Educational Pathways

The Health Equity Scholars Pathway is an elective program offered at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine that provides students with the knowledge and skills to promote an equitable and anti-oppressive learning environment.  Completion of this pathway requires both continual learning through approved experiences that address health equity and active contributions to medical education scholarship and innovation.

The Medical Education Pathway is an elective program at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine that helps students develop skills in curriculum design, educational scholarship and teaching to prepare them for careers as clinician educators.  Pathway completion requires continual learning, active medical education contributions and evidence of a successfully peer-reviewed presentation or publication.

The Research Scholars Pathway is a rigorous program at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine that recognizes student research efforts and helps them develop the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct medical research.  Completion of this pathway requires four years of medical research, continual learning through approved educational experiences, and evidence of a successfully peer-reviewed presentation or publication.

Interprofessional Complex Care Collaborative (Hotspotting) Scholars Program  is an elective program that helps prepare undergraduate medical students who work collaboratively on healthcare teams and who display compassion for the most vulnerable patient, they need opportunities to learn from interprofessional collaborative experiences. Benefits of interprofessional experiences include both improved team environment1-2, attitudes towards other professions1-2, and improved patient care1,3. Complex care is defined as “person-centered approach to addressing the needs of a relatively small, heterogenous group of people who repeatedly cycle through multiple healthcare, social service, and other systems, yet do not derive lasting benefit from those interactions.”6 The purpose of the Interprofessional Complex Care Collaborative Scholars Program (ICCC) is to acknowledge the efforts of medical students that deliberately pursue professional development and extracurricular experiences in interprofessional education and complex patient care collaboration, as well as promote scholarship at SIU-SOM and beyond. The ICCC Scholars Program will also provide evidence-based trainings, workshops, and modules relevant to the field of complex care for students in the ICCC Scholars Program and for the SIU-SOM practice and educational communities. 

The Medical Humanities HEALERS Pathway is meant to encourage students to experience more of the range and depth in the humanities. HEALER Scholars earn recognition, while building humanities knowledge and their portfolios. Students on track to be recognized as HEALER Scholars will be given to the Dean of Students in the fall so that the information can be included on residency applications.
HEALER Scholars earn recognition, while building humanities knowledge and their portfolios. Students on track to be recognized as HEALER Scholars will be given to the Dean of Students in the fall so that the information can be included on residency applications.

The Leadership Development Pathway (LDP) is a systematic, developmental, and comprehensive four-year curriculum grounded in the fundamentals of leadership: vision, direction, strategy, communication, alignment, motivation, inspiration, and empowerment. These fundamentals are adapted from John P. Kotter’s eight-stage change framework (Kotter, 2007). The curriculum incorporates the fundamentals listed above in a logical and systematic process so that students will: know and understand leadership fundamentals, acquire fundamental leadership skills, and have opportunities to put into practice what they have learned.