Within each module, the teaching is shared by a number of clinical departments, including Medicine, Pathology, Radiology, Dermatology, Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Surgery, and Cardiothoracic Surgery, as well as Pharmacology and Microbiology. The course content includes material contained within traditional Pathophysiology and Pathology courses, and required and recommended texts have been selected from just such sources. The course organization has been designed specifically to enable examination of problems that cut across traditional disciplines, and thus more closely approximate clinical problem solving. Discipline content is integrated within each module. A series of cases have been selected to provide the basis for an orderly development of knowledge in basic and clinical aspects of the course material.
Students work together to solve the case and discuss the important aspects.
Emphasis is on application of pathophysiological reasoning to help understand clinical presentation and aid in differentiating diagnostic possibilities. There is little emphasis on treatment selection. Lectures have been chosen to supplement or introduce important basic concepts in both the basic science and clinical areas. Lecturers have been selected for their skill in this form of teaching as well as their expertise in particular subjects. Presentations are to the full class, generally involve faculty from two or more clinical disciplines, and may include a patient interview.