Medical Students

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The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine is consistently recognized for its medical student and undergraduate teaching excellence. The department is an active participant in the Vermont Integrated Curriculum (VIC), a series of multidisciplinary courses. Our pathologists are instrumental in the continued success of the curriculum for students.

Well qualified medical students may be interested in the Pathology Medical Student Fellowship offered through the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Pathology & Laboratory Medicine's role in the VIC 

Level 1: "Foundations", the pre-clinical portion of the VIC. Pathologists are essential to this level, serving as course director in 1 of the Foundation Courses and as a whole, teaching/facilitating well over 200 hours of the pre-clinical coursework. Pathology residents also play a vital role through engaged learning sessions such as gross organ pathology/clinical correlations and case-based small groups.

Level 2:  "Clinical Clerkship", core clinical clerkships required of all medical students. Students rotate through interspersed "Bridge" courses, designed to emphasize clinical applications as the medical students' knowledge base begins to blend "Foundation" knowledge with clinical experience.

Level 3: "Advanced Integration",  provides students with additional responsibilities for patient care through clinical electives. Student must also fulfill a requirement for scholarly work in teaching or research.

Pathologists – attendings, house staff officers and student fellows alike – give lectures, teach in laboratories, and facilitate small group colloquia in Cell and Molecular Biology, Human Structure and Function (gross anatomy, microanatomy and physiology), Attacks and Defenses (anemias and general pathology), Nutrition, Metabolism and Gastrointestinal (includes endocrine pathology), Connections (skin, bone and joint), Cardio-Respiratory-Renal, and Generations (includes placental and childhood diseases, genital tracts, breast, hematological diseases, and aging). In addition, the Department offers electives for medical students in the fourth clinical year.

Virtual Educational Tools

Gross Pathology Museum

We have created and maintain a Virtual Gross Pathology Museum, which contains at least one image from each of the gross specimens in our wet teaching collection. The Virtual Pathology Museum is indexed by course, lab, organ and organ system, disease, and pathological process. Word searches are also possible. High quality digital images include arrows and labels, ancillary information, and matching radiological images when appropriate. The museum can be accessed by our medical students via COMET.

Virtual Microscope

Our department created a digital image for each of the microscopic slides in the student slide collection. Students may access the slides using a “virtual microscope,” which allows continuous magnification from roughly 1X to 40X objective, and comparisons with other slides in the set, including normal slides from histology. Students may use the virtual microscope anywhere there is a computer, and can view the slides in small or large groups. The virtual microscope can be accessed by our medical students via COMET.

COMET – our online learning platform
  https://comet.med.uvm.edu  (for Class of 2021 and earlier) 
  https://VICPortal.med.uvm.edu (for class of 2022 and later).