Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Recruiting Charter Class

Nestled near the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute, or VTC, in Roanoke is gearing up for next year. Specifically, the school of medicine is getting the word out to recruit its first class of 42 students for fall 2010.

After receiving preliminary accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in June, the nation's 131st allopathic medical school has been added to the national recruiting list of the American Medical College Application Service. The list links applicants to VTC's Web site and introduces them to family physician Cynda Johnson, M.D., M.B.A., the new medical school's founding dean and president.

"Everything I've done as a family doctor will probably shape this school," Johnson told AAFP News Now. "That means values such as being patient-centered, treating the whole person, the communication and the continuity."

Although the medical school will not cater exclusively to primary care specialties, said FP Mark Greenawald, M.D., of Roanoke, Va., it does include a department of family medicine. According to Greenawald, who has been tapped to head that department, the school has a teaching philosophy that revolves around the patient, use of collaborative care teams and the value of multiple health disciplines' perspectives.

Reflecting a partnership between the science and research strengths of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, known as Virginia Tech, in nearby Blacksburg and the medical education experience of the Roanoke-based Carilion Clinic, Johnson said the medical school's curriculum will reflect four "value domains": basic sciences, clinical sciences, research and interprofessionalism.

From the first day, she said, students working in small groups will be presented a patient case and begin exploring it with a facilitator. Interactive discussions, hands-on laboratories and clinical skills sessions will characterize the educational experience.

In addition, medical, nursing and allied health professions students will take courses together and collaborate on a service-oriented learning project in the community.

Teaching the finer points of research also is important in the curriculum, said Johnson. In their first year, medical students will learn research principles and choose a project with the goal of presenting a publishable paper by the time they graduate. The emphasis will be on translational research that goes "from the bench to the bedside" and on into the community, she said, allowing students to quickly grasp the integration of clinical and basic sciences.

For this unusual environment, the medical school is seeking students who want to be lifelong physician-learners, are comfortable in a team environment, and show creativity and originality, Johnson said.

"It's an amazing opportunity when a medical school can start from scratch. We can put it all together and be innovative," she said.

Greenawald -- the son of retired FP Henry Greenawald of Harrisburg, Pa. -- said the creation of the school's family medicine department makes an important statement about the future of the U.S. health care system and the efforts to redesign the specialty of family medicine. He told AAFP News Now he sees himself as a "catalyst" for getting students excited about primary care.

Greenawald said he and other faculty are developing what they've dubbed the Longitudinal Ambulatory Care Experience program, which will expose students to ambulatory medicine and mentoring by a group of family and other primary care physicians during their first two years of medical school.

Premedical students at Virginia Tech also will rotate with family physicians in the Carilion Clinic network to encourage a pipeline of future FPs, Greenawald said. The department also wants both medical and premedical students to become comfortable with the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, he said.

In fact, during the next 18 months, the department will be urging family medicine practices within the Carilion Clinic network to seek recognition as Level 3 PCMHs -- the highest level designated by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. The goal, said Greenawald, is for all students who rotate with a family physician to be immersed in that practice environment.

"We're innovative on both the medical school and the practice sides," he said. "We're looking into the future. What is the physician of the future going to need?"

The result of a public-private partnership between Virginia Tech and the Carilion Clinic, VTC's $59 million, 150,000-square-foot facility is under construction in southwest Roanoke near Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

The new medical school's location -- among a glut of rural and medically underserved communities -- also is expected to encourage the cultivation of family and other primary care physicians. The medical school will recruit, in part, from a pool of area students who attend such nearby colleges as Virginia Tech, Radford (Va.) University, and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Greenawald said.

"One of the biggest predictors of students going into family medicine is where they grew up," he explained. "So if we're drawing from rural areas, we know these students are the most likely to be interested in primary care. If you bring those students in and expose them correctly, a portion will choose family medicine."