Program Purpose and Mission: The Colleges is UW SOM’s learning communities program, providing longitudinal relationship centered communities to develop medical students’ skills to succeed in clinical training and supporting their transition to physicianhood. Our mission is for students to experience meaningful relationships and sense of community, learn foundational clinical skills, and receive coaching and mentoring for their development as physicians.
Colleges Program Key Priorities
- Clinical skills development in Foundations in the Foundations of Clinical Medicine (FCM) course;
- Professional identity formation across 4 years, including longitudinal coaching and mentoring; and
- Relationship and community building within Colleges groups – dinners, celebrations, vertical/peer advising.
Structure: Students are assigned upon matriculation to a Colleges small group, which consists of one College faculty mentor (a teaching physician) and a group of 4-6 medical students. Each College faculty works with their assigned students throughout their medical school career, serving as a longitudinal coach and mentor. There are 8 Colleges throughout the WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho), each with 20-50 students and 4-10 faculty, depending on the size of the regional campus / cohort.
UWSOM WWAMI College Faculty – WWAMI Retreat – May 2024
Program: The Colleges program begins at Orientation to medical school, when students are introduced to the profession of medicine and to their longitudinal College faculty and their peer group. Each student meets with their assigned College faculty during regular intervals throughout medical school, building on a working relationship to support students in their growth towards becoming physicians. Students continue regular check-ins with their assigned faculty, to discuss clinical skills development in FCM as well as personal and professional growth.
College faculty collaborate with their student and others to support progress and completion of required components of the curriculum (maintained in student portfolios), academic and career counseling (in partnership with our colleagues in Student Affairs and individual departments), and more. As part of their support team, College Heads and College faculty have access to their own students’ academic files and receive copies of letters sent to their students regarding their academic progress and modifications in their academic plans.
When the Foundations of Clinical Medicine course begins in Immersion, students frequently learn in their College small groups – particularly for hospital tutorials. College faculty teach in the FCM course and provide coaching and feedback on clinical skills, including interview and physical exam skills, clinical reasoning and interpretation skills, communications, and other professional skills. As longitudinal mentors and coaches, College faculty do not engage in evaluation or grading for their own mentees (all of their feedback is formative).
Students also join their College faculty and peer students for reflections and conversations around personal and professional identity formation, Colleges dinners and/or community gatherings, peer advising events to encourage support across medical school classes, and in celebrations and transitions. Meeting in stable small groups both in and outside the classroom is intentional – the Colleges program aims to build trusting, supportive, relationship-centered teams in which each person can experience being known as a unique individual, a sense of meaningful belonging, and an environment that contributes to growth, flourishing and success for each of our students.