Duke Medical School’s Curriculum and Admissions [Show Summary]

Dr. Linton Yee, Associate Dean for Admissions at Duke University School of Medicine, shares with us the unique curriculum of the program and the thought process behind it. He also fills us in on what applicants should consider as they fill out their Duke Medical secondary applications, which will make it more likely to be invited for an interview.

Interview with Dr. Linton Yee [Show Notes]

Our guest today, Dr. Linton Yee, earned his bachelors and MD at the University of Hawaii. He then did his residency in pediatrics at Harbor UCLA Medical Center and a Fellowship in Pediatric Emergency medicine at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. From 1996 to 2007 he practiced and taught pediatric emergency medicine in Hawaii and California before taking a position at Duke University as an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Emergency Medicine and as a pediatric emergency room physician. He is also Duke Medical’s new Associate Dean for Admissions, having been appointed to the post in May.

Dr. Yee, can you give an overview of the Duke Medical’s highly distinctive curriculum? [2:15]

The curriculum is a little different than the vast majority of US-based medical schools in that you do the basic sciences in the first year, a clinical year in the second year, a research or advanced degree in your third year, and the last year is the same as most schools, with rotations and other preparations for graduation. The curriculum has been different than most schools for the last 40 years, with the goal to produce leaders in medicine. We believe research works hand in hand with the advancement of clinical medicine.

How does Duke Medical condense what many schools take 18 months or more to teach into one year? [3:42]

You have to be efficient in how you are presenting material and make it relevant to how students are learning. We put our students in the clinical realm really early, seeing patients even in the first few weeks of school. A lot of it is integrating material, taking fairly complex ideas and clinical scenarios that go back to basic science in order to see relevance to the basic realm. One example I always talk to students about is shock. The definition of shock is inadequate profusion at the cellular level. If you look at that definition, how are you going to treat it? You have to reverse the profusion, so you need flow, so your carrier would be fluid, you need delivery of oxygen, and an energy source. To maximize oxygen, you need a pump to circulate what is carrying oxygen and fluids, and you need to maintain pump stability. You learn a lot of this stuff in basic biology in junior high school. You have a complex clinical scenario that you actually knew how to treat way back when, you just didn’t know how to integrate it.

Can you give me a few examples of how students spend their 3rd year at Duke Medical? [11:52]

The goal of the third year is to choose their own direction. Most of their academic life to this point has been pre-determined, so allowing them to choose is key in determining their thought process and ability to think critically and objectively about things. Some examples are we have a scholarship to Singapore to do infectious disease research. A lot of students do work in Tanzania as well. People have gone to Geneva to the World Health Organization, or gone to the London School of Economics for a masters there, and people go all over the place for research opportunities - it is pretty much an open book.