Academic Catalog
The academic catalog is a resource and reference guide that outlines the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine's curriculum, requirements, standards, student code of conduct and university policies.
Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine Academics
The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine offers a new model for medical education: rigorous classroom learning, a full-time faculty whose sole focus is teaching, a dynamic curriculum that reflects the current and evolving needs of the profession, and extraordinary hands-on experiences in a wide range of clinical settings. If you want a truly student-centered education, and if you aspire to be the kind of competent, compassionate health care provider this nation most urgently needs in the coming years, you will find no better place to accomplish your dream than right here.
MD Program
A collaborative, student-focused approach
We have intentionally designed our MD program to provide the foundational skills that you will need as a physician, in settings that mimic the places you will work once you’ve begun your career. Our full-time faculty will make your education their top priority. Our affiliated, partnering faculty will introduce you — across a range of clinical locations — to best practices and a diversity of patient populations.
From our interprofessional learning environment on the North Haven Campus to our team-oriented curriculum and classrooms, we encourage the kind of collaboration that is becoming an important hallmark of good medical care.
Every part of our program supports our vision of educating patient‐centered physicians who are effective partners and leaders in the delivery of health care in the communities they serve.
Innovative Curriculum
Katelyn Norman, MD '17, presents her capstone project findings. Norman combined her passions for art and science to create forensic facial reconstruction sketches. Her capstone aimed to develop a methodology for forensic facial approximations that synthesizes current techniques, such as the 3D Manchester method and the American method of reconstruction. Students in the Scholarly Reflection and Concentration/Capstone course pursue scholarly research in an area of interest related to clinical medicine.
Don’t just study medicine — bring your passion to life
Our innovative curriculum combines individual attention, interdisciplinary learning experiences, extraordinary hands-on experience and an emphasis on evidence-based and patient-centered practice.
During the first two years, the curriculum is organized around integrated system blocks, providing students with a 360-degree view of each organ system through the lenses of three courses: Foundations of Medicine, Clinical Arts and Sciences, and Scholarly Reflection and Concentration Capstone. A highlight of the curriculum is the Medical Student Home (MeSH) program, a longitudinal, mentored clinical experience that acts as a “practical laboratory” for students to work with patients in a community practice.
During the third year, you can spend a year practicing rural medicine at the Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent. This Longitudinal Integrated experience incorporates 6 third-year clinical experiences and is a great option for students who want to treat the whole patient across a continuum of care.
Throughout all four years, you will gain substantial clinical experience and work with faculty mentors. Our clinical partners provide an extraordinarily wide range of settings where you can interact with patients and complete electives — all designed to allow you to explore your options and passions for the type of medicine you want to practice.
Learn more about the curriculum
Foundations of Medicine course
Clinical Arts and Sciences course
Our curriculum provides students with the knowledge and experiences to meet the following 21st-century competencies:
- Care of Individual Patients
- Professionalism
- Knowledge for Practice
- Interpersonal Communication Skills
- Systems-based Practice
- Practice-based Learning and Improvement
- Interprofessional Collaboration
- Personal and Professional Development
- Community partnership and Civic Responsibility
- Adaptive Learning and Scholarship
Academic Calendar
View our calendar for the academic year, including important milestones like examination dates, university holidays, Match Day and Commencement.
Faculty Spotlight
Patient-centered care, student-centered learning
Dr. Listy Thomas
In emergency rooms and urgent care centers, physicians must draw upon an array of expertise. Beyond physical exam skills, they must employ patient-centered communication skills to arrive at an accurate diagnosis. This is something that Professor Listy Thomas, an emergency physician and Assistant Director of the Clinical Arts and Sciences course, knows very well, and it's something she instills in all of her students.
“We’ve been moving away from the physician-centric interview for a little while now, but in practice, it’s still something people fall back on,” Thomas said. “That’s something we address in my course.”
The course teaches a mix of hard clinical and interpersonal skills and emphasizes small group learning in a hands-on environment, matching about 8 students with a single faculty member. “We do a lot of faculty development to make sure that preceptors and students are on the same page,” Thomas said.
When she isn’t expanding the toolsets of future physicians, Professor Thomas dons the role of academic career adviser, working closely with third- and fourth-year med students to match them to the right specialty during and after residency. “It’s a year-long process of growth,” Thomas explained. “It takes a lot of mentoring.”
This process consists of more than just skills assessments and one-on-one meetings. Thomas and other faculty review students’ personality tests, gauge their career outlooks and personal goals, review their strengths and their actual performance during their clinical rotations.
“Students come to us younger and younger now, and they come in with aspirations,” Thomas said. “We try to match those expectations and ideals with reality to find what and where they will be most successful and happy.”
Academic Centers and Institutes
Center for Interprofessional Healthcare Education
In the modern health care setting, doctors work collaboratively with nurses, physician assistants and other health care professionals. At Quinnipiac, we place an emphasis on giving you opportunities to learn alongside students in our nursing and health sciences programs.
Much of that collaboration is facilitated through our Center for Interprofessional Healthcare Education, which offers innovative opportunities for students to practice together, identify effective delivery options and enhance each other’s clinical skills. It’s a conduit for sharing knowledge across disciplines and encouraging creative problem-solving in ways that deepen empathy and lead to new best practices.
Center for Interprofessional Healthcare Education
Institutes for Excellence
The School of Medicine is also home to three institutes for excellence that provide additional depth of learning and opportunities for students — the Institute for Primary Care, the Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine and the Institute for Global Public Health. From exploring contemporary issues of mental health to providing service to wounded veterans or enabling fieldwork in underserved villages in Africa and Latin America, the institutes support our mission of teaching, research and service while enhancing essential practice areas that are urgently needed in our country and our world.
Institute for Global Public Health
Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine
Research and Publications
Our faculty are award-winning physicians with decades of practice experience in multiple specialties, as well as passionate educators who have taught in numerous universities, hospitals and other institutions. They have received prestigious fellowships, served as chaired members in international societies and even host nationally syndicated radio shows.
Both clinicians and scholars, our professors contribute to the advancement of medicine through groundbreaking medical research and regularly publish their work in trade journals and magazines.
Our faculty members contribute to the advancement of medicine through groundbreaking research in subjects as diverse as renal disease, veterans’ health issues, public health community program planning and cannabis pharmacology.
Associate Professor Carolyn Macica's research on metabolic bone disorders, namely the most common form of familial childhood rickets — X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) — led to the creation of Quinnipiac’s XLH Day program, a patient advocacy event and symposium held at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine.
- Advances in Physiology Education
- Connecticut Medicine
- Clinical Science
- American Journal of Physiology
- The Physiologist
- Academic Medicine
- Journal of Molecular Signaling
- British Journal of Pharmacology
- Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
- Alpha Omega Alpha
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Association of American Medical Colleges
- American Physiological Society
- American Society of Nephrology
- Society for Neuroscience (SfN)
- British Pharmacological Society (BPS)
- International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS)
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- Medical Discovery News
Life After Quinnipiac
Your future in medicine
As you graduate from the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, you will be ready to distinguish yourself in hospitals, clinics and medical centers across the U.S. Our most recent graduates are headed to a variety of prestigious residency programs coast to coast, including those located at Yale University, The Johns Hopkins University, the University of North Carolina and the University of California-San Francisco. In keeping with our mission, 12 percent are entering family medicine, which exceeds the national average of 7 percent.
Like your predecessors, you’ll possess the skills and instincts to interview, diagnose, conduct research and perform at the highest level and under the most stressful circumstances. This is made possible through early clinical exposure in the Medical Student Home Program, an award-winning national network of partnerships and affiliated institutions, and four years of student advising designed to match your temperament, skills and goals to the right medical specialty. It is made possible by your own dedication and sacrifice.
Contact the School of Medicine
We’re always here to help provide additional information and answer any questions you may have.
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