Are you accepted to AMC? Do you want to know what to expect?
My Class Descriptions and Professors
In this section I would like to help out anyone who is already accepted and would like to know what each class entails as well as who the instructors are and texts.
DISCLAIMER: If any of your readers are accepted to the program now, the curriculum is changing to mesh the classes by topics a bit better.
For example, there will be a three semester pharmacology that should correspond better with FCM classes.
However, the first didactic term should remain pretty much the same.
From what I have been told, many classes outside of FCM, patho, diagnostic methods, and pharm should be very similar to what I have here.
DISCLAIMER: If any of your readers are accepted to the program now, the curriculum is changing to mesh the classes by topics a bit better.
For example, there will be a three semester pharmacology that should correspond better with FCM classes.
However, the first didactic term should remain pretty much the same.
From what I have been told, many classes outside of FCM, patho, diagnostic methods, and pharm should be very similar to what I have here.
First Didactic Term: Spring 2015
Physical Assessment
This class we really focus on physical examinations. We learn how to perform a thorough skin, EENT, cardiac, neuro and other exams on patients. This class is composed of tests and lab skills (performing physical examinations on patients). Granted, we have not really learned about what the results and findings of the physical exam mean at this point, but it is just a procedural way to learn what we are looking for.
Instructor: Patty Pulver PA-C
Text: Bates' Guide to Physical Examination (This will be your Bible for PE)
Medical Informatics
This class is a mix of teaching us ways to research and learn how to continue our education once we are PA's. We focus on a variety of topics such as STATISTICS, medical terminology, and overall database research.
Instructor: Varies but mostly Dr. Irvine and Dr. Crone
Text: Evidence-Based Practice for Health Professionals by Howlett, Rogo and Shelton
Advanced Anatomy and Cadaver Lab
This will be the heaviest class when it comes to studying material. Essentially, this is the heart of your knowledge as a PA because you need to know this anatomy in order to understand how it can go wrong. Dr. Crone records podcasts before lecture to help prep us for the material of the day. There is a cadaver lab component to this class that is the coolest experience ever (and its open 24/7 for your studying needs).
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD, PhD
Text: "Mini Moore" Essential Clinical Anatomy by Moore, Agur and Dalley
Ethics
This class is a mix of projects, speakers and papers. We learn how to deal with difficult situations that we will encounter as PA's. Many times it seems as though there is no "right" answer to cases, but any answer needs to be backed with logical and ethical roots. You will need to freshen up your public speaking and writing abilities for this one!
Instructor: Dr. Stoddart PA-C
Text: Ethics and Professionalism: A Guide for the Physician Assistant by Cassidy
Diagnostic Methods I
Have you ever performed EKG's on patients? Well now you will learn how to read them in your sleep. The first in a series of three classes, this class only focuses on EKG's. It is taught by a PA who worked with Dr. Oz in Cardiology and surgery. I'll be honest, as much as I love cardio this class is a bit tricky at times.
Instructor: Kim Bachta PA-C
Text: Rapid Interpretation of EKG's by Dubin
This class we really focus on physical examinations. We learn how to perform a thorough skin, EENT, cardiac, neuro and other exams on patients. This class is composed of tests and lab skills (performing physical examinations on patients). Granted, we have not really learned about what the results and findings of the physical exam mean at this point, but it is just a procedural way to learn what we are looking for.
Instructor: Patty Pulver PA-C
Text: Bates' Guide to Physical Examination (This will be your Bible for PE)
Medical Informatics
This class is a mix of teaching us ways to research and learn how to continue our education once we are PA's. We focus on a variety of topics such as STATISTICS, medical terminology, and overall database research.
Instructor: Varies but mostly Dr. Irvine and Dr. Crone
Text: Evidence-Based Practice for Health Professionals by Howlett, Rogo and Shelton
Advanced Anatomy and Cadaver Lab
This will be the heaviest class when it comes to studying material. Essentially, this is the heart of your knowledge as a PA because you need to know this anatomy in order to understand how it can go wrong. Dr. Crone records podcasts before lecture to help prep us for the material of the day. There is a cadaver lab component to this class that is the coolest experience ever (and its open 24/7 for your studying needs).
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD, PhD
Text: "Mini Moore" Essential Clinical Anatomy by Moore, Agur and Dalley
Ethics
This class is a mix of projects, speakers and papers. We learn how to deal with difficult situations that we will encounter as PA's. Many times it seems as though there is no "right" answer to cases, but any answer needs to be backed with logical and ethical roots. You will need to freshen up your public speaking and writing abilities for this one!
Instructor: Dr. Stoddart PA-C
Text: Ethics and Professionalism: A Guide for the Physician Assistant by Cassidy
Diagnostic Methods I
Have you ever performed EKG's on patients? Well now you will learn how to read them in your sleep. The first in a series of three classes, this class only focuses on EKG's. It is taught by a PA who worked with Dr. Oz in Cardiology and surgery. I'll be honest, as much as I love cardio this class is a bit tricky at times.
Instructor: Kim Bachta PA-C
Text: Rapid Interpretation of EKG's by Dubin
Second Didactic Term: Summer 2015
Diagnostic Methods II
Remember all those tubes of blood that were drawn last time you went to your doctors? or that x-ray of your broken ankle? Maybe you had an MRI or CT scan? Well this is where we learn how to read and order all of that fun stuff! Here we learn why certain lab tests are run for certain diseases/conditions and which are the "gold standard" when it comes to particular cases.
Instructor: Deb Wright PA-C
Text: Learning Radiology: Recognizing the Basics Edition 2 by Herring
Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine I
This class is the "bread and butter" of our fundamental knowledge of medicine. It is six credits and from all the work we put into it, it sure seems like its worth six credits. Essentially, our job is to find out and learn as much as we can about the topic of that test. We are given a list of objectives on a certain topic like, cardiology, pulmonology, GI, and renal to help guide our learning, but for the most part we are on our own to determine what is pertinent information and what is not. There are pages of objectives on each topic so we tend to work in groups to fish out the important information from the texts and share them with one another. That way we all don't have to do the investigation part of gathering information. In addition, this class is unique. Instead of having lectures from Patty, we have lectures from guest speakers who practice medicine on the specific conditions, diseases and fields of medicine. Between all the information they throw at us, it seems like a free for all reading and listening and hoping that we are studying what is most important.
Instructor: Patty Pulver PA-C and guest speakers: PA-C's, MD's, and DO's.
Text: Current 2015, Harrison's Internal Medicine, and Bates' Guide to Physical Examination
Behavioral Aspects of Medicine
So remember your first psychology class in undergrad? Well this is a class that contains all the medical side of psych from diagnosis with the DSM-V to treatments including SSRI's, MAOI's, therapies, etc. I particularly like this class because its a nice break from the stress of the same building block materials that are in the other classes and much more geared to the world of psychiatry.
Instructor: Dr. Mark Stoddart PA-C and some guest speakers: MD's
Text: Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry by Sadock and Sadock
Pathophysiology
The fundamentals to the fundamentals of clinical medicine. In order to understand all these conditions, we have to learn how the body works and how it can go wrong. This class is a nice transition from Anatomy last term to application of medicine. It is structured just like Anatomy was in regards to tests with multiple choice and short answer. (Personally, I like the short answer because I can show my full understanding of a topic instead of just circling the answer where I'm more likely to over think a question.)
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD, PhD
Text: Physiology by Costanzo
Clinical Competency Examination I
From now on we have a CCE exam on our skills. This is an examination of things we have learned back in Physical Assessment (with performing physical exams) and what we are learning in FCM. This term we have to perform a full new patient physical within 35 minutes while maintaining patience and poise.
Remember all those tubes of blood that were drawn last time you went to your doctors? or that x-ray of your broken ankle? Maybe you had an MRI or CT scan? Well this is where we learn how to read and order all of that fun stuff! Here we learn why certain lab tests are run for certain diseases/conditions and which are the "gold standard" when it comes to particular cases.
Instructor: Deb Wright PA-C
Text: Learning Radiology: Recognizing the Basics Edition 2 by Herring
Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine I
This class is the "bread and butter" of our fundamental knowledge of medicine. It is six credits and from all the work we put into it, it sure seems like its worth six credits. Essentially, our job is to find out and learn as much as we can about the topic of that test. We are given a list of objectives on a certain topic like, cardiology, pulmonology, GI, and renal to help guide our learning, but for the most part we are on our own to determine what is pertinent information and what is not. There are pages of objectives on each topic so we tend to work in groups to fish out the important information from the texts and share them with one another. That way we all don't have to do the investigation part of gathering information. In addition, this class is unique. Instead of having lectures from Patty, we have lectures from guest speakers who practice medicine on the specific conditions, diseases and fields of medicine. Between all the information they throw at us, it seems like a free for all reading and listening and hoping that we are studying what is most important.
Instructor: Patty Pulver PA-C and guest speakers: PA-C's, MD's, and DO's.
Text: Current 2015, Harrison's Internal Medicine, and Bates' Guide to Physical Examination
Behavioral Aspects of Medicine
So remember your first psychology class in undergrad? Well this is a class that contains all the medical side of psych from diagnosis with the DSM-V to treatments including SSRI's, MAOI's, therapies, etc. I particularly like this class because its a nice break from the stress of the same building block materials that are in the other classes and much more geared to the world of psychiatry.
Instructor: Dr. Mark Stoddart PA-C and some guest speakers: MD's
Text: Kaplan & Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry by Sadock and Sadock
Pathophysiology
The fundamentals to the fundamentals of clinical medicine. In order to understand all these conditions, we have to learn how the body works and how it can go wrong. This class is a nice transition from Anatomy last term to application of medicine. It is structured just like Anatomy was in regards to tests with multiple choice and short answer. (Personally, I like the short answer because I can show my full understanding of a topic instead of just circling the answer where I'm more likely to over think a question.)
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD, PhD
Text: Physiology by Costanzo
Clinical Competency Examination I
From now on we have a CCE exam on our skills. This is an examination of things we have learned back in Physical Assessment (with performing physical exams) and what we are learning in FCM. This term we have to perform a full new patient physical within 35 minutes while maintaining patience and poise.
Third Didactic Term: Fall 2015
Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine II
This is an extension of the FCM I class we had in the summer but this term focuses on geriatrics, endocrine, orthopedics, surgery/dental, dermatology, rheumatology, and infectious disease. It seems like this FCM is much more direct on what we should and don't have to know for the tests which makes studying much easier. Nevertheless, this class is 6 credits so there is also some stress when it comes to studying for FCM.
Instructor: Kim Bachta PA-C, Patty Pulver PA-C, Chris Carlin PA-C
Text: Current 2015, various other specialty books all available online if needed
Pharmacology I
First thing, this class is much different than I expected. So we have guest speakers just like in FCM but for every hour a guest speaker talks, he/she gets to make 4 questions for our test. This is good and bad. Good because whatever the speaker focuses on will be the test topic and there will be little to no outside reading if we pay attention in class. Bad because each speaker asks questions differently which can cause some stress while taking the test. This class is only 2 credits but there are only 3 core tests and then a final. Our grades solely depend on how we do on the tests.
Instructor: Keller
Text: Guest speaker notes
Diagnostic Methods III
Just as the first two terms, this DM is about laboratory tests, imaging, and procedures for whatever we are learning in FCM. The curriculum corresponds nicely with FCM and other classes which makes learning these topics easier and more concrete.
Instructor: Deb Wright PA-C, Kim Bachta PA-C
Text: Same as DM II for Radiographs
Immunology and Microbial Disease
Taught by Dr. Crone, it is a basic science class. Here we focus on learning antibiotics, treatments for disease and immune responses. This class is built the same way as physiology in the summer where every test had multiple choice and short answers. Even though this class is only 3 credits, its still very heavy material that requires a lot of studying.
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD, PhD & Nate Gardner PA-C
Text: PowerPoints (there is a recommended book but I study from his PPTs)
Health Policy
Just like all of Mark's classes, this class is focused on the world around us as PA's. Here we learn about the history of healthcare and health insurance, the rules and regulations to our job title and much more. This year this class involves the medical students. As PA students we are each part of a debate team with the medical students where we have to help argue a hot topic of discussion. Our participation is mainly the grade generated from this activity as we have our own tests in CPAS that make up most of our grades.
Instructor: Mark Stoddart PA-C
Text: The Health Care Handbook by Askin & Moore (<--- great book if you want to learn and understand healthcare and health insurance)
Clinical Skills Lab
The most hands on and fun class in PA school so far! (in my opinion). We get to practice various skills like splinting, ABG's, intubation, suturing and go to retirement homes and nursing homes to interview and perform physicals on REAL PATIENTS. Finally, I feel like all of this time spending with one another in the classroom has paid off because we actually feel like we know something when we get to chat with patients. Each time we go to the nursing home we have a full write-up like we would do with a real patient after a visit and those are graded as well as our completion of the hands-on skills.
Instructor: Chris Carlin PA-C
Text: None
Clinical Competency Examination II
Same as CCE I but here we are getting a chief complaint from the patient and have to perform a pertinent physical exam on them while asking some important history questions to narrow down a diagnosis. This term we will only have cases that focus on one body system such as chest pain-MI, but next term we get to involve multiple systems like edema-CHF.
This is an extension of the FCM I class we had in the summer but this term focuses on geriatrics, endocrine, orthopedics, surgery/dental, dermatology, rheumatology, and infectious disease. It seems like this FCM is much more direct on what we should and don't have to know for the tests which makes studying much easier. Nevertheless, this class is 6 credits so there is also some stress when it comes to studying for FCM.
Instructor: Kim Bachta PA-C, Patty Pulver PA-C, Chris Carlin PA-C
Text: Current 2015, various other specialty books all available online if needed
Pharmacology I
First thing, this class is much different than I expected. So we have guest speakers just like in FCM but for every hour a guest speaker talks, he/she gets to make 4 questions for our test. This is good and bad. Good because whatever the speaker focuses on will be the test topic and there will be little to no outside reading if we pay attention in class. Bad because each speaker asks questions differently which can cause some stress while taking the test. This class is only 2 credits but there are only 3 core tests and then a final. Our grades solely depend on how we do on the tests.
Instructor: Keller
Text: Guest speaker notes
Diagnostic Methods III
Just as the first two terms, this DM is about laboratory tests, imaging, and procedures for whatever we are learning in FCM. The curriculum corresponds nicely with FCM and other classes which makes learning these topics easier and more concrete.
Instructor: Deb Wright PA-C, Kim Bachta PA-C
Text: Same as DM II for Radiographs
Immunology and Microbial Disease
Taught by Dr. Crone, it is a basic science class. Here we focus on learning antibiotics, treatments for disease and immune responses. This class is built the same way as physiology in the summer where every test had multiple choice and short answers. Even though this class is only 3 credits, its still very heavy material that requires a lot of studying.
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD, PhD & Nate Gardner PA-C
Text: PowerPoints (there is a recommended book but I study from his PPTs)
Health Policy
Just like all of Mark's classes, this class is focused on the world around us as PA's. Here we learn about the history of healthcare and health insurance, the rules and regulations to our job title and much more. This year this class involves the medical students. As PA students we are each part of a debate team with the medical students where we have to help argue a hot topic of discussion. Our participation is mainly the grade generated from this activity as we have our own tests in CPAS that make up most of our grades.
Instructor: Mark Stoddart PA-C
Text: The Health Care Handbook by Askin & Moore (<--- great book if you want to learn and understand healthcare and health insurance)
Clinical Skills Lab
The most hands on and fun class in PA school so far! (in my opinion). We get to practice various skills like splinting, ABG's, intubation, suturing and go to retirement homes and nursing homes to interview and perform physicals on REAL PATIENTS. Finally, I feel like all of this time spending with one another in the classroom has paid off because we actually feel like we know something when we get to chat with patients. Each time we go to the nursing home we have a full write-up like we would do with a real patient after a visit and those are graded as well as our completion of the hands-on skills.
Instructor: Chris Carlin PA-C
Text: None
Clinical Competency Examination II
Same as CCE I but here we are getting a chief complaint from the patient and have to perform a pertinent physical exam on them while asking some important history questions to narrow down a diagnosis. This term we will only have cases that focus on one body system such as chest pain-MI, but next term we get to involve multiple systems like edema-CHF.
Fourth Didactic Term: Spring 2016
Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine III
This is another extension of the previous FCM classes we had. This term focuses on the last few systems of our didactic career: hematology, ENT, oncology, pediatrics, urology, ophthalmology, gynecology, obstetrics, and neurology.Again, this class is 6 credits but there are some extra components this term that help cushion our grades like 4 SOAP notes.
Instructor: Chris Carlin PA-C
Text: Current 2015, various other specialty books all available online if needed
Pharmacology II
This is just an extension of the first term of pharmacology. During this term we cover more cardiac drugs, psychiatric drugs and much more. This class is only 2 credits but there are only 3 core tests and then a final. Our grades solely depend on how we do on the tests.
Instructor: Dr. Keller
Text: Guest speaker notes
Counseling and Preventative Medicine
This class is a lot of fun! We learn some common sense topics about how to talk to patients but then also think more deeply about the difficult situations. We have a lot of standardize patient interactions where we get to practice these skills. Even though this is one of the most fun classes, it is a very important fundamental class in our patient communication as PA's.
Instructor: Nate Gardner PA-C
Text: Lectures and various texts
Research Methods
Taught by Dr. Crone, this class helps us build research to answer a clinical question. We first form a PICO question, (patient, intervention, comparison and outcome) and then find studies to put together a very small meta-analysis-like paper and poster. In our last year as PA-S's we will present our posters and teach others about what we have learned.
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD-PhD
Text: None, this is project based
Community Health
This class focuses on the common issues around us. We focus on various issues such as epidemiology, population health, environmental health, adolescent health etc. There is a lot of group work in this class discussing and preparing for those discussions. We also have a culture presentation where we lecture on a particular population. These presentations are pretty awesome because they are topics we all know very little about, for example, medicine in Haiti, India, Russia, Mexico, China etc and even topics of specific religions like Scientology, Christian Scientists, Judiasm, Jehovah's Witnesses and many more.
Instructor: Mark Stoddart PA-C
Text: An Introduction to Community Health by: McKenzie and Pinger
Final Clinical Competency Examination III
Last term of CCE! As mentioned before, we have a patient who presents with a common problem that is multisystem. For example, CHF, PUD, COPD, Lyme Disease, Thyroid disease etc. We have to perform as many physcial exams as necessary to diagnose a condition. Say someone is presenting with SOB, we will think they could have CHF, COPD, PE, MI, PTX, Pna etc. We will check their heart, lungs, muscular skeletal system and peripheral vascular system to make sure nothing is compromised and find any other symptoms to lead us to a particular diagnosis.
After rotations, part of our final exam to pass PA school is to interact with 6 different patient encounters and essentially perform CCE on all of them! Hopefully, this will be much easier after we have gone through rotations and interacted, diagnosed and treated many patients for a year already.
This is another extension of the previous FCM classes we had. This term focuses on the last few systems of our didactic career: hematology, ENT, oncology, pediatrics, urology, ophthalmology, gynecology, obstetrics, and neurology.Again, this class is 6 credits but there are some extra components this term that help cushion our grades like 4 SOAP notes.
Instructor: Chris Carlin PA-C
Text: Current 2015, various other specialty books all available online if needed
Pharmacology II
This is just an extension of the first term of pharmacology. During this term we cover more cardiac drugs, psychiatric drugs and much more. This class is only 2 credits but there are only 3 core tests and then a final. Our grades solely depend on how we do on the tests.
Instructor: Dr. Keller
Text: Guest speaker notes
Counseling and Preventative Medicine
This class is a lot of fun! We learn some common sense topics about how to talk to patients but then also think more deeply about the difficult situations. We have a lot of standardize patient interactions where we get to practice these skills. Even though this is one of the most fun classes, it is a very important fundamental class in our patient communication as PA's.
Instructor: Nate Gardner PA-C
Text: Lectures and various texts
Research Methods
Taught by Dr. Crone, this class helps us build research to answer a clinical question. We first form a PICO question, (patient, intervention, comparison and outcome) and then find studies to put together a very small meta-analysis-like paper and poster. In our last year as PA-S's we will present our posters and teach others about what we have learned.
Instructor: Dr. Crone MD-PhD
Text: None, this is project based
Community Health
This class focuses on the common issues around us. We focus on various issues such as epidemiology, population health, environmental health, adolescent health etc. There is a lot of group work in this class discussing and preparing for those discussions. We also have a culture presentation where we lecture on a particular population. These presentations are pretty awesome because they are topics we all know very little about, for example, medicine in Haiti, India, Russia, Mexico, China etc and even topics of specific religions like Scientology, Christian Scientists, Judiasm, Jehovah's Witnesses and many more.
Instructor: Mark Stoddart PA-C
Text: An Introduction to Community Health by: McKenzie and Pinger
Final Clinical Competency Examination III
Last term of CCE! As mentioned before, we have a patient who presents with a common problem that is multisystem. For example, CHF, PUD, COPD, Lyme Disease, Thyroid disease etc. We have to perform as many physcial exams as necessary to diagnose a condition. Say someone is presenting with SOB, we will think they could have CHF, COPD, PE, MI, PTX, Pna etc. We will check their heart, lungs, muscular skeletal system and peripheral vascular system to make sure nothing is compromised and find any other symptoms to lead us to a particular diagnosis.
After rotations, part of our final exam to pass PA school is to interact with 6 different patient encounters and essentially perform CCE on all of them! Hopefully, this will be much easier after we have gone through rotations and interacted, diagnosed and treated many patients for a year already.