The Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum (LIC) is structured such that there is a cohort of 10-12 students overseen by a physician. As the name suggests, students will attend multiple clinical rotations concurrently for a longer period of time. For example, on Monday mornings they might have surgery and in the afternoon psychology and on Tuesdays dermatology. The promise being that students will integrate knowledge better if exposed long-term. This is modeled after similar curriculums present at Duke, Cumming (Calgary), and Vanderbilt.
Dr. Sarah Faubel is overseeing and designing our MSTP-specific LIC. The LIC is meant to bridge the gap between our scientific training and medicine by engaging our hypothesis-driven thought processes with clinical diagnoses. We will receive didactic lectures on how lab tests (such as the CBC) are run and how to interpret data from multiple tests (dealing with outliers and so forth). We believe the LIC will provide more comprehensive training pertinent for MSTPs, making the curriculum a significant improvement.
We feel the only disadvantage is it is a newer curriculum, but LICs are currently being run at Denver Health Hospital as well as the university-affiliated Colorado Springs hospitals. By the time that the class of 2020 students enter the LIC after completing their PhD training, any issues in the first few years should be resolved.
