maintain professional relationships, and strive for excellence in all endeavors (personal and professional) which focus on professional identity formation, i.e., the development of professional values, actions, and aspirations
Graduates will be able to:
- Discuss and apply ethical standards of practice
- Demonstrate humanistic and patient-centered care including respect, cultural sensitivity, empathy, and compassion in their role as the patient’s advocate
- Demonstrate strength of character and integrity including honesty, altruism, accountability, humility, and moral courage
- Employ measures to balance clinical responsibilities with personal societal responsibilities
- Strive for excellence in all professional endeavors
- Consistently demonstrate the attitudes, values, and behaviors expected of one who thinks, acts, and will be a physician
Interpersonal and Communication Skills
Graduates must be able to communicate effectively, respectfully, in a culturally sensitive manner with patients, their families, and with other members of the healthcare team
Graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of how cultural issues impact response to illness and interactions with the healthcare system
- Apply doctor-patient communication strategies appropriate for clinical situations
- Recognize how personal beliefs and biases impact communication
- Present patient information clearly and effectively to all members of an inter-professional healthcare team
- Use communication technology effectively
- Disclose a medical error
- Deliver bad news compassionately
Graduates must have essential skills needed for patient care
Graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate the ability to perform an appropriate focused and comprehensive medical history and physical exam
- Critically evaluate clinical findings and initial diagnostic test results to develop appropriate management plans with consideration of patient preferences, ethical principles, and cost effectiveness
- Synthesize new information to refine and reprioritize differential diagnoses, adhering to clinical reasoning best practices
- Perform common procedures safely
Graduates must be able to acquire and apply medical knowledge, using scientific reasoning in patient care
Graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the scientific basis for health and disease including foundational and emerging sciences
- Apply and integrate established and evolving biomedical knowledge and concepts with principles of clinical science to provide optimal clinical care
Practice-based Learning and Improvement
Graduates must be able to assimilate evidence from resources available while endeavoring to reflect on self-improvement
Graduates will be able to:
- Identify clinical questions, search evidence-based databases, critically appraise scientific literature, and apply to patient care keeping with the patients’ values and preferences
- Apply principles of deliberate practice to self-improvement and professional practice
- Apply artificial intelligence (AI) tools and techniques responsibly to support patient care, ensuring integration with clinical judgment, evidence-based practice, and patient-centered decision-making.
Graduates will understand the larger context of the healthcare structure, resources, and system improvement measures
Graduates will be able to:
- Identify and describe components of healthcare systems
- Describe how social determinants of health influence patient health and health disparities
- Examine bias in healthcare delivery
- Demonstrate a patient-centered approach to diagnosis and treatment that promotes the delivery of safe, high value, and high quality patient care
- Develop strategies for building health literacy capacity in patients and health systems
- Participate in and, where appropriate, lead teams including other healthcare professionals to deliver comprehensive healthcare that includes facilitating continuity and coordination of ongoing care needs
- Identify patient safety and quality improvement initiatives within healthcare systems
- Compare and contrast healthcare policies, financing, and delivery systems, both as they affect populations as well as to assist patients in navigating these systems
- Describe physicians’ roles in promoting population health
Curriculum Organization
The curriculum is separated into three phases with longitudinal Collaborative Learning Groups (CLGs) that span across all three phases (4 years). CLG leaders meet weekly for faculty development, curriculum integration, and coaching/mentoring of students. CLG leaders do not assign grades.
Phase 1: Foundations of Medical Practice
August through April: 68 weeks over 2 years/99 credits
- 2 week winter break and 1 week spring break (total 6 weeks)
- 10 week break (MSRP/vacation)
- 6 weeks USMLE Step 1/vacation
The Phase 1 curriculum is designed to allow students the flexibility to participate in optional research opportunities through the Discovery Pathways Program and the MSRP. Additional information regarding the programs and tracks can be found https://discovery.education.med.ufl.edu/.
Phase 2: Principles of Medical Practice
May through April: 52 weeks/48 required credits and 2 elective credits
Core Clerkships: Longitudinal Continuity Clinic, Family Medicine, Medicine, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Surgery
- 2 week winter break
- Additional 2 week elective or vacation
Phase 3: Advanced Medical Practice
May through April: 51 weeks/35 credits
Required Courses: Anesthesiology-Operative and Perioperative/Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, Advanced Clinical Practice Selective, Transition to Residency
Electives or Advanced Clerkships/Experiences
- 8 weeks USMLE Step 2/vacation
- Graduation in May
Health Systems Science (HSS) and important topics (aka, threads) have been woven throughout all three phases of the curriculum. HSS addresses content in 4 domains.
- Working together effectively
- Using information effectively
- Understanding our communities
- Improving patient care
The threads include the following topics:
- Ethics
- Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine
- Geriatrics
- Palliative Care
- Research
Foundations of Medical Practice: Phase 1
(Integrated organ-system module courses)
Year 1
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine 1A: 7 credits
- Health System Science 1A: 1 credit
- Genetics and Health: 4 credits
- Foundations of Medicine: 6 credits
- Nutrition Intensive: 1 credit
- Introduction to Clinical Practice 1A: 3 credits
- Health System Science 1B: 3 credits
- Discovery, Research, and Health: 1 credit
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine 1B: 7 credits
- Medical Microbiology and Planetary Health: 4 credits
- Introduction to Cancer Biology and Clinical Oncology: 2 credits
- Respiratory Systems: 5 credits
- Cardiovascular Systems: 5 credits
- Introduction to Clinical Practice 1B: 3 credits
- The Kidney and Urinary Tract: 4 credits
Year 2
- Dermatology and Musculoskeletal System: 4 credits
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine 2A: 7credits
- Health System Science 2A: 1 credit
- Clinical Neuroscience: 7 credits
- Introduction to Clinical Practice 2: 3 credits
- Pain and Addiction Intensive: 1 credit
- Gastroenterology and Hepatology: 5 credits
- Introduction to Clinical Medicine 2B: 7 credits
- Health System Science 2B: 1 credit
- Endocrinology and Reproduction: 4 credits
- Hematology: 4 credits
- USMLE Step 1:1 credit
Principles of Medical Practice: Phase 2 (Clerkships)
- Family Medicine: 6 weeks/credits
- Continuity Clerkship: minimum 20 half-days over the academic year/2 credits
- Medicine: 8 weeks/credits
- Neurology: 4 weeks/credits
- Obstetrics and Gynecology: 6 weeks/ credits
- Pediatrics: 8 weeks/credits
- Psychiatry: 6 weeks/credits
- Surgery: 8 weeks/credits
Advanced Medical Practice: Phase 3 (Clerkships and Electives)
- Anesthesiology-Operative and Perioperative/Critical Care: 4 weeks/credits
- Emergency Medicine: 4 weeks/credits
- Geriatrics and Palliative Care Thread Capstone Rotation: 2 weeks/4 credits
- Adv. Selective: 4 weeks/credits
(select one)
- Cardiovascular Surgery
- Community Health and Family Medicine
- Medicine
- Neurosurgery
- Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Orthopaedic Surgery
- Otolaryngology
- Pediatrics
- Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
- Surgery
- Urology
- Transition to Residency: 3 weeks/credits
- Residency Preparation
- Elective credits: 16 weeks/2-4 credits each
- USMLE Step 2 CK