Academic deceleration in a gross anatomy centered first-year integrated medical curriculum (532.2)

The current trend in United States medical education is movement toward complete integration of courses throughout the first two years of basic science centered curricula. This has introduced an emerging challenge of how to aid students who struggle academically within programs that provide an intensely interwoven structure of topics. At Morehouse School of Medicine, the first-year integrated curriculum is built around a gross anatomy template, and is composed of gross anatomy, embryology, cell biology, histology, neurobiology, biochemistry, and physiology. Students who underperform (cumulative average <72%) may voluntarily elect to “decelerate “or may be required to do so by an institutional academic committee. Decelerated students then continue in only the anatomy centric components of gross anatomy, embryology, histology, and cell biology. Following successful completion of this reduced load curriculum, students return to the fully integrated first-year curriculum the following year. This approach to a...