| Wake Forest School of Medicine | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1902 |
| Type | Private |
| Dean | Edward Abraham, M.D.[1] |
| Academic staff | 1,550[2] |
| Students | 477 M.D. 323 Graduate 106 P.A. |
| Location | Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
| Website | wakehealth.edu/school |
The Wake Forest School of Medicine is the medical school of Wake Forest University, located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is affiliated with North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Physicians, forming part of the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center system. It is currently the largest employer[3] in Forsyth County.
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In 1902, the two-year Wake Forest College Medical School was founded on the college campus in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Thirteen students made up the charter medical class. Tuition was $37.50 per term; additional fees were charged for laboratories and student health care.[4]
In 1908, The Journal of the American Medical Association listed the Wake Forest College Medical School as one of only eleven, including Johns Hopkins and Harvard, that require two years of college work for entrance. The 1935 Carnegie Foundation Flexner Report described the School of Medicine's laboratory facilities as "models in their way. Everything about them indicates intelligence and earnestness. The dissecting room is clean and odorless, the bodies undergoing dissection being cared for in the most approved modern manner."[5]
The Flexner report also urged the closure of two-year medical schools, and the Wake Forest medical school moved to Winston-Salem in 1941 and became a four-year school. The medical school was renamed the Bowman Gray School of Medicine and created the first department of medical genetics in the country.[6] The rest of Wake Forest University would follow the medical school to Winston-Salem in 1956.
A few years earlier, in 1923, the Southern Baptist denomination had established a charity hospital in Winston-Salem, the North Carolina Baptist Hospital.[7] The city was chosen because the Chamber of Commerce pledged to meet the requirements of providing a suitable building site (“wilds of Ardmore”) and $100,000 toward the construction of the facilities. The School of Medicine was founded in association with the hospital, and today both are operated under the umbrella organization Wake Forest Baptist Health.
In 1997, the school was renamed the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, while the medical school campus became the Bowman Gray Campus. In 2011, the name would be changed slightly again to the Wake Forest School of Medicine as a part of an organization-wide rebranding effort.[8]
A flurry of building projects costing a total of over $700 billion greatly expanded the School of Medicine and medical center campus in the 1990s and 2000s.[9] These projects include Ardmore Tower, J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation, CompRehab Plaza, Brenner Children's Hospital, Nutrition Building, Outpatient Comprehensive Cancer Center, Piedmont Triad Research Park, and Richard H. Dean Biomedical Research Building. The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine was established in 2004 and has since risen to national prominence.[10][11]
Students applying to the Wake Forest School of Medicine are required to take the MCAT. The undergraduate coursework requirements include 8 semester hours of zoology or biology, 8 semester hours of general physics, 8 semester hours of general chemistry, and 8 semester hours of organic chemistry. The average MCAT subject score for students admitted for the class of 2015 was a 10.7, and the average total MCAT was 32.1. The median GPA for those accepted was a 3.58, and 6 students had advanced degrees prior to applying. Overall, 7,391 students applied for admission and 543 were interviewed for 120 spots.[12] Enrolled students are issued an IBM ThinkPad computer and personal printer.
In the 2011 U.S. News & World Report, Wake Forest University School of Medicine was ranked 37th best in the nation for primary care and 45th for research.[13] Wake Forest also ranks in the top third of U.S. medical schools in federal NIH funding.[14]
| Wake Forest School of Medicine Curriculum | ||
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Year 1
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Year 2
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Year 3
Year 4
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Wake Forest School of Medicine is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education to grant the M.D. degree.[15]
During the first year, basic science courses and introduction to medicine classes are taught, while the second year focuses on pathophysiology of disease and is organized by systems. The third and fourth years of medical education consist of clinical rotation in which the students are members of the medical team learning to treat patients in a hospital setting. Third year students rotate through a series of required clerkships, while the fourth year allows for students to choose their rotations based on their interests and future career plans, including time for research or away rotations at other institutions. Students also have the opportunity to do electives in foreign countries and gain exposure to the differences in care in other countries.[16]
The School of Medicine offers an M.D./M.A. joint degree in bioethics as well as an M.D./Ph.D. program with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, an M.D./M.B.A. program with the Babcock Graduate School of Management, and an M.D./M.S. in Clinical and Population Translational Sciences with the Department of Public Health Sciences.[17]
The School of Medicine has the following clinical departments: anesthesiology, dentistry, dermatology, emergency medicine, family and community medicine, internal medicine, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, pediatrics, psychiatry and behavioral medicine, radiation oncology, radiology, cardiothoracic surgery, general surgery, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopaedic surgery, otolaryngology, plastic and reconstructive surgery, urology, and vascular and endovascular surgery.
The basic science departments are: biochemistry, cancer biology, microbiology and immunology, neurobiology and anatomy, physiology and pharmacology, biostatistical sciences, and biomedical engineering.
Other departments include: physician assistant studies, public health sciences, epidemiology and prevention, and social sciences and health policy.
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Students participate in a number of volunteer and common-interest organizations. The Delivering Equal Access to Care (DEAC) Clinic is a student-run clinic to serve uninsured, low-income residents of Winston-Salem.[18] Oasis is an online magazine that publishes student artistic and literary works.[19] Other student organizations include interest groups that correspond with particular specialties and Wake Forest chapters of the American Medical Association, Student National Medical Association, and Operation Smile. Many students are also active in intramural sports organized through the university.
A significant number of students also participate in research, and the Medical Student Research Program funds student research projects over the summer between their first and second years.[20] The School of Medicine also participates in the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship program, with a number of students winning fellowships each year.[21]
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