Undergraduate Medical Education

Scholarly Inquiry (SI) is a required component of the JeffMD curriculum of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College. It is intended to provide medical students with skills and experience that they need to become critical consumers and producers of medical knowledge. As part of an integrated curriculum, Scholarly Inquiry overlaps and synergizes with the Evidence-Based Medicine thread, the Health Systems Science thread, the Professionalism/Ethics thread, the Wellness thread, the Humanities selectives, and the Clinical Experience program.

Throughout the course of their Scholarly Inquiry experience, students benefit from enhanced learning experiences and longitudinal mentorship and can attain knowledge and skills that are important in residency training and future practice of medicine.  They gain insights and skills in cutting-edge domains through lectures, small-group seminars, workshops, team-based and problem-based learning, and online modules. Furthermore, all students pursue their own scholarly work:

• In their first year, students develop and present a proposal for an individual or group scholarly project and start work on its implementation.
• Optionally, for additional research time, students may choose to work on their research over the summer between the first and second years.
• In their second year, students complete their scholarly project and present their work in the form of an abstract and oral/poster presentation.
• In their third year, students use their clerkship experiences to provide inspiration for developing independent research ideas/plans. Students learn to present their scholarly work in written form.
• In their fourth year, students complete a number of research selectives (including seminars, workshops, journals clubs, manuscript reviews, systematic reviews, brief rotations, etc.) and learn strategies for presenting their scholarly work during residency interviews.

Students select from seven tracks, which each serve as a distinct lens through which to train in a range of research domains and topics, and complete their self-directed scholarly projects under the supervision of faculty members with in-depth knowledge and experience in these fields.