Interested in a non-traditional medical path? How about considering a medical program that completely integrates engineering into its curriculum? Carle Illinois College of Medicine might be the right choice for you!

Interview with Dr. Nora Few and Dr. William Pluta [Show Summary]

Dr. Nora Few and Dr. William Pluta discuss the highly innovative and multi-disciplinary curriculum at the Carle Illinois College Medicine. This fairly new medical school took advantage of the opportunity to design its curriculum from the ground up and integrates engineering and medicine throughout. In this interview we gain insight into the program as well as Carle Illinois’ pioneering approach to medical school admissions.

Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s Unique Curriculum and Approach to Admissions [Show Notes]

Our guests today are Dr. Nora Few and Dr. William Pluta. Dr. Few, who earned her Ph.D. in Health Behavior, has been with the University of Illinois since 1990, including 15 years at the UIC College of Medicine. She became the Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s first Director of Admissions in 2017 and managed the enrollment of its first class in 2018.

Dr. Will Pluta earned his PhD in Educational Psychology at Rutgers University in 2015. From 2012-2015 he worked at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons as an Education, Assessment, and Evaluation Specialist. He then headed to Georgetown Medical for a year as Assistant Dean for Assessment and has been Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s first Director of Curriculum since 2017.

Dr. Pluta, can you give us an overview of the Carle Illinois med school program? [2:34]

It is a four-year curriculum that leads to an MD degree, with a focus on engineering and innovation across the curriculum. We emphasize the development of competent and caring patient-centered physicians. It is a 3-phase program. The first is basic science with engineering built in, introduction to systems and early clinical exposure. The second phase is built around clerkships, with time for electives early on to explore interests, and students are encouraged through the IDEA course to generate innovative ideas to impact healthcare. The third phase has the relatively standard electives around medicine – with the opportunity to specialize, and students are expected to complete a capstone project and data science project.

Why combine the teaching of medicine with engineering? [4:51]

Engineering has the emphasis on technology, and that is where we see the real opportunity to move medicine forward.

What is the IDEA course? [5:21]

IDEA stands for Innovation, Design, Engineering and Application, and is a year-long course integrated into the core clerkship period of the curriculum. On Friday afternoons students come together and talk about the challenges they are seeing in their clerkships and work on solutions. Engineering rounds are incorporated with rounds, where an engineer from our faculty will help students think about problems in different ways to promote innovation.

The Carle Illinois website says it has a “Paradigm-shifting Curriculum.” How so? [6:47]

The critical part is that engineering is built into every part of the program. The emphasis on technology is all part of our mission. We are different in that we have integrated these two subjects from the very beginning.

The Carle Illinois Site discuss 4 pillars of its curriculum basic sciences, clinical sciences, engineering and innovation,