At the University of Virginia School of Medicine, our primary purpose is to educate and train physicians and scientists to help people achieve healthy, productive lives and to advance knowledge in the medical sciences.

We achieve our mission through:

• Attracting an academically accomplished and compassionate student body from diverse backgrounds;
• Creating a respectful and nurturing learning environment that also challenges our students to learn and apply science and medicine at the most skillful level;

Fostering humanitarian and caring attitudes that motivate us to give our best to maintain health and to alleviate pain and suffering.

Next Generation Curriculum

The UVA School of Medicine is changing how medicine is taught and learned. Members of the Class of 2014 were the first to learn under the innovative, next-generation Cells to Society Curriculum.

The next-generation curriculum eschews the traditional split of basic and clinical sciences and, instead, employs a system-based learning experience that has deeper integration of basic sciences into clinical medicine, is oriented to clinical performance and uses the best evidenced-based models for medical education to foster student learning. The five goals of the new curriculum:

• Assure that all graduates demonstrate mastery of the 12 UVA School of Medicine Competencies Required of the Contemporary Physician
• Integrate content around organ systems
• Integrate basic and clinical sciences within each educational experience and across all phases of the curriculum
• Incorporate experiential and active-learning activities
• Provide frequent developmental activities for clinical skills.

The first measure of success of this innovative curriculum lay in the Step 1 scores of that first Next Generation class. Their results continue the tradition of excellence for these exams, which have remained virtually unchanged for the past decade; however, the next-generation students enter their clerkships with both systems knowledge and a sophisticated set of clinical skills.

Biomedical Sciences Program Overview

The past decade has witnessed unprecedented advances in our understanding of fundamental biological processes yielding new experimental approaches to understand and to manipulate gene expression, along with new insights into the underlying basis of human disease. Faculty members at the University of Virginia are engaged in pioneering research on many of the most important problems in medical science. The program has been revised and restructured, now including exciting and creative immersive 12-week courses and topical six-week modules, to teach core knowledge and fundamental skills required for successful biomedical researchers.

As our knowledge of the biological and biomedical sciences has grown,
we have gained a much greater appreciation of the complexity of cells and human diseases. We recognize that successful biomedical scientists can no longer be an expert in only one area or one technique but must be able to make use of information, technologies and experimental strategies that go beyond the boundaries defined by traditional university departments. As someone interested in pursuing a career in science, it is critical that you obtain a wide breadth and depth of training in graduate school that will ensure your ultimate success, whether you choose a career in academia, industry, education or any of the many other career opportunities that will be available to you.

GME

The University of Virginia is committed to establishing and maintaining high-quality Graduate Medical Education training programs. The Medical Center and School of Medicine provide the diverse patient population, dedicated faculty, excellent clinical and basic science departments, and nationally recognized research programs required to create an environment optimal for learning and for the development of future leaders in the art and science of medicine.

We offer training in 68 ACGME-accredited specialties and subspecialties, and numerous other specialized training programs are available.