The newly opened Charlotte, N.C.-based Wake Forest University School of Medicine is leaning into nontraditional teaching methods for medical students, NC Health News reported July 15.
The city’s first four-year medical school opened last month and is welcoming its first class of 49 students this week. The school is a part of The Pearl, Charlotte’s 20-acre, $1.5 billion medical innovation district made in a public-private partnership between Charlotte-based Atrium Health and Wexford Science & Technology in Baltimore.
Here are some of the school’s nontraditional approaches to physician education:
1. Students will practice on high-fidelity “manikins,” which are computerized patient dummies that can breathe, cough, talk and go into cardiac arrest. The manikins represent patients as young as infants born at 27 weeks.
2. Students will learn about the human body through virtual touchscreens, rather than cadaver labs.
3. The medical school’s curriculum is centered on real-life clinical scenarios, rather than traditional lectures.
4. Students will start seeing patients at Atrium Health’s Carolinas Medical Center on day 1 as part of the school’s focus to give students early hands-on experience with patient-centered care.
Many of these methods are used at other medical schools, but, the report said, The Pearl is building on the success of those models.
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