About the Curriculum
The curriculum includes:
- course work and laboratory rotations during the first year of study,
- visits as observers to Memorial Sloan-Kettering clinics during the first year,
- selection of a clinical mentor at the end of the second year,
- constant exposure to cutting-edge science through interactions with first-rank Memorial Sloan-Kettering faculty and visiting investigators, and
- dissertation research.
Special emphasis is placed on:
- the development of a self-reliant approach to assimilating knowledge,
- the development of skills in critical analysis and logic as applied to scientific reasoning, and
- the integration of basic science knowledge with human disease physiology.
The core of the curriculum is a single integrated course that takes students from genes and proteins to human pathophysiology.
Students are given the opportunity to learn about the realities of clinical practice by being observers in the clinic during the first year and by selecting a clinical mentor at the end of the second year. They are also immersed in the flow of modern research by meeting each week with the speaker in the President's Research Seminar Series, which brings distinguished scientists to Memorial Sloan-Kettering, to discuss their work and their thoughts on the challenges for the future.
Completion of the didactic portion of their education in the first year allows students to focus full time on their thesis research at the beginning of the second year.
