Shared Discovery Curriculum ECE from MSU MD on Vimeo.

The 24-week Early Clinical Experience (ECE) places students in ambulatory settings, learning with medical assistants, nurses and physicians. Preparation for clinical work – which emphasizes and enables student and patient safety in clinical settings – begins in the first week of the ECE. Students are oriented to their ambulatory clinic site and then begin learning the clinics’ processes.

Students participate in patient care activities along with medical assistants after demonstrating the knowledge and skills necessary to safely enter a patient care environment. They then participate in the care management and population health activities of the practice and begin to perform more focused data gathering on patients with common presenting conditions. Students learn about basic communication and clinical skills, ethics, the social context of clinical decisions, and the biological science behind clinical findings and apply their knowledge to their clinical work throughout the ECE.

Learning objectives for each week are delivered using a combination of student-centered methodologies which take place in large and small groups as well as via guided independent learning. SIMULATION forms a backbone of the curriculum, enabling learners to practice, receive feedback, and hone knowledge and skills in a realistic environment.

ECE students meet twice a week with their Learning Society Fellows in Post Clinic Groups (PCGs). The PCGs fulfill two core functions:

• Debrief clinical experiences to allow Integration of curricular content and clinical experience
• Apply knowledge about the weekly content learned independently using the flipped classroom and modified Problem Based Learning methodologies

 A typical “Week in the Life” of a student during the Early Clinical Experience might look like this:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
AM	Large Group: TBL or Similar	Outpatient Clinical Experience	Simulation	Guided Independent learning	Post Clinical Group (PCG)
PM	Guided Independent Learning	Post Clinic Group (PCG) Virtual Imaging & Physiology Lab (VIPL)		Outpatient Clinical Experience	Gross Anatomy and Neuroanatomy Lab