MD programs
We offer a world-class medical education in a supportive, student-centered, academic environment.
MD program
Pursuing a medical degree at SIU School of Medicine will be challenging and rewarding. You will be immersed in clinical encounters, research and community service opportunities throughout your training. SIU is renowned for our education innovations and attention to clinical skills, professional behavior and evaluation. You will learn the science and art of medicine using the latest and most effective methods. You’ll also practice teamwork with the multitude of faculty, staff and other learners on our campuses.
Overview
SIU School of Medicine offers a 4-year MD program for Illinois residents only. The educational curriculum begins with a foundational year at our flagship campus in Carbondale and the remaining three years in Springfield. SIU Medicine’s outpatient clinics, as well as our partnerships with local hospitals in Springfield and the surrounding communities, provide us with a well-rounded, diverse population. Their health care needs reflect society.
Curriculum
The first two years of the medical curriculum are clinical case-based and small group-oriented, with the basic sciences integrated into discipline modules. Instruction includes self-directed learning, lectures and the use of simulated patients. Clinical mentoring also begins in the first year.
The third year consists of clinical rotations in the key specialty areas — Emergency Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, Internal Medicine, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Surgery. A 15 week Personalized Education Plan (PEP) is arranged in the later part of the third year to explore other specialties (Radiology, Anesthesiology, etc.) and sub-specialty (Cardiology, Orthopedics, etc.) areas or dive deeper into current interests and fine-tune medical skills.
During the fourth year, you have a required Medical Humanities clerkship and progress through elective courses designed to further prepare for your medical career.
MD/JD program
In cooperation with the SIU School of Law, the School of Medicine offers a special six-year program leading to the concurrent award of degrees in law and medicine.
To pursue an MD/JD, students must be admitted separately to each of these schools.
How to apply
Application to the School of Law and School of Medicine are independent processes and students must ensure timely completion and submission of the separate applications. Admitted students will fill a limited number of places available in the dual degree program. To be competitive, applicants to the School of Medicine should present better than a B grade point average and competitive MCAT scores. Law school applicants generally should present better than a B grade point average and a competitive LSAT score. Interested students should request application materials from the Director of Admissions (School of Medicine) and Director of Admissions (School of Law). Out-of-state applicants are encouraged to apply.
Overview
The MD/JD program requires students to spend their first year at the School of Law in Carbondale, where they will complete 32 credit hours of prescribed first-year course work. Students then will enroll in the law school summer session and complete six credit hours of advanced course work. During the second academic year, students will continue in Carbondale as full-time law students, completing an additional 32 credit hours of course work with concentration in health law.
Enrollment in a second summer session will be required, during which time students will complete six credit hours of course work. This session may include legal research and clinical experience in state or federal agencies involved in the regulation of public health and the activities of the medical profession. Students will spend their third academic year enrolled as freshmen in the School of Medicine in Carbondale, where they will complete all requirements of the first year of the medical school curriculum. Students then will move to Springfield, where they will continue as full-time medical students, completing the sophomore and junior years of the curriculum.
During the senior year of medical school, students will be required to take a specially designed set of law, medicine, and health policy electives lasting 14 weeks, full-time. In completing degree requirements for both the MD and JD degrees, this 14-week elective sequence will serve to fulfill 14 credit hours of course work required for attainment of the JD degree and 14 weeks of elective course work required for attainment of the MD degree.
MD/MPH program
The MD/MPH program is a joint program of SIU School of Medicine and the SIU Carbondale College of Education and Human Services. At the end of this five-year MD/MPH Program, students will receive a doctor of medicine degree and a master's degree of public health.
Overview
The program takes place on both the SIU Carbondale and Springfield campuses. Students will first study a public health curriculum for three semesters in the Department of Health Education and Recreation at SIU Carbondale. Following the year of public health training, students will remain in Carbondale during the second year of the program, when they will begin their medical school training. The remaining three years will continue the medical curriculum in Springfield, with the fifth and final year of the program being a combined MD/MPH year.
*NOTE* This program is ONLY offered to students once they have been offered an acceptance and before they matriculate into the MD program.
Electives
Each MD/MPH student is required to complete a total of 15 hours of electives, including the practicum, while on the Springfield campus during the fourth year of medical school. Each SIU School of Medicine elective is worth an equivalent number of credit hours for each week in length. Thus, a 1-week elective is worth 1 credit hour. The following electives are divided into “Required” and “Optional,” from which the student may choose to fulfill their 15 total hours.
Practicum in Community Health Education: Part 1 of 2 (2000013)
Students are immersed in a community agency with a strong public health focus. This four-week practicum is focused on developing the relationship with the agency, developing the program to be carried out and initiation of the program. Prior to the start of the practicum students will thoroughly investigate the agency's mission, programs, and resources to determine how well it will meet their career goals. Students will also meet with the SIUC's MPH coordinator to arrive at professional objectives for the practicum, based on the Health Educator's Areas of Responsibilities and personal developmental objectives.
Practicum in Community Health Education: Part 2 of 2 (200023)
These two weeks will include the completion and evaluation of the project began in part 1.
Biological (and other WMD) Terrorism Preparedness and Response (15533)
The medical skills associated with biological terrorism identification and response are quite similar to those already possessed by many physicians as pertaining to other infectious disease. Though chemical and radiological events differ in terms of delivery, physiological effects, medical treatment options and response, physicians are integral partners from the local to national level. Individual physicians can much more effectively participate in both the health and healthcare of local individuals and to national security through a more thorough knowledge of the characteristics of potential agents and an understanding of the mechanisms in place for their surveillance and response. To that end, this elective will provide an overview of: biological, chemical and radiological agents; how these agents may be disseminated and their physiologic effects; treatment strategies; surveillance activities at the state and national level (e.g. NEDSS); preparedness activities to include infrastructure-boosting cooperative agreements to state health departments and healthcare surge capacity; command and control and lines of authority as they pertain to event response (e.g. NIMS); and an overview of planning and exercises.
Clinical Epidemiology (15453)
This course will include didactic presentations and clinical epidemiology problem sets to provide students with a well-rounded set of activities designed to present the fundamentals of clinical epidemiology. Topics include: introduction to epidemiology; basic measures and disease occurrence; medical surveillance, disease outbreaks and role of the physician in epidemic detection and response; testing and screening technologies; clinical trials; epidemiological study designs; and genetics. From this course, the student will gain a working knowledge of epidemiological principles, how they are used to study populations for questions of clinical significance, and how these principles may be applied to patient care.
Emerging Trends in Public Health (15543)
This course is designed to be an overview of the more recent trends in public health practice and research. There will be a combination of selected in-depth readings and discussion on 3-5 specific topics during the week. Discussions will complement the readings by providing more depth and background and allowing the exploration of potential solutions, whether at the individual physician or national policy level. Potential topics include: obesity and chronic disease care and management; terrorism preparedness and response; infectious and foodborne disease. outbreak response; vaccination strategies, needs and policies; racial and other minority health disparities; environmental determinants of health; social and cultural determinants of health; health promotion versus health mandates. Readings and discussion will be complemented by the student performing a more in-depth review of a topic and developing a proposed intervention. This will be presented to the elective faculty and students.
Public Health Leadership (15563)
This course is designed to be an overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with leadership in the field of public health. The student will become familiar with the workings of national and global agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The United States Preventive Services Task force (USPSTF), the Public Health Service (PHS), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations. The role of the physician in these and other agencies will be explored, as well as the more specific roles of health officer, epidemiologist, health scientist, health expert, advocacy champion, and program administrator. Readings on identified agencies and individuals will be complemented by case reports and articles on specific programs and individuals who have made significant impact in population health. This will be complemented by a presentation by the student to the elective faculty and students on the topic of a national or global public program or prominent practitioner.
Issues in Minority Health Care (15303)
This elective will allow the student to explore minority health issues through readings and informal discussions with faculty and various agency staff. Investigations of the areas outlined in the objectives may be library-based or agency-based. Students are expected to use faculty as tutor and present investigation results on course book assignments to faculty at the end of the week. Textbooks will be provided to students to guide knowledge and questions. Face to face meetings with faculty will occur twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of the elective.
Statistics in Medical Research (15664)
This elective will focus on the statistical and research design skills physicians need to have in order to be intelligent users of research results. Activities will include lecture/discussion, review of articles, and working with data sets, both in class and independently. Topics will include reading tables and graphs; understanding and using means, medians and standard deviations; estimation and hypothesis testing (confidence limits, t-z tests, chi-square, correlation and regression); methods used in analyzing survival data (life-tables, logistic regression); detecting sources of bias in different types of study designs (case-control, cohort, cross-sectional, clinical trials); interpreting p-values; estimating sample sizes, and any other student-initiated topic.
Clinical Ethics Consultation (35143)
Ethics may be regarded as the study and application of right conduct in matters of behavior where there is a large potential for harms or benefits or where people have duties and obligations to others. Ethical dilemmas arise when an individual's or a profession's code of ethics is silent with regard to a particular issue (i.e. cloning, stem cell research) or different values come into conflict (e.g., patient's right to confidentiality conflicts with ability to provide best care for the patient).This elective is designed to expose students to ethical issues that arise in the clinical care of patients. Students will become familiar with common medical ethical issues through short readings in medical ethics and involvement in the Clinical Ethics Consultation Service. Students will be expected to be available on an on-call basis for Ethics Consultation during the entire period of the elective. This may require availability during evenings or on weekends. Students will attend the Springfield Memorial Hospital's Human Values and Ethics committee monthly meeting, should it occur during the period of the elective.
Service Learning Part 1 of 2: Introduction to the Community Health Needs Assessment Process (15713)
This course is developed to provide an introduction into performing and understanding a community needs assessment. Over the course of one week, students will meet for a minimum of 8 hours with faculty to review core community outreach principles addressing topics such as policy, research, needs assessments, and will review trainings on completing a community health needs assessment as well as evaluation of current community health needs assessments in the area.
Service Learning Part 2 of 2: Experiential Work Related (15723)
This course is developed to provide an experiential service learning curriculum opportunity. Students must complete Service Learning Elective Part 1 before taking Part 2. Students will spend 1 week working with community and health care partners that address an area of student identified interest from Part 1 of the elective.