Academic Catalog 2023–2024

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Doctor of Medicine

Curriculum Overview

The Gilbert & Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine is the first in Lebanon to adopt a modern curriculum that integrates basic and clinical sciences and facilitates hands-on experience from the first months. The integration of basic and clinical sciences helps consolidate knowledge application and clinical skills simultaneously.

A fundamental goal of the curriculum is to equip students with the skills and attitudes required to become independent life-long learners, problem solvers and critical thinkers. With the exponential growth in medical knowledge, it is vital to focus on teaching students how to learn, rather than on imparting a huge body of information.

Other features of the program are community-based learning, promotion of research and evidence-based practice, complemented by a special emphasis on communication skills, teamwork, attitudes, ethics, professionalism and interprofessional collaboration. In this regard, LAU was the pioneer in implementing interprofessional education (IPE) as an essential pedagogical method in the curricula of LAU’s health care programs (medicine, pharmacy, nutrition, and nursing).

The program graduation competencies are derived from the Association of American Medical Colleges Physician Competency Reference Set framed in the following eight domains and detailed at the end of this document:

  1. Patient Care
  2. Knowledge for Practice
  3. Practice-Based Learning and Improvement
  4. Interpersonal and Communication Skills
  5. Professionalism
  6. Systems-Based Practice
  7. Interprofessional Collaboration
  8. Personal and Professional Development

Years I and II are comprised of nine organ-system modules (see “curriculum timeline” on this page). Each module contributes to the graduation competency domains through four themes:

  1. Basic and Clinical Sciences
  2. Clinical Skills
  3. Professional Development and Behavioral
  4. Population Health, Social Medicine & Global Health

In addition to traditional lectures and bedside teaching, new instructional modalities are utilized, such as simulation-based education, virtual teaching, small-group teaching, team-based learning, case-based discussion, problem-based learning, flipped classroom instruction, peer-assisted learning, and computer- and internet-assisted instruction. Students are provided with a study guide for each module that has all the needed information, including learning objectives, themes, and measures of success. To increase clinical exposure in the preclinical years, two activities were added to the curriculum recently:

  • In Med I, students spend a one-week rotation, at the end of the academic year, shadowing a healthcare provider at the hospital.
  • In Med II, students have an “observership rotation” where they learn from physicians, in an outpatient setting in their clinics and in the Emergency Department.

Years III and IV correspond to clinical clerkships in healthcare facilities, mainly the LAU Medical Center–Rizk Hospital (LAU Medical Center–RH). In Year III, students rotate in seven core clerkships, while in Year IV, the schedule is more flexible, with core rotations and electives. Longitudinal and vertical integration of general disciplines/constructs, such as medical ethics, professionalism, quality of healthcare, clinical reasoning, research, social medicine, artificial intelligence and bioinformatics and others is ensured through common class activities on a weekly basis.  The longitudinal thread curriculum is dynamic; recently it was adapted to include several topics pertaining to global health, humanities, and other disciplines.

Learning during the clinical years occurs mostly in the workplace and involves real patient encounters in addition to simulation-based education. Educational strategies and settings include small- and large-group teaching, case discussions, rounds, tutorials, problem-based learning, practice on simulation models, bedside teaching, outpatient clinics, mobile clinic, and journal clubs, in addition to other modalities. A one-week transition curriculum including orientation to the clinical years is offered prior to the start of Med III, and a capstone week concluding the MD program and offering orientation to residency is delivered at the end of Med IV.