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FCC Longitudinal Elements

Grasp the Big Picture

With personalized clinical learning at the heart of the M2 year, your second-year schedule is mostly filled with in-person clerkship responsibilities.

There’s still plenty of time for other kinds of learning, however.

On the 2nd and 6th Monday of every block, you’ll have a day dedicated to M2-specific courses— like Foundations of Health Care Delivery, Research, and Learning Communities —that keep you tuned into the larger picture of growth as a medical professional.

Research: Discovery

The second milestone in the student research path, Discovery highlights many research opportunities and resources at Vanderbilt.

  • Explore common areas of biomedical research
  • Meet with potential mentors
  • Select a mentor and project that best fit your career goals and personal interests

During this phase of the curriculum, you can also explore the Medical Scholars Program, which provides full funding to a select group of medical students to conduct a year of uninterrupted biomedical research.

Foundations of Health Care Delivery 2: Clinical Systems of Care

If FHD1 focuses on the clinical setting, FHD2 zooms out one level to examine the clinical systems of care as a whole.

Through clinical experiences and seminars, in large and small groups, you will:

  • learn about social determinants of health
  • practice community advocacy
  • experience a variety of care settings
  • explore how to optimize health care value for your patients

By the end of this course, you’ll have gained a broader understanding of the complexity of systems of care— as well as the breadth of patient experiences in a single medical center.

Learning Communities

Clerkship year brings you into many new clinical settings and learning environments— so keeping the same sources of support is more important than ever.

As you meet regularly with your Learning Communities, the same peers and faculty who saw you through your first year will be there to process and celebrate with you through the next.