Penn Vet’s Class of 2026 will be the first to experience the school’s fully integrated competency-based veterinary education curriculum.
“The current rate of biomedical discovery means that even over the course of a veterinary education, there will be new diagnostic capabilities and treatments when a student graduates that didn’t exist when they began school, so we must educate and cultivate lifelong learners,” said Dr. Kathryn F. Michel, an associate dean for veterinary education and a professor of nutrition.
“The transformation is immense and moves Penn Vet’s preclinical curriculum from a discipline-based model to a fully integrated curriculum,” said Martin J. Hackett, the chief communications officer at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Michel said competency-based veterinary education is modeled on the principle of backward design in education.
“It starts with a desired endpoint or outcome and works backward to create a road map for getting there,” she said.
Penn Vet’s new curriculum starts with a two-year core that covers “Animal in Health,” focused on the healthy animal’s form and function, in Year One and “Animal in Disease,” which explores disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment, in Year Two.
In addition, two “ribbon courses” are threaded through the first two years:
- “The Hippiatrika”: Named after a veterinary medicine writing collection from the fifth and sixth centuries, the course covers professional development skills. It also incorporates labs where students will learn clinical techniques and receive early exposure to clinical practice.
- “Of Clouds and Clocks”:The course, whose name alludes to the 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper, covers the principles of scientific inquiry, hypothesis-driven research, applied statistics and epidemiology. It will emphasize clinical decision-making based on high-quality evidence.
Third- and fourth-year students will participate in three-week clinical blocks interspersed with electives.
“Our new curriculum is designed to produce graduates who are not only highly knowledgeable in veterinary medicine but well-rounded professionals who excel in communication, collaboration, problem-solving and ethical conduct,” Hackett said.
“[The new curriculum] enables us to offer more labs, hands-on experiences, and asynchronous and group activities with clinical case integration,” said Dr. Amy Durham, an assistant dean for education at Penn Vet and a professor of anatomic pathology. “The students spend roughly the same amount of time learning every week, but the active learning opportunities give the sense of a lightened schedule, which we hope translates into better well-being.”