Bringing back the core concepts of physiology in an advanced medical school senior elective

Integrating physiology core concepts into the clinical years of medical education has been challenging despite efforts. This article describes a fourth-year medical school elective, Advanced Physiology in Critical Care Medicine, that focused on integrating physiology core concepts in a case-based learning approach. The elective used interdisciplinary faculty in a virtual forum. Senior students were asked to generate mechanism of disease (MOD) maps, highlight the physiology core concepts associated with paper cases of critically ill patients, and discuss with faculty the relevance of the underlying basic science. The weekly footprint consisted of a student-led session presenting MOD maps for three cases, which examined aspects of core physiology concepts, and, later in the same week, student presentation of order sets for the management of the cases. Students ended the 4-wk elective with a mini-grand rounds presentation on a topic of their choice incorporating the core concept paradigm. Student perception data and faculty reflections of the elective course are included. Student data and faculty observations suggest that students appreciate and can apply physiological core concepts to patient care. Faculty experience in the course suggests that this senior elective helped them better approach all preclinical teaching with the Core Concepts framework in mind.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This article presents an innovative approach to integration of physiology core concepts with clinical management using cases of critically ill patients in an online senior elective for medical students. It uses a multidisciplinary faculty conducting a course primarily using case-based learning led by student presentations and discussions of concept maps and order sets.