Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Required Courses

• MED MD 121: Doctoring 1
  Doctoring 1 is a year-long course in the first year where students learn foundational doctoring skills. The primary purpose of Doctoring 1 is to advance students’ skills in the ten doctoring domains (see below).   Through the multiple components of the course, students will learn and practice medical interviewing, physical examination skills and clinical reasoning.  They will explore relational competence in both direct patient care and in the small group role plays.  Students will learn how to gather data during a medical encounter, including a structured approach to chronological history taking for the history of present illness and details of the additional components (ex. past medical history, past surgical history, family history, social history, allergies, medications, review of systems).  Students will learn and practice physical examination techniques in small groups and in clinical encounters.  These skills culminate in a systematic approach to the head-to-toe physical examination at the end of the second module.    As the course progresses and students enter their systems based PISCEs modules, students will build off their foundational physical exam skills to learn more advanced skills and physical diagnosis in the system they are learning about in their PISCEs course and this will continue into Doctoring 2. Students will develop the skills of communicating the components of the medical encounter in standard oral and written format. Additionally, oral presentation skills of research topics will be taught and evaluated in small groups. As the course progresses, clinical reasoning aka “how doctors think” will be utilized in evaluating symptom presentations. In all aspects of the course, health equity and disparities will be a lens students will use to reflect on their own backgrounds, on the lived experiences of their patients, and on their role as developing clinicians.
• MED MD 135: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 1
  PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam.
• MED MD 136: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 2
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam. "
• MED MD 137: Learn Experience Advocate, Discover and Serve 1
  "LEADS is a two-year course intended to provide our students with time in the formal curriculum to immerse themselves in learning, experience and discovery in health equity so that they can develop skills in designing scholarly innovations now and in their future careers. The LEADS health equity curriculum begins with an overview of health equity and the inequities in health that exist due to factors at the personal, social, political, and other structural levels. The course has students consider the role physicians have in recognizing and addressing adverse social determinants of health and the inequities and injustices that contribute to health disparities. The health equity areas of focus in this course include: LGBTQIA+ Health, Global and Refugee Health, Community Health, Homeless Health, Structural Determinants of Health, Racism in Medicine, and Addiction and Health. All areas of focus have a faculty lead(s) who are content experts and deliver core knowledge in the course and provide mentorship and work with students to develop individualized goals. The curriculum also engages students in experiential opportunities to advance their understanding of inequities and allow students to further witness the challenges marginalized patients face. Students are introduced to BMC faculty, staff, and community leaders who will share solutions and interventions that have led to improved health outcomes. Longitudinally students engage in regular journal clubs highlighting evidence-based interventions related to health equity and are taught scholarly methods to make change including research methods, educational methods, health systems science, community based and advocacy interventions. Finally, students learn ways to disseminate their ideas including through narratives, curricula and other formats. Students are responsible for designing a scholarly project focused on a potential intervention of change in their health equity focus area by the completion of the course. As part of this course, students can join a Longitudinal Research Track as part of the Medical Student Research Program and will be mentored in a 3- to 4-year experience designed for students who want to immerse themselves in research. Students in this track participate in additional required extracurricular hours with their research team outside of the LEADS curriculum. "
• MED MD 147: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 3
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam. "
• MED MD 148: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 4
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam. "
• MED MD 227: Doctoring 2
  Doctoring 2 is a year-long course in the second year in which students build off their experience in Doctoring 1 enhancing their skills in the 10 doctoring domains. The course is structured in case-based small groups with a faculty member that allow practice of advanced communication and physical examination skills, as well as clinical reasoning skills.  Some of the sessions will include actors or standardized patients to enhance the authenticity of the experiences. There will be a focus on hypothesis-driven data collection (i.e., asking history questions and performing physical examination maneuvers that increase or decrease the likelihood of the diseases on the differential diagnosis) and clinical reasoning. Students will refine and expand their case presentation and note-writing skills and be introduced to the electronic medical record. Cases will promote integration of foundational and social science topics and provide an opportunity for self-directed learning. Students will have a variety of additional simulation sessions and actor/standardized patient interviews to further their skills. They will continue their clinical placements with a longitudinal preceptor in the fall and will participate in hospital-based clinical encounters with 4th year medical student and faculty preceptors during the winter/spring to further advance their clinical skills in preparation for their clinical clerkships. Students will continue to work on their teamwork skills and competence in building a therapeutic alliance with patients and will reflect on topics surrounding professionalism, ethics, and professional identify formation. 
• MED MD 230: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 5
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam. "
• MED MD 231: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 6
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam. "
• MED MD 232: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 7A-Integration Weeks
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.   The PISCEs curriculum uses multiple instructional design strategies to support active learning, peer learning and team development. The last 10 weeks of the pre-clerkship curriculum, called the Advanced Integration Weeks, focuses on integrated cases based on the Core patient presentations organized by clinical areas and disciplines. Students will revisit prior foundational, clinical, and social science content in patient cases to help students consolidate and integrate the material. In these final ten weeks of the preclerkship phase, students are immersed each week in patient cases that begin with a patient presentation to a clinic or ER and then evolve over a week where students navigate patient signs, symptoms, labs and imaging to again connect foundational science to patient data they will see in clerkships.  These cases also have a goal of introducing students to patient cases that are representative of our patient population at Boston Medical Center, our primary teaching hospital.  All cases are based on real patient cases and integrate teaching about our unique populations highlighting knowledge and skills needed to address our curricular key themes and populations. Finally, students collaborate in small groups to solve clinical problems, simulating the “clinical team” in medical practice and review and prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam. "
• MED MD 234: Principles Integrating Science, Clinical Medicine and Equity 7B-Integration Weeks
  "PISCEs is a longitudinal integrated course that prepares students with the medical knowledge needed to care for patients. It integrates foundational science, pathophysiology and disease management. The course is broken into 3 foundational modules followed by eight systems-based (e.g., cardiovascular, neuro/psych) modules. Woven into each of these modules are longitudinal threads which include oncology, infectious disease, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology, as well as the school’s health equity curricular themes.  
• MED MD 237: Learn Experience Advocate, Discover and Serve 2
  LEADS is a two-year course intended to provide our students with time in the formal curriculum to immerse themselves in learning, experience and discovery in health equity so that they can develop skills in designing scholarly innovations now and in their future careers. The LEADS health equity curriculum begins with an overview of health equity and the inequities in health that exist due to factors at the personal, social, political, and other structural levels. The course has students consider the role physicians have in recognizing and addressing adverse social determinants of health and the inequities and injustices that contribute to health disparities. The health equity areas of focus in this course include: LGBTQIA+ Health, Global and Refugee Health, Community Health, Homeless Health, Structural Determinants of Health, Racism in Medicine, and Addiction and Health. All areas of focus have a faculty lead(s) who are content experts and deliver core knowledge in the course and provide mentorship and work with students to develop individualized goals. The curriculum also engages students in experiential opportunities to advance their understanding of inequities and allow students to further witness the challenges marginalized patients face. Students are introduced to BMC faculty, staff, and community leaders who will share solutions and interventions that have led to improved health outcomes. Longitudinally students engage in regular journal clubs highlighting evidence-based interventions related to health equity and are taught scholarly methods to make change including research methods, educational methods, health systems science, community based and advocacy interventions. Finally, students learn ways to disseminate their ideas including through narratives, curricula and other formats. Students are responsible for designing a scholarly project focused on a potential intervention of change in their health equity focus area by the completion of the course. As part of this course, students can join a Longitudinal Research Track as part of the Medical Student Research Program and will be mentored in a 3- to 4-year experience designed for students who want to immerse themselves in research. Students in this track participate in additional required extracurricular hours with their research team outside of the LEADS curriculum. "
• MED MD 240: Transitional Clerkship
  This course includes time for Step 1 preparation and study followed by a transitional clerkship in which students participate in experiences focused on understanding the learning environment of the clerkship year and the core skills needed throughout the clerkship phase. The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) is a national, three step examination for medical licensure in the U.S. Students must take Step 1 and Step 2 CK during their time in the MD Program. For more information on state-specific licensing requirements, please see the State Authorization website.
• MED MD 302: Medicine Clerkship
  The Medicine Clerkship is an 8-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will develop their ability to function as a caring, increasingly independent clinician while supervised on a multi-professional team. Students will learn clinical medicine while working side-by-side with teams of residents and/or faculty providing care to a cohort of inpatients. This direct patient care experience is complemented by a unique enrichment in which students also work in small groups with a clerkship director and hone essential clinical skills (including intermediate-level communications skills, physical diagnosis, and clinical reasoning). Students also attend conferences that focus on core topics. The clerkship is divided into two mini-blocks of 4 weeks each, and most students spend time at 1 or 2 of our clinical sites.
• MED MD 303: Neurology Clerkship
  The Neurology Clerkship is a 4-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will learn the basics of taking a neurological history and performing an examination with the goal of localizing the lesion in the nervous system as well as how to synthesize information from history and physical in order to produce a differential diagnosis and treatment plan. Students will encounter chronic disorders in the outpatient clinic and be involved in treatment of acute neurological disorders in the inpatient setting. Students will also learn the indications and contraindications for performing LPs and know the general approach for performing LPs.
• MED MD 304: Obstetrics and Gynecology Clerkship
  The Obstetrics & Gynecology Clerkship is a 6-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will receive instruction in the basic knowledge and skills specific to reproductive health maintenance and disorders of patients with female reproductive organs. Students will spend time on inpatient obstetrics, inpatient gynecology/surgery, and ambulatory Ob/Gyn at all sites. Students will have ambulatory experiences in both general and specialty clinicals throughout the rotation. This clerkship emphasizes the importance of quality obstetrics and gynecology in providing continuous comprehensive care for patients and prepares students for their future role as a physician.
• MED MD 305: Pediatrics Clerkship
  The Pediatrics Clerkship is a 6-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will develop their ability to care for patients from birth to age 22, increasing their competence to address the unique needs of young patients using developmentally appropriate, family-centered, and biopsychosocial frameworks. The clerkship will hone students’ clinical and communication skills, with an emphasis on relationship building with patients and their families. Students will learn to adapt both physical exam techniques and communication to age-appropriate and knowledge-appropriate levels.
• MED MD 306: Surgery Clerkship
  The Surgery Clerkship is an 8-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will learn basic knowledge and skills specific to the field of general surgery, including emergent and non-emergent intra-abdominal disease, traumatic injury, and surgically treated malignancies. Students will have the opportunity to learn about a selection of illnesses treated by surgical subspecialists including diseases of the head and neck, the genitourinary system, the vascular system, thorax, and the musculoskeletal system, as well as anesthesiology.
• MED MD 307: Psychiatry Clerkship
  The Psychiatry Clerkship is a 6-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will learn skills in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of patients with psychiatric disorders and associated behavioral health issues. Clinical and didactic experiences will focus on DSM-V diagnoses, psychopharmacology, basics of individual and group psychotherapies, and becoming an active member of a treatment team.
• MED MD 308: Family Medicine Clerkship
  The Family Medicine Clerkship is a 6-week clinical experience in the core clerkship year. In this clerkship, students will learn the knowledge, attitudes, and skills specific to Family Medicine and prepare for their future role as a physician in any specialty they pursue. The clerkship will demonstrate the importance of the family physician in providing continuous and comprehensive care to the patient and students will learn the importance of the doctor-patient relationship, interviewing skills, appropriate physical exam, and clinical problem-solving in caring for patients.