University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

About this report… Through ongoing monitoring of the curriculum and its outcomes, the School of Medicine promotes a process of continuous quality improvement in order to ensure an optimal educational experience for our students. This report is one part of that monitoring process. It is intended to provide a summary description of the curriculum and of student characteristics, performance, and perspectives during one academic year. By comparing this report with previous and subsequent annual reports, changes in the curriculum and its outcomes can be traced over time, and areas needing adjustment of content or process can be noted. In addition, we hope these descriptive data will serve as a catalyst for further analysis. Preamble It is the mission of the School of Medicine to train competent and caring physicians for the state of North Carolina. The school also understands that the process of becoming a physician is a lifelong pursuit forged through experience and continued education. Therefore, the training of a medical student does not end after 4 years of formal education. As a corollary, the curriculum cannot expect to incorporate all of those skills that a competent practicing physician acquires during a lifetime of practice and learning. The purpose of the medical school curriculum should be to educate students in the biology, evaluation, and management of those under their care as a foundation on which to build the social, communal, and political understandings that make a complete physician. Our curriculum must also provide the student with an understanding of informatics and the motivation for ceaseless self-development, so that our future physicians can enrich this basic knowledge throughout their careers and provide service to our patients and to society. The following core competencies are adapted from AAMC MSOP and ACGME/ABMS competencies: I. Medical Knowledge. Students must demonstrate knowledge about established and evolving biomedical, clinical, and cognate (e.g., epidemiological and social-behavioral) sciences and the application of this knowledge in patient care, specifically: 1. demonstrate knowledge of the normal structure and function of the body (as an intact organism) and of each of its major organ systems, across the life span 2. demonstrate knowledge of the molecular, biochemical, and cellular mechanisms that are important in maintaining the body's homeostasis 3. demonstrate knowledge of the various causes (genetic, developmental, metabolic, toxic, microbiologic, autoimmune, neoplastic, degenerative, and traumatic) of maladies and the ways in which they operate on the body (pathogenesis) 4. demonstrate knowledge …