Undergraduate Medical Education
The Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine provides two courses in the second year of medical school: General Pathology and Immunology (6 credit hours) and Systemic Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (9 credit hours). General Pathology is taught from late August through mid-October and includes 4 examinations. Systemic Pathology runs from mid-October through February with the NBME Pathology Shelf examination administered in February. There are 5 other examinations in Systemic Pathology.
General Pathology provides students with a fundamental basis for understanding human disease. The topics span cell stress and injury, adaptation, necrosis, apoptosis, inflammation and repair to carcinogenesis, microbiologic pathology and forensic pathology. Systemic Pathology focuses on organ-based disease combining the disciplines of anatomic and clinical pathology.
A wide variety of teaching modalities are used including lectures, case-based labs, patient presentations, case-based discussions, Robbin's interactive cases, autopsy rotations, clinical rotations with on-service pathology faculty and the clinical presentations by students to their peers. Educational activities focus on problem solving as do the examinations. About 2/3 of the activities are lecture and about 1/3 of the activities are laboratory and small group sessions.
Approximately 50 faculty participate in the course including faculty from Pathology, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics. In the past decade (2001, 2005, 2006 and 2010), Pathology has won several basic science Golden Apple awards. As well, several faculty have been recognized for their excellence in teaching including Anthony Yachnis, MD, William Clapp, MD and Neil S. Harris MD. Residents play a significant role in supervising the labs and small group activities making major contributions to the education of our medical students.