Charlotte’s New Med School: High-tech, Hands-on

By Michelle Crouch

The Charlotte Ledger

When nan Charlotte field of nan Wake Forest University School of Medicine holds its first classes this week, it marks much than nan presence of nan city’s first four-year aesculapian school.

It besides brings to North Carolina a caller attack to training doctors — 1 that ditches nan accepted cadaver laboratory and old-school lectures successful favour of virtual dissection, lifelike robots and a caller program built astir aesculapian problem-solving.

“We are taking a caller attack to aesculapian training present successful Charlotte,” said Dr. Roy Strowd III, vice dean for undergraduate aesculapian education. “We’re doing it successful a caller and forward-thinking way.”

Here are immoderate of nan nontraditional approaches nan schoolhouse will usage successful training its first people of 49 students:

• High-tech robots: Students will believe their skills connected high-fidelity “manikins” (computerized diligent dummies) that tin breathe, cough, talk and spell into cardiac arrest. The schoolhouse has manikins that correspond patients of each ages, moreover premature babies calved astatine 27 weeks. Instructors tin watch student interactions from down a two-way reflector successful mock exam rooms. 
  
• Digital anatomy lab: Instead of taking anatomy successful a accepted cadaver lab, students will research nan quality assemblage virtually utilizing touchscreens that fto them zoom in, rotate and peel backmost layers of nan quality assemblage pinch a pat and a swipe. Another laboratory features plastinated assemblage parts made from quality tissue.
  
• Problem-based learning: A program developed for nan schoolhouse is centered connected real-life objective scenarios alternatively of accepted lectures, Strowd said. Students will build their knowing of anatomy, physiology and illness arsenic they activity together to lick aesculapian problems. “From time one, students will beryllium presented pinch a problem, and they will activity nan lawsuit conscionable for illustration a physician,” Strowd said.
  
• Immediate diligent contact: Students will spot patients astatine Atrium Health’s Carolinas Medical Center “on their very first day,” said Tony Dang, an soul medicine expert and adjunct professor of soul medicine. It’s portion of nan program’s attraction connected early hands-on acquisition and patient-centered care, he said.

The caller aesculapian schoolhouse is nan centerpiece of The Pearl, a $1.5 cardinal aesculapian invention district spearheaded by Atrium Health and Wexford Science & Technology and supported by $75 cardinal successful nationalist incentives. 

Designed to spark collaboration among academics, researchers and biomedical companies, The Pearl will location programs to train nurses and different wellness attraction professionals, arsenic good arsenic nan North American office of surgical training halfway IRCAD and different ample aesculapian tech companies. 

Future phases of The Pearl telephone for a edifice and convention center, apartments and ground-level retail.

A displacement distant from cadaver labs

A surface successful nan integer dissection lab. Credit: Michelle Crouch/NCHN

The field joins a mini but increasing number of schools nationwide that person moved distant from accepted cadaver labs — a displacement driven by cost, information and ethical concerns, said Lisa Howley, elder head for transforming aesculapian acquisition for nan Association of American Medical Colleges. 

“There are nan ongoing challenges of cost, of procuring nan specimens and nan accommodation to location them,” she said. “Those challenges person ever been there. It’s conscionable that now that we person technologies that are truthful overmuch better, they tin support that type of school and learning.” 

A randomized controlled trial published successful nan diary Nature in July 2024 recovered that students successful South Korea who learned anatomy utilizing virtual platforms performed amended connected anatomy quizzes and demonstrated a amended knowing of concepts compared pinch those who trained exclusively pinch cadavers. 

Likewise, a 2022 study conducted astatine nan UNC School of Medicine recovered akin benefits among students who trained successful a virtual dissection lab. “In fact, location was not a azygous lawsuit noted wherever in-person program produced higher mean introspection scores than virtual aliases hybridized models,” nan researchers wrote. 

In aesculapian journals and articles, however, some physicians argue that moving pinch cadavers is simply a captious portion of aesculapian education.

The different aesculapian schoolhouse campuses successful North Carolina still person accepted cadaver labs, according to nan Association of American Medical Colleges.

Alan Wolf, a spokesperson for nan UNC School of Medicine, said UNC module judge traditional cadaver dissection is “the champion mentation for objective training.” 

“There are benefits of teamwork, location is simply a ‘first patient’ acquisition pinch a cadaver, and students admit learning astir texture, 3 dimensionality, normal anatomic variation, and pathology,” he said. 

Tafline Arbor, anatomy subject head for nan Wake Forest University School of Medicine, said nan Charlotte students will still walk clip successful nan cadaver laboratory connected nan Winston-Salem campus. 

She emphasized that virtual dissection makes learning anatomy much interactive and engaging.

“These devices let students to build a three-dimensional exemplary of nan quality assemblage successful their minds,” she said during a caller circuit of nan Charlotte campus. “It’s astir integrating anatomy pinch imaging and objective contented successful a measurement accepted dissection can’t match.”

Fresh eyes, unsocial perspectives

The Charlotte campus’s training exemplary builds connected ideas already successful usage astatine different aesculapian schools, said Howley and Belinda Chen, an adjunct professor astatine Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who helps create curricula for aesculapian education. 

For example, almost each aesculapian schools usage robotic manikins and simulations because they connection a safe measurement for students to learn. 

“It lets them do high-risk, low-frequency procedures safely,” Chen said. 

Many schools besides see immoderate problem-based learning to thief students link subject to objective believe successful a meaningful way, Chen and Howley said. However, it’s usually successful conjunction pinch different school methods, they said. 

As for nan early encounters pinch patients, investigation supports getting students progressive pinch patients sooner alternatively than later, Howley said. It helps students spot really complex, team-based and patient-focused modern medicine really is.

It’s besides valuable for wellness attraction systems, she said: “What we’ve recovered is that those early aesculapian learners person very caller eyes and unsocial perspectives. They tin spot things and announcement things that others whitethorn not, and beryllium advocates for amended wellness care.” 

The aesculapian students: One-third from NC, group diverseness information unclear

Students who dress up nan Charlotte campus’s inaugural four-year people are from 18 states and 29 colleges, pinch a 3rd coming from North Carolina, according to schoolhouse officials. The mean student property is 24. 

When asked astir nan group and taste constitution of nan people during a media circuit connected July 9, Strowd said nan accusation wasn’t yet available. He said, “Equity and diverseness — and really reasoning astir bringing each groups of students together — is simply a privilege for nan schoolhouse and has been for galore years.” 

Atrium has said nan schoolhouse seeks to nutrient aesculapian professionals typical of nan communities it serves.

The Charlotte students subordinate astir 150 much first-year students training connected Wake Forest’s Winston-Salem campus. Enrollment successful Charlotte is expected to turn from 49 to 100 students per people complete nan adjacent 5 years. 

Historically, astir a 3rd of nan doctors who postgraduate from nan Wake Forest University School of Medicine enactment successful North Carolina aft graduation, according to schoolhouse officials. 

Training successful his hometown

First-year med student Rei Rama

Rei Rama of Charlotte, a first-year student, said he first heard astir Wake Forest’s plans to build a aesculapian schoolhouse successful nan metropolis years ago, erstwhile he picked up a flyer astir it during a sojourn to nan Winston-Salem campus. 

At nan time, he said, it seemed for illustration a distant possibility.

After graduating from UNC Charlotte successful 2023, Rama worked arsenic a aesculapian adjunct earlier deciding to travel successful his father’s footsteps and use to aesculapian school. 

Rama said he chose Charlotte complete different schools because he liked its problem-based program and accent connected small-group learning, which he said helps students “learn really to deliberation arsenic physicians early on.”

He said he’s besides excited to beryllium portion of nan invention territory and to beryllium capable to train successful his hometown. 

“Living successful Charlotte, you deliberation that erstwhile you spell to aesculapian school, you person to move,” he said. “But being capable to service nan aforesaid organization that I grew up successful present successful nan States, that’s amazing.” 

This article is portion of a business betwixt The Charlotte Ledger and North Carolina Health News to nutrient original wellness attraction reporting. 

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