Our microbiology faculty has developed the Microbiology Gold Cup Game, featuring 400 well-designed microbiology, immunology, and anti-infective pharmacology Board-style questions to better prepare students for the Step 1 exam. In addition, our microbiology faculty have also provided 20 decks of Anki cards, each containing 30-50 cards, and 11 cheat sheets on these disciplines.

Revamped and expanded our Step 1 review program resulting in our new Saturday School offerings.

Provided each student with a free subscription to UWORLD.

Provided an in-house team of Learning Specialists to help students develop a study plan and assess readiness to sit for the exam.

We added NBME questions for student assessment. We are carefully tracking the NBME exam questions for the appropriate representation of all the basic science disciplines. Additionally, we are making plans to include formative NBME-like anatomy questions in CAS sessions throughout the curriculum beginning with the class of 2028.

The Burnett School of Medicine hired Dr. Kimberly Washington as the new Assistant Dean for Clinical Faculty Success and one of the initial priorities will be the intentional development of our LIC preceptors.

We moved exams to Friday mornings.

Students may now leave their drinks in the back of the room during exams.

LIC leadership and staff completely reworked the schedule to make this change.

We have purchased U World and ScholaRx, the two national standards for all students. Additionally, we are considering providing access to Lecturio and Kaplan Simulated Step 1 Exam to all students.

Faculty reworked the course into a two-week model as opposed to three weeks and a week break was given between Immersions and the remainder of the LIC.

Faculty are given stringent parameters on brick selection and study time to review and also may now edit to more tightly reflect on faculty expectations.

The School of Medicine purchased an online Spanish course and hired Karla O’Donald, PhD, who teaches Spanish for TCU, to work with the communication team and integrate medical Spanish as a mandatory component of the curriculum, in addition to the 2-week Medical Spanish elective. This course will also be made available to our faculty and preceptors as well.

Multiple students from CO2026 participated last July and this will be expanded moving forward.

Staff set up an optional mask fitting directly after a curriculum session to allow for optimal convenience for students.

Dr. Bonnell and team have developed a variety of opportunities for service learning including all of CO 2027 participating in Academy 4 as part of the curriculum, as well as increased opportunities across classes to work at Mercy Clinic.

We moved microbiology sessions earlier in Neuro 1.

We have worked hard to place the retake to optimize student needs, including study time, but also balancing the student’s schedule and timely progress.

CO 2027 was able to participate in an online book club with nursing and other students and faculty and discussed the book “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital” from a variety of perspectives. Other opportunities are being planned.

We removed PIBL from exam weeks during MHD.

The timing of the course was adjusted to have time to find housing and address other residency-required obligations. Extensive work has gone into making the course as efficient and high yield as possible to prepare for the intern year.

Faculty must choose NBME questions that are covered by the objectives in the course.  Additionally, all questions are reviewed by an exam review committee, addressing alignment with objectives and degree of difficulty (range from ‘easy’ to ‘difficult’).

The Clinical Skills leadership recently developed a handbook that details the exact expectations of each component of the physical exam and this will be distributed to students and utilized by faculty in both Phase 1 and the LIC to ensure that expectations are clear and fair both for learning and for OSCEs and other assessments.

Posted previews of the cases presented for Content Framing Sessions on Canvas, available by Friday at noon the prior week, to enhance understanding and engagement during the sessions.

The blocks of content have been adjusted to align better for the Phase 1 period.

We adjusted all Phase 1 content to not be split by holiday time where possible.

Launched the Peer Tutoring Program in November 2022, which included nine peer tutors from the class of 2024 and class of 2025 who assisted with MHD Curriculum Content Areas and Step preparation throughout the year.

Based on a survey of students who took part in the program, tutors scored an average rating of 9.75 out of 10 for assisting students with meeting their goal for the tutoring session. Students reported an average of  9 out of 10 confidence level in their own abilities after their tutor session and 100 percent of respondents said they would make another tutoring appointment.

MHD faculty are now posting the final set of MHD practice questions on Canvas, no later than noon on Friday the week before the exam. This gives students a full week to review the practice questions prior to the exam.