Students must successfully complete Phase II Curriculum before proceeding to Phase III.
Faculty members and students interested in common career activities are grouped into academic colleges based on differing approaches to clinical reasoning and diagnostic approaches. Medical students select one of five colleges during the latter part of their third year based on career interest or enrollment in special programs. The colleges are designed to:
College activities include an introductory course focused on advanced clinical skills and decision making, a monthly series of evening seminars, a longitudinal academic activity that can be either teaching or scholarship, and regular advisory meetings.
The mission of the Acute Care College is to provide mentorship, foster time-based decision making, broaden clinical correlation of Physiology, Anatomy and Pharmacology to Acute Care, and probe ethical and psychosocial aspects of crisis management.
The curriculum consists of the week-long Foundations Course at the beginning of the senior year and a series of monthly meetings that address:
Typical careers represented by the Acute Care College are Anesthesiology; Emergency Medicine; Adult Critical Care (Cardiology, Pulmonary Medicine and Hospitalist); and Pediatric Critical Care (Cardiology and Neonatology).
Co-Chairs: Ed Ha, MD and Tomer Begaz, MDVice Chairs: Jaime Jordan, MD, Alexandra Milin, MD and Jennifer Nguyen-Lee, MDCoordinator: Jenny Yoo
The mission of the Applied Anatomy College is to develop the knowledge and skills to support a career choice in those specialties in which expertise in anatomy is critical. The typical careers in the College of Applied Anatomy are Surgery and the Surgical Subspecialties (i.e. General, Gynecology, Head & Neck, Neurosurgery, Oncology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Plastics, Thoracic, Urology and Vascular); Radiology, Radiation Oncology, and Pathology. The unifying theme is anatomical implications in medical practice. The faculty and students of the College of Applied Anatomy are committed to the development of knowledge and skills that will support the choice of a career in those specialties in which expertise in anatomy is critical to competency. Through organized activities, including personal advising and counseling, the college will create a meaningful adjunctive program for the medical school for its fourth-year students.
Co-Chairs: Dennis Kim, MD and Christian de Virgilio, MD Vice Chairs: Formosa Chen, MD and Aparna Sridhar, MD Coordinator: Jenny Yoo
The mission of the Academic Medicine College is to develop an individualized educational pathway for those students who are considering a career in subspecialty Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, or Pathology; or for students who have remained actively engaged in research, enjoyed their STTP summer research project but have not had a chance to continue, or who are considering some type of academic career involving research and teaching. Members of this college include all specialties, including surgical specialties, with a focus on academics.
Chair: Gerald Lipshutz, MD Vice Chair: Deena Goldwater, MD Coordinator: Jenny Yoo
Primary care is the provision of integrated, accessible health care services by clinicians who are accountable for addressing a large majority of personal health care needs, developing a sustained partnership with patients, and practicing in the context of family and community. The Primary Care College’s mission is to train students to continue to attain the knowledge, skills and attitudes to become excellent generalists who are committed to upholding the highest ethical and professional standards of medicine including an emphasis on patient centered care; wellness and preventive care; the provision of timely and high quality medical care; delivering cost-effective health care; promoting health education; delivery of innovative healthcare; and striving for high levels of patient satisfaction. Members of the Primary Care College include, but are not limited to, those with interests in General Internal Medicine, General Pediatrics, Family Medicine, Obstetrics/Gynecology, and Psychiatry. As a part of the College, the faculty provide intensive mentoring for students applying for their residency positions, opportunities in community and service-learning activities, exposure to public health and public policy, and mentoring on research and other scholarly projects during the fourth year in preparation for Senior Scholarship Day.
Chair: Allison Diamant, MD Vice Chairs: Rebecca Dudovitz, MD, Gifty Ntim, MD and Daniel T. Lee, MD Coordinator: Jenny Yoo
Students enrolled in the Drew/UCLA Medical Education Program have selected the Urban/Underserved College at the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science for their fourth year. The Urban/Underserved College is committed to providing excellent didactic and practical training, and career counseling for individuals interested in serving urban, underserved populations. Students enrolled in the College also complete a longitudinal research thesis project. While the overall theme of the thesis project is to eliminate health care disparities, students have wide latitude to choose research projects and mentors across a spectrum of specialties with application to underserved communities. The fourth-year medical students present their research thesis results at the Annual Medical Student Research Colloquium. The Chair of the Urban/Underserved College is charged with planning scholarly and mentorship activities and career counseling. College activities include clinical skills workshops, mentorship support program, dinner seminars, and community service.
Chair: Cesar Barba, MD Coordinator: Chaz Medlock
College Evening Seminars
The colleges will be holding a series of evening seminars addressing multiple topics throughout the course of the senior year. They will focus on a number of subjects, ranging from preparation for the residency application process, to the development of advanced clinical skills to the discussion of issues related, to career development and health policy, to name just a few. All senior students must attend 6 total evening seminars throughout the course of the year. This is a graduation requirement and students will be asked to document the evening seminars that they attended.
Individual College Requirements
In addition to the aforementioned requirements, each college has specific requirements as well. These are covered during the Intro to Colleges mandatory class meeting in the third-year and are available here.
Senior Scholarship
All senior students are required to submit an abstract and present a poster based on individual scholarly work for Senior Scholarship Day. This may be on-going work that the student has done or a new project. In addition to traditional clinical and basic science research, scholarly work can include quality improvement or medical education projects, case reports, or other scholarly work done with a faculty mentor. Any questions regarding selection of an appropriate scholarly project can be reviewed with the College Chairs. The College Chairs will also work with those students who want to develop a new project for the year and will provide guidance on preparing for presentation on Senior Scholarship Day.
As a required foundations course, all senior students must successfully complete this one-week course in order to graduate and to enroll in 300- and 400-level coursework. This course is the first week of the MS4 curriculum and focuses on the development and reinforcement of core clinical skills that will be used in sub-internship rotations. The attendance policy for this course can be found here.
30 (or more) weeks of elective clerkships of which:
For information on elective level designations, please click here.
For the 4th year Elective Proposal Application, please click here. New elective approvals will be sent to the appropriate Director of 4th Year Medical Education for review and approval and then is shared with the Medical Education Committee (MEC) for final approval annually in June.
DGSOM's capstone foundation course. This week-long course is designed to assess proficiency in key skills and activities that will be vital to functioning as a resident physician from the first day of internship. All students must complete this course in order to graduate. The attendance policy for this course can be found here.
