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Curriculum

Temple medical students present finding to the class

The Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University offers modern facilities including open research spaces, smart classrooms and a state-of-the-art 12,000-square-foot clinical skills and robotic simulation center.

Temple’s student-centered philosophy nurtures a collegial learning environment. With outstanding faculty who are truly passionate about teaching, a plethora of service-learning opportunities and uncommon, extensive clinical experiences, the curriculum is justly renowned for producing graduates with outstanding clinical skills.

Curriculum at a Glance

Major components and emphases of the curriculum include:

  • The teaching of basic science and clinical medicine is longitudinally interwoven, just as medicine is practiced.
  • Clinical faculty are fully integrated with the pre-clerkship curriculum to provide a clinical perspective of basic science principles
  • Emphasis on physician competencies: knowledge, clinical skills, professionalism, humanism, and cultural competencies
  • Case-based learning, highlighting clinical scenarios that incorporate safety, health care quality, social determinates of health and disparities in health care, and medical ethics.
  • Promotion of longitudinal relationships between faculty and students
  • Extensive use of high-fidelity simulation in the pre-clerkship years to provide clinical correlation of basic science principles.
  • Standardized patients and patient instructors are utilized in the Doctoring course to present students with realistic scenarios in developing their clinical and communication skills.
  • Geared toward adult learning styles with emphasis on lifelong learning, self-directed study, collaborative learning, critical appraisal and use of information technology
  • Training is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on interprofessional teams

Single Pass Phase 1 Curriculum 

The pre-clerkship curriculum (medical school years 1-2) focuses on basic science principles and the knowledge of normal-abnormal conditions necessary to begin clerkships in year 3. Starting with the 2020-2021 academic year, the pre-clerkship curriculum moved to a “1-pass model” within each organ system. Gross anatomy, cellular biology, genetics, and immunology remain as foundational courses at the start of the first year, before starting blocks specific to each organ system. Within each system, students are introduced to normal structure and physiology, then proceed to learn the relevant pathology, pathophysiology, and treatment strategies for diseases of the organ system. Physiologic principles and systemic conditions are discussed throughout the pre-clerkship curriculum, and are brought together in the final organ system block that focuses on multi-organ system diseases and therapeutics.

Read our curriculum schematic

Explore the Curriculum 


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