The curriculum produces physicians whose strong foundation in basic, clinical, and health systems sciences prepare them to work collaboratively with other health professionals to promote health and reduce suffering for the patients and populations throughout Nebraska and the surrounding region.
The curriculum enhances the acquisition of enduring knowledge and skills while integrating the emerging knowledge and abilities critical to becoming a 21st Century physician. The curriculum outcome is a physician who is well prepared to excel in residency training, professional practice, and as a productive citizen of Nebraska. These foundational principles guide the work of the curriculum oversight committees:
Improving Health by Focusing on Patients and Learners
- Integrated Learning Experiences: Students acquire, practice, and continuously apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills via varied learning modalities, such as lecture, small group interactions, simulation, virtual reality, and patient encounters to achieve collaborative, critical thinking expertise.
- Facilitate Clinical Reasoning: Students become masters at clinical reasoning through a curricular structure incorporating ongoing inquiry with self-driven learning.
- Enhance and Improve Patient Care: Faculty, residents, fellows, and staff create and continuously improve learning environments and activities that elevate patient care and support students’ development as physicians.
- Interprofessional Learning: Students value, practice, and demonstrate effective interprofessional collaborative practice to meet the modern medical environment’s demands.
- Professional Growth and Development: Students assume the identity of the 21st Century physician, continuously developing and applying unique skills, contributions and leadership while being supported by dedicated advisors and mentors.
Improving Health by Focusing on Systems, Instructional Strategies, and Development
- Engagement with Health Care Delivery Systems: Students are prepared to add value to and learn from healthcare systems while enhancing faculty and staff experiences during educational workplace interactions.
- Outcomes and Demonstrated Competence: Students have opportunities to pursue individualized and specialized tracks of study through the admissions process (MD/PhD) and following the start of training (e.g., Career Launch Tracks).
- Reliance on Technology and Sound Pedagogical Principles: Students and faculty employ emerging technology to complement instruction, learning, and assessment of performance using educational research methods to select, implement and study instructional and assessment strategies.
Guiding Principles of the Curriculum Process
The curriculum incorporates the following to accomplish the vision and goals outlined above:
- Incorporation of Health Systems Sciences: Incorporates purposeful learning experiences with appropriate assessments in new and emerging competencies (e.g., quality improvement, population health, patient safety, health systems, etc.) required of 21st Century physicians.
- Integration throughout Curriculum: Facilitate student learning and apply basic science in the clinical environment, basic sciences, and clinical skills taught longitudinally, interweaving essential information throughout the four-year curriculum.
- Enhanced Final Year: An enhanced structure to the final year provides a more robust learning experience, facilitating a seamless transition to residency in a chosen field.