Scholarly Concentrations

The Scholarly Concentration (SC) program is a faculty-mentored, scholarly experience for medical students. This required component of the M.D. curriculum provides the infrastructure and mentoring necessary for students to produce a scholarly project in an area of individual interest and encourages the acquisition of attitudes and skills for self-directed, lifelong learning and scholarship.

The Scholarly Concentration program offers the following five areas of study:

  • Basic Science
  • Clinical Research
  • History of Medicine
  • HEART (Humanism, Ethics, Education, and the Arts of Medicine)
  • Public Health Research

Course Goals

The overall goals of the SC program are to promote intellectual curiosity, appreciation of scholarly inquiry, flexibility, passion for discovery, openness to new ideas and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively. By the end of this course, the students will:

  • Demonstrate the intellectual curiosity to pursue the acquisition of new knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to the field of medicine.
  • Apply rigorous principles and a multidisciplinary body of scientific knowledge to create a scholarly objective or hypothesis and plan to address the objective/hypothesis.
  • Present one’s own scholarship and ideas in an organized and clear manner to educate or inform colleagues and the medical community.
  • Demonstrate a critical self-appraisal in their knowledge and practice of scholarly inquiry, as well as receive and give constructive appraisal of scholarship to/from colleagues and other healthcare professionals.
  • Adhere to the highest ethical standards of judgment and conduct of scholarship.

Course Director

Director of Medical Student Research and Scholarship

Contact

Delena Dodd
Academic Program Administrator
Email: [email protected]

Time Commitment and Course Length

The course comprises six modules that meet three afternoons a week during the TIME courses. Students choose an area of concentration by December of Year One. There are seven core assignments beginning with the project proposal and ending with the final project presentation in March of Year Two. Most students devote the summer after Year One to the scholarly project.

Typical schedule of Scholarly Concentrations in Year One: