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Reinventing the Modern Medical School

The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine has seized the opportunity to leapfrog forward.

Just off Jefferson Street, near downtown Roanoke, Va., a quiet revolution is taking place. Harnessing the power of research and medicine, Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic have joined forces to create the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute.

Cynda Johnson, president and dean, along with her colleagues, are reinventing the modern medical school. Capitalizing on decades of refinement in the clinical and basic science components of medical education, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine is interweaving research and interprofessionalism into a curriculum that will educate the next generation of physician thought leaders.

The list of demands and expectations placed on physicians is long. Critics claim that modern medical education hasn’t kept pace with the ever changing healthcare landscape. Daily reports state that the healthcare system is broken. As a new medical school, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine has seized the opportunity to leapfrog forward, to create and to continuously improve in real-time, a medical curriculum that will equip doctors with the tools to not only thrive, but to flourish in the kaleidoscope that is today’s modern healthcare.

Our medical curriculum will equip doctors with the tools to not only thrive, but to flourish in the kaleidoscope that is today’s modern healthcare.

“Instead of a monologue, simply delivering information to students, we aim to have a dialogue with students, to have a conversation about how to think about medicine, how to be nimble to change, and how to cultivate a curiosity in oneself to remain a life-long learner,” states Dean Johnson. 

Currently only 15 percent of medical schools utilize a problem-based learning model to teach their curriculum. Only 5 percent of medical schools currently elevate research as a fundamental component of the curriculum and no other medical school in the nation provides interprofessionalism as a foundational element, integrated throughout the four year medical education. There is no doubt that the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute team is reinventing the modern medical school.