Courses
I realized I probably never actually explained how medical school, at least here at the University of Toronto, works in terms of courses/curriculum. For this first year, we are doing three courses at a time, with two of those courses running throughout the year while the third will change a few times during the year.
The two courses that remain the same are ASCM and DOCH. The Arts and Science of Clinical Medicine (ASCM) course (which runs half day a week) is where we work in groups of 5 or 6 students in a hospital setting, led by a tutor (who is a physician), to learn actual clinical skills like taking a medical history, doing a physical examination, etc. The Determinants of Community Health (DOCH) course also runs half day a week, with the goal of teaching students to “be aware of the social, physical and emotional needs of individual patients and communities as a whole”.
Finally there is the variable third course which takes up most of the week. Right now we are doing the Structure and Function component, which covers “Gross Anatomy, Embryology, Radiologic Anatomy, Histology, Cell Biology, Cardio-Respiratory Physiology, Haematology, and an introduction to Pharmacology”. But by the end of first year we will also have covered Metabolism and Nutrition, as well as Brain and Behaviour.