PURCH Coursework

Early Clinical Learning Experiences (ECL)

During the 18-month Discovery Phase, you'll have several early clinical learning educational sessions on Wednesdays at the Baystate campus. The ECL education components are: Small Group Sessions, Physical Diagnosis, Longitudinal Preceptor Program, Hospital Sessions, Multidisciplinary Rounds, and Ultrasound Training.

Small Group Sessions

You will develop a strong foundation in the Discovery Phase as you begin to form your professional identity as a physician. Through this mentored, skills-based curriculum you will integrate the 5 PURCH principles into your identity as a student, a citizen, and a physician. These sessions are taught by Baystate Community Faculty, core clinical and non-clinical faculty from Baystate Health, and Brightwood Learning Community Mentors.

Content covered in these sessions includes: the reflective practice, the medical interview, teamwork, advocacy, clinical reasoning, and oral presentations. You will also interact with patients, cultivating the skills to interview, examine, diagnose, treat, and educate them about their medical conditions and treatment recommendations. The impact of social determinants of health, social history, community influences, and resources on disease processes—with a focus on medically underserved communities—is emphasized in this course.

Physical Diagnosis

You will work with your Learning Community Mentors to develop expertise in the physical examination and acquire skills to maintain efficiency, respect, and trust. This includes the integration of trauma-informed physical exam concepts which incorporate specific language and behaviors that aim to enhance patients' sense of safety, autonomy, and trust.

Longitudinal Preceptorship Program (LPP)

You will be paired with a faculty physician preceptor in the beginning weeks of medical school, and will work with that same provider for 18 months as you practice the skills you learned in Small Group Sessions and Physical Diagnosis under direct supervision.

Hospital Sessions

You will build on the interview and physical examination skills learned through a series of observed hospital-based patient interview experiences at Baystate Medical Center. You'll also learn and practice the oral presentation.

Multidisciplinary Rounds

Working with nursing and pharmacy students you will come to understand the value of the interprofessional team. You will work through cases in small groups, practicing team-based patient-centered care. You will learn how to identify roles and responsibilities while embracing the PURCH principle of “ leaders who can be led”.

Point-of-Care Ultrasound Training

You will run simulation cases and learn hands-on skills in point-of-care ultrasonography using standardized patients and models.

Summer Community Health Assistantship (SCHA)

UMass Chan Medical School's optional Summer Community Health Assistantship offers students the opportunity to work in a wide variety of community-based health, education, and human service organizations during the summer months.

You do your SCHA at Baystate's Interprofessional Health Equity Incubator where you will explore the root causes, historical context, and impacts of health inequities, and engage with a community of interprofessional educators and students to brainstorm health equity solutions.

Core Clinical Experiences

During the Exploration Phase you rotate through all your third year clerkships at clinical sites within the UMass Chan-Baystate campus.

This longitudinal experience means you will have the opportunity to learn how to engage with your patients and your community through the 5 PURCH principles of being an excellent diagnostician, self-reflective, empathetic, team-oriented, and a leader who can be led.

Interprofessional resources you learned about during your early clinical experiences can now be called upon while caring for patients at Baystate Medical Center—for example, involving a community health worker to support a patient’s hospital discharge.

Required Clerkships

Clerkships in PURCH are organized in four 12-week blocks just as they are on the UMass Chan Medical School main campus:

1. Pediatrics and OB/GYN
2. Surgery and Radiology (1 week)
3. Psychiatry and Neurology
4. Internal Medicine

In addition, the Family Medicine Clerkship occurs longitudinally throughout all 4 blocks. You will have 1-2 week Family Medicine outpatient experiences per block. 

The core UMass Chan Medical School curriculum content, grading requirements, and testing are the same as for non-PURCH students.

Population & Community Health Clerkship (PCHC)

PCHC provides you with a meaningful 2-week, community-engaged experience in western Massachusetts to complement your preclinical coursework.

5 Years of PCHC @ PURCHMeet the students, community partners, and projects that have made such an impact!

This is an immersive experience—you will partner with a community-based organization that provides services in communities within Baystate Health’s primary catchment areas—Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties.

It is also an interprofessional experience—learners from other disciplines may be on your team.

To provide a meaningful longitudinal community-based experience, community partners are identified who can expand upon topics covered in the Discovery Phase. Examples may include: food insecurity, transportation justice, and veteran’s health and housing.

PCHC explores public health concepts such as, the effects of social determinants on the health of the population served by your community organization, how to examine populations as units of care, and how you might apply knowledge and understanding of community resources to advocate for your population of focus.

Embedded in a community organization, you will gain an understanding of how different health professionals and other local advocates work separately, and collaboratively, within their communities.

As part of your PCHC field experience you will work with a community faculty preceptor and an academic faculty preceptor to:

• Collect, synthesize, and manipulate relevant population-level data
• Identify interprofessional teams of care available to a population
• Explore ways organizations can advocate for a population
• Apply your knowledge toward a meaningful service project in the community

Throughout the two weeks you will reflect on your experiences and encounters with community members, advocates, and other organizations or care systems that you collaborate with.

At the end of the PCHC, you will present to UMass Chan-Baystate faculty, Baystate Health leadership, and community stakeholders, with the goal of recommending actionable strategies to advocate for your population of focus.

Flexible Professional Experiences

You will have opportunities to participate in a variety of flexible professional experiences throughout the Exploration phase.

There is a diverse offering of pre-designed experiences. You also have the option of creating a designer FPE—a novel, innovative educational experience to explore a passion, interest, or curiosity. This can be clinical or non-clinical (e.g. education, community service).

PURCH Interstitials

Previous topics have included:

• Culture of Safety
• Care of LGBTQ+ Patients
• Spirituality
• Caring for Patients with Substance Use Disorder
• Palliative and Hospice Care
• Trauma Informed Care
• Nutrition for the Hospitalized Patient

Horizons Phase Required Coursework

An Approved Acting Internship

You are required to complete your Acting Internships in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Surgery at UMass Chan-Baystate. The Family Medicine Acting Internship is completed at the Main Campus in Worcester.

Emergency Clinical Problem Solver (ECPS)

You are required to complete your ECPS course at UMass Chan-Baystate.

Information about ECPS on the UMass Chan website.

Advanced Biomedical and Translational Sciences (ABTS)

Your ABTS project must focus on a topic consistent with PURCH goals and priorities, but you may take this course on any campus.

Information about ABTS on the UMass Chan website.

Electives

While you may choose to do electives on any campus, the advantage of completing them at UMass Chan-Baystate is that many PURCH-specific options are offered here. Some recent examples include:

• Urban Community Health
• AHEC/PURCH Rural Health Elective
• Care of the Underserved
• PURCH Preventive Care: Design Your Own Mobile Health Clinic as a Model for Underserved Communities
• Medical Education and Leadership Elective

You also have the opportunity to design your own elective based on your interests.

 > Complete list of Baystate electives.