New D.V.M. Curriculum
With the class of 2028, Cummings School is introducing an exciting new D.V.M. curriculum. This curriculum builds upon the strengths of the Legacy curriculum, and similarly draws upon the knowledge and experience of our outstanding faculty and teaching staff, and takes full advantage of the excellent teaching hospitals and clinics operated by the school. The new curriculum emphasizes horizontal and vertical integration that better link foundational biomedical science understanding to clinical medicine. Students will learn the foundations of comparative medicine that underpin successful veterinary practice and understand how to apply the principles to clinical cases. The program will continue to take a multispecies approach, without formal tracking, and will provide elective and extracurricular opportunities so students can pursue areas of personal interests or learn about areas that they are not familiar with. The new curriculum is broad and deep, designed to challenge students to develop clinical reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The goal is to focus on ensuring that students learn and develop the competencies necessary to pursue the range of careers available through education in veterinary medicine and veterinary sciences.
The new curriculum emphasizes a participatory, in-person approach in which active engagement by every student enhances the learning of all students. The number of didactic lectures is decreased, but students are expected to attend lecture to profit from in-class interactions. There is increased emphasis on active and hands-on learning in all components of the curriculum. Each year of the program uses a different approach so that students with different learning styles are supported in the program. These approaches include discipline-based foundational veterinary science courses in Year 1, body system disease courses in Year 2, clinical presentations courses in Year 3, and clinical rotations for the last fifteen months of the program.
Courses that create a thread (think of it as a major learning theme or roadmap for students to follow) across multiple years of the program will ensure the integration and building of knowledge and context as students progress through the program. Emphasis is placed on building competence, confidence, clinical skills, communication, and contextual learning, all in a supportive community. Think of these as the 6 “C’s” of the program and a major goal of the threads.
Threads Running Through the Program
- Foundations of Health and Disease:
- Clinical Relevance
- Clinical Skills and Communication
- Diversity and Professional Perspectives
- Veterinary Medicine, Animals, and Society
- Research relevance
For example, the Clinical Relevance thread introduces clinical cases and clinical reasoning from week one. Students will work in small group teams to apply the knowledge learned in the Foundations of Health and Disease courses to clinical cases so that they understand the clinical context and relevance of the material being learned. The Clinical Skills and Communication thread is where students will learn technical and communication skills in a clinical reasoning context to prepare them to diagnose and treat diseases or conditions and will be aligned with learning about the diseases or systems in the other courses.
Other Highlights
- Emphasis on development of contextual knowledge and clinical reasoning skills.
- Focus on student, staff, and faculty wellbeing for class and semester scheduling.
- Prioritization of collaboration and team-based learning so that students can succeed in the team-based health care environment required in veterinary medicine.
- Refining communication skills.
- Access to summer research opportunities.
- One Health perspective.
- Clinical year rotations in primary care in all clinical fields and advanced rotations in diverse veterinary specialties.
- Exploration of spectrum of care concepts.
- Opportunities for community outreach.
- International travel experiences.
First Year
1st year Foundations of Health and Disease courses focus on how the body functions in health. The anatomy of both small and large animals is explored through a year-long course. OSSF, standing for organ system structure and function, is also a year-long course, focusing on normal physiology and histology. Shorter courses in biochemistry, concentrating on clinical relevance, and nutrition complete the grounding in normal function. Students also begin to explore the causes of and the body’s response to disease by studying immunology, parasitology, microbiology, and general pathology. The Threads weave the content from these courses together to reinforce and contextualize learning.
At the end of the spring semester, after final exams, students have Elective Week. While all students must participate, the variety of short electives offered allows students to explore areas of veterinary medicine that are new to them or in which they wish to gain deeper understanding.
2nd Year
Throughout 2nd year, the Threads continue to connect the foundational knowledge from first year to the body system disease courses as well as clinical skills, communications, and reasoning, as well as an understanding of veterinary medicine in our larger society. Body system disease courses stretch from foundational understanding of pathophysiology – the way in which body systems respond to insult – to basic understanding of diagnosis and treatment of common and important diseases. Students also start to learn about the fundamentals of diagnosis and treatment with courses in diagnostic imaging, clinical pathology, pharmacology, and toxicology. Students prepare for competency in surgery through principles of surgery and anesthesia. Spring Elective week is repeated after finals.
3rd Year
In third year, students are rapidly advancing towards becoming clinicians. The focus of third year is on preparing for practice through Clinical Presentation courses for each of the major domestic species as well as zoological medicine species. Rather than starting with the disease, students are presented with, for instance, the vomiting dog, or the coughing horse. The investigation then branches out – what other signs does the patient have? What differential diagnoses should be considered? What is the logical next step in diagnosis, and what treatment should be pursued? Throughout the first and second semester, students have their first ‘real’ experience in hands-on anesthesia and surgery through a week-long Spay Lab experience for dogs owned by low-income clients. During the spring semester of third year, students take a variety of advanced electives to extend their knowledge in their areas of interest, and finally, during the final week of the short 3rd year spring semester, students have an intensive Dental Week.
Clinical Experience
The clinical training period on rotations begins in the middle of March of 3rd year, and currently, is the same as our Legacy Curriculum.