Curriculum

St. Joseph Regional Campus M.D. Curriculum

With a stronger focus on rural medicine, there are key differences between St. Joseph curriculum and that of the Kansas City campus.

Years 1-2

Students admitted to the regional campus in St. Joseph, MO, participate in the same pre-clinical curriculum in years 1 and 2 as students at the Kansas City campus.

The docent experience for first-semester students is led by physician faculty members at Mosaic Medical Center and follows the same Fundamentals of Medicine IV objectives.

  • Lectures: During years 1 and 2, students participate remotely in lectures delivered primarily at the Kansas City campus.
  • Hands-on curricular activities: Anatomy labs, cadaver lab, histology lab, team-based learning, problem-based learning, clinical skills, workshops and other hands-on curricular activities are delivered in-person at the regional campus.
  • Continuity care clinic: Students are assigned to a docent and participate in a weekly continuity clinic through the Rural Continuing Care Clinic Clerkship. This lasts the entirety of Year 1 and 2. This is very similar to the docent model at the Kansas City campus but allows for more one on one relationship building. The majority of the docents are located in St. Joseph, Missouri, but some students will have the opportunity to travel to nearby communities for this clerkship.
  • Clinical clerkships: Regional campus students also start clinical clerkships in Year 3, including inpatient internal medicine (Rural Medicine -1) and Family Medicine. The students at the St. Joseph campus join the Kansas City campus for the Family Medicine clerkship to have an experience learning alongside the UMKC Family Medicine residents and core faculty.

Year 3-4 

Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship 

In Year 3, students at the regional campus participate in a unique parallel curriculum that includes a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) that allows students to learn the core clinical clerkship objectives in a rural healthcare setting.

Students spend three blocks at one of our five rural clinical partners where they care for a community of patients in areas, including:

  • Primary care
  • Emergency care
  • Surgery
  • Women’s health
  • Behavioral medicine

Students experience the full spectrum of care for patients in a rural healthcare setting. Similar to our docent model, students are paired with a core group of primary care physicians who serve as teachers and mentors. During this rotation, students are provided housing in the rural community.

Focused clerkships

In addition to the LIC, students complete focused clerkships at our regional campus clinical affiliates in diverse areas, including:

  • General Surgery
  • Internal Medicine
  • Pediatrics
  • Psychiatry
  • Obstetrics and Gynecology

Students at the regional campus do not participate in the continuing care clinic clerkship in Year 3 or 4 because of the longitudinal experiences and mentoring during the LIC and focus of the specialty rotations.

Clinical rotations and additional learning

In Year 4, regional campus students complete clinical rotations in Emergency Medicine at Mosaic Life Care. The remainder of their time is spent on electives and a longitudinal asynchronous course in rural humanities.