MD Program
Curriculum
大象传媒's MD program is a three-year curriculum consisting of three sequential year-long courses: MEDS 410, MEDS 420 and MEDS 430.
The curriculum is competency-based, provides multiple and diverse learning opportunities and uses a program of assessment that includes frequent feedback to students on their progress toward the MD program competencies. It鈥榮 spiraled, ensuring students revisit essential concepts and contexts multiple times and with increasing complexity while supporting the integration of knowledge through repetition and reinforcement.
The curriculum emphasizes active learning through multiple learning modalities, including case-based, small-group learning, team-based learning, and immersive clinical and community-based learning. This approach ensures students are well prepared to meet present and future health workforce demands.
The curriculum features early and continuous clinical learning, which starts in the first year of studies and increases over the course of the program. The core clinical experiences are grounded in long-term community-based clinical learning and supplemented by a variety of hospital-based experiences. This approach allows students in the MD program to experience continuity of settings, educators and relationships with patients and community members that span domains of care and patient lifecycles.
Courses and Schedules
Course Description
MEDS 410 is an introduction to foundational concepts in, and approaches to, medical practice with a focus on applications of knowledge and a broad range of clinical skills. Learning takes place in classrooms, simulated clinical spaces, labs, and in the community. In addition, students participate (under direct supervision) in patient care in a longitudinal family medicine clinic experience weekly (referred to as Continuity Clinic) and engage in blocks of intensive, immersive learning in clinical and extra-clinical community-based environments.
Schedule and Key Dates
A high-level schedule for MEDS 410 can be seen below.
Sample Year 1 schedule
In each of the three program courses, there is some variation week to week as different experiences are highlighted and to accommodate smaller groups for hands-on learning opportunities. The detailed daily timetable, including breaks and statutory holidays, will be published in the Learning Management System.
Course Description
MEDS 420 is an application of foundational concepts via experiential clinical learning undertaken across a variety of healthcare settings. Applied learning issupported by continued small-group classrooms, labs and simulated clinical careencounters. Weekly participation in the longitudinal Continuity Clinic also continues. Students have the opportunity to undertake multiple elective experiences. Prerequisite: MEDS 410.
Schedule and Key Dates
A high-level schedule for MEDS 420 can be seen below.
Sample Year 2 schedule
Course Description
MEDS 430 is a capstone course where students consolidate foundational concepts and applied learning via increasingly complex patient presentations. Learning highlights advanced aspects of patient care, systems and the challenges of care across all levels. MEDS 430 takes place mostly in clinical care supervised locations. Students choose elective areas to enhance their grounding for the next stage of their career. Prerequisite: MEDS 420.
Schedule and Key Dates
A high-level schedule for MEDS 430 can be seen below.
Sample Year 3 schedule
Our students will be exposed to and learn in a wide variety of scenarios and situations, from clinics to classrooms, seminars to labs.
Case-based, small-group learning
Students spend time unpacking and learning from the case(s) of the week. The cases reflect common presentations experienced by people living in the communities served by the school. Students work as a team with a faculty facilitator to identify gaps in their collective knowledge and a plan for continued learning. Cases are developed or co-developed to represent the population of the Fraser Valley with input from multiple expert sources, including Elders, Knowledge Holders, and Indigenous physicians and patients, ensuring representation of Indigenous worldviews and culturally grounded approaches to care.
Laboratory and kinesthetic learning
This emphasizes hands-on experiences and active participation. Students will engage directly with material that enhances their understanding of complex concepts through practical application and integration with other learning, such as clinical cases and simulation. The kinesthetic approach enhances retention and understanding as students physically manipulate materials, practice skills and apply concepts in real-time. Examples include handling anatomic structures and using virtual reality and digital models of physiologic and pathophysiologic processes.
Active large-group learning
Active large-group learning engages the entire class of students in collaborative and interactive activities that promote collective problem-solving and knowledge transfer. This provides opportunities for interprofessional and interdisciplinary teaching and co-teaching. Immersed throughout are sessions to help students intentionally integrate what they鈥檙e learning across their various experiences.
Clinical skills and simulation
Students will practice clinical skills in a safe environment with a high volume of practice and coaching by faculty members. Simulated patient-care scenarios allow students to practice without risk, fostering a safe environment for intentional and repeated practice and learning from mistakes. Active participation, immediate feedback and debriefing sessions encourage critical thinking and self-assessment, ensuring continuous improvement and reinforcing learning outcomes.
Early and long-term clinical learning
Beginning after the orientation weeks, students are introduced to their Continuity Clinic, where they鈥檒l spend time regularly over the course of the program, caring for people under the direct supervision of their preceptor. While the people who students see in the Continuity Clinic do not necessarily align with the presentation or case(s) of the week, it presents an opportunity to encounter a variety of presentations. Students have the opportunity for long-term, community-based care where they can form relationships with patients and preceptors and with the broader medical community. In Years 2 and 3, students鈥� clinical learning experiences deepen and are supplemented with hospital-based experiences as well.
Community-engaged learning
Students learn from and alongside community organizations, leaders in the community and through guided observations. This helps students build strong connections with local communities. They engage in reciprocal, mutually beneficial learning and scholarship through service to ensure they understand community strengths and assets, recognize societal health issues, explore diverse health and well-being perspectives, and understand how physicians and institutions of higher education can contribute to the community. The intention here is to shift from deficit-based learning toward a strength-based, wholistic understanding of health rooted in community relationships.
Longitudinal small-group learning
Long-term learning in small groups over an extended period of time helps foster strong peer and faculty relationships, allowing more room for mentorship and personalized feedback. It promotes continuity in learning, which helps students engage more deeply with the emotional, spiritual and cultural aspects of care. This is intended to mirror Indigenous approaches to learning that value collective dialogue, mentorship and accountability.
Scholar Project
All students develop a scholarly project, which runs across all three years of the program. Students select a topic, formulate a question for investigation and find the resources needed to complete and present their projects. These projects may take several different forms, such as a quality-improvement project, a community-education initiative, action research, or impact studies of other forms of scholarly inquiry. They鈥檒l work in collaboration with a community or clinical partner, learn the fundamentals of scholarly inquiry in large-group sessions, and will be assigned a faculty mentor to guide them.
Flexible, self-directed learning
Students have dedicated time during the week to identify their learning needs, set goals, and seek resources (some provided by the program and others sought out from a variety of reliable sources). This fosters critical appraisal and problem-solving skills and promotes lifelong learning habits essential for the ever-evolving field of medicine.
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