Curricular Requirements for Students Graduating in More than Four Years
Responsible: Office of Educational Affairs, Senior Associate and Associate Deans
Audience: Students, Faculty, Staff
Approved by: CCIA
Approval Date: March 5, 2025
LCME Element: n/a
Purpose: UI COM is committed to developing curriculum to meet the needs of the changing healthcare field. As such, the curricular requirements may differ for students matriculating in different years. This policy explains how UI COM students who are graduating in more than four years should identify their curricular requirements.
Overview/ Statement Heading link
Situation:
Many medical students do not graduate in four years. If the curriculum of the student’s matriculation cohort changes, it can be confusing whether the student should complete the requirements of the cohort with which they matriculated or the cohort with whom they are currently taking classes. It can also cause students to register for the Transition to Residency course at a date earlier than academically appropriate (too far before residency).
Background:
In 2024, several clarifications to the graduation requirements were made, to affect the class graduating in 2027 (e.g. requiring 12 weeks of patient facing electives, requiring subinternships to be completed at UIC). There was a paragraph in those graduation requirements as follows:
Graduation Requirements for Out of Phase Students:
All UICOM students will be required to complete the Phase 3 requirements of a single graduation year in their entirety and may not combine graduation requirements across graduation years. Students are expected to complete the graduation requirements of the year of their matriculation and may not choose another year’s graduation requirements without approval of their local curriculum dean. A student may, at the discretion of the Senior Associate Dean for Education Affairs, complete the graduation requirements for either the year in which they are graduating or the year in which they were originally intended to graduate as long as the complete coursework still exists within the college. Students who graduate in December will have the same graduation requirements as students who graduated in May of the same calendar year.
CCIA had never approved this policy. It needed to be separated from the graduation requirements of any particular year and stand alone as a policy. It needed to be revised then approved. It did not refer to Phase 1, only to clinical years. It did not acknowledge the large cohort of students who enter Phase 2 well after their peers from their original M1 cohort (MSTP students)
Assessment:
We believe the below policy should be presented to the CCIA and approved. It has minor changes from above, in dividing Phase 1 out from Phase 2/3 requirements. Phase 2 and 3 cannot be separated since students may start completing phase 3 requirements such as electives as soon as they start Phase 2. It also specifies that TTR will be taken in close proximity to graduation.
Policy Heading link
All UICOM students are expected to complete the phase 1 curricular requirements of the class with which they matriculated unless an alternative is approved by their campus’ curriculum dean in consultation with the college-wide curricular deans. They are expected to complete the phase 2/3 curricular requirements of the class with which they began their phase 2 curriculum unless an alternative is approved by their campus’ curriculum dean in consultation with the college-wide curricular deans. Students must complete the Phase 2/3 curricular requirements of a single class cohort in their entirety and may not combine requirements of multiple cohorts. If coursework no longer is offered, the campus curriculum dean will determine which cohort’s requirements the student must follow. Students who graduate in summer or fall terms will have the same curricular requirements as students who graduated in spring of the same calendar year.
The TTR course is offered in spring for all students with the exception of Rockford rural medicine (RMED) students, who may take the course in fall. Below are the expectations for the timing of TTR for students graduating in more than four years. Any alternative timing must be approved by a students’ campus curriculum or student affairs dean in consultation with the college-wide curricular deans.
- Students graduating in the spring are expected to take the Transition to Residency course in the term in which they graduate and on the campus where they are enrolled.
- An exception to this timing is that RMED students graduating in spring may complete the Transition to Residency course in the December immediately prior to graduation to allow for their spring 16-week preceptorship.
- Students graduating in summer or fall must complete TTR no sooner than December before the calendar year of their graduation.