Emily Olfson, MD, PhD

Core course which focuses on the details of basic investigation of the biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, immunology, and molecular biology of human disease from a sophisticated perspective. At each session, articles on the laboratory investigation of a disease or disease process (which is well understood at the molecular level) are selected by the faculty. Faculty provides an overview of the topic, followed by discussion of the articles in a seminar format.

Connection to the World (CTW) focuses on the structure and functions of the nervous system and related disorders. CTW integrates several distinct courses taught previously in the course of the first two years of medical student education - fundamentals of Neuroscience, Neurophysiology and Biological Basis of Behavior, Psychiatry, Neurology and Ophthalmology.

CTW is built upon the neuraxis beginning with a description of the anatomy and physiology of the spinal cord and ascending up to the cerebral cortex, adding disease mechanisms and pathophysiology at each anatomical station. Students have a comprehensive understanding of the normal anatomy and physiology of the central and peripheral nervous system along with abnormalities in key neurological, psychiatric and ophthalmologist disorders.

The course incorporates neuropharmacology, neuropathology and neuroimaging into specific disease models and also as distinct and separate pedagogical entities.

This portion of the first-year curriculum is one of several coordinated and complementary curricular offerings designed to prepare Yale School of Medicine (YSM) students for careers in the rigorous consideration, execution, and application of research which results in the betterment of human health and wellbeing.

The YSM research requirement ensures that students learn and master research skills, such identifying knowledge gaps, formulating research questions, designing rigorous and reproducible investigative approaches using the highest standards of methodological rigor, analyzing data, summarizing results, and presenting one’s work to communities of interest including patients. An important feature of the research curriculum is the formal instruction students receive in the first year which is designed to successfully launch them on the path of acquiring and practicing these essential skills on their own.

The goal of the Scientific Inquiry curriculum is to initiate students on their four- to five-year journey of learning, observing, and practicing the skills required to conduct research related to health and medicine. Specifically, first-year students will receive instruction regarding the YSM thesis requirement as well as the preparation and support needed to develop methodologically rigorous research projects. Although the course is framed around the mentored research that many students will conduct during the summer between the first and second years of medical school, the same principles taught in the course will also apply to research conducted during the Advanced Training Period, in support of the MD thesis requirement, and beyond.

The curriculum is led by physician-scientists and clinician-investigators with successful research programs who also serve as role models and mentors to students as they begin to assume their professional identities. The first year involves seven sessions dedicated to the formal support of research project development, mentor selection, identification of knowledge gaps via literature review, and the creation of a written research proposal. It is expected that students will develop impactful research projects that are methodologically rigorous, significant, and innovative. The curriculum culminates in the required submission of a research proposal, completion of which serves as the course assessment. The proposal must contain the following components: background/scientific premise; the research question(s) being asked with hypotheses being tested (not relevant for qualitative research or history of medicine research); specific aims; methods, including a proposed statistical analysis plan; challenges and limitations; statement of scientific impact and relevance for communities of interest including patients. All MD students are required to submit a completed research proposal in order to successfully receive credit for this course.