In order to understand how Illinois' program is different, you must first understand how traditional schools work. In a traditional curriculum students spend their first year learning about what is "normal" - that is, anatomy, histology, physiology ect. In their second year they learn "abnormal" - so parasitology, immunology, ect. Then in third year they learn how to treat diseases and also begin surgery. Forth year, the students are no longer in class and are instead in the clinics diagnosing and treating real cases alongside clinicians. Most students do not get any sort of clinical experience at all in their first two years and limited exposure in their third year. While this is a fine way to learn (they have been doing it forever and producing amazing vets, so it has to work), it does create a steep learning curve for 4th year. Not only do you have to apply everything you have learned in the past 3 years, you have to learn how to present yourself in a clinic setting, learn to run and interpret tests, learn new computer programs, learn your way around... well, you get my point. There is a reason that the 4th years look like very scared zombies.
Our curriculum is different in multiple ways, the most evident being that we have 24 more weeks of clinical experience than traditional schools. In fact, we begin our education by spending the first 8 weeks of school in the clinics shadowing 4th year students. This gives the new students a chance to see how the teaching hospital is run and what is expected of them once they hit 4th year. We also learned basic handling, suturing, physical exams and other basic procedures. It is the hope that this experience will give us a good foundation to base our further education on.
In our second year, we get to spend another 8 weeks in clinics. This time we refine the skills we learned prior and also get to have more responsibilities in assisting the 4th year students. Then in our third year, we immediately begin surgery at the beginning of the year and the last 8 weeks of our third year we jump into clinics and take over for the leaving 4th years. This is because in the last 8 weeks of our 4th year, before graduation, we get to choose what to do. They explained this period as a time to interview for jobs, do off site rotations, begin internships, and other pre-graduation education. I'm not sure I really understand it, just yet, but I am sure we'll figure it out when it comes time.
My first experience with clinicals was amazing. I came into vet school with very little large animal experience, so I was thrilled that I got assigned three large animal rotations: Equine Medicine and Sugery, Farm Animal Medicine and Surgery, and Dairy Cattle Medicine. My dairy rotation was by far my most educational and fun rotation. Other rotations that I had included: Ophthalmology, Anesthesia, Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Small Animal Soft Tissue Surgery, and Emergency Medicine. All of them were very educational for me and I had a lot of fun on most. Some of my classmates felt overwhelmed, ignored at times, or bored with certain rotations. I feel as if the clinicians still aren't terribly comfortable to have us there, but that also this experience is what you make it. On my emergency rotation, I checked in when they weren't busy because I knew that things could change at any time while my other classmates on that rotation chose to stay in the back room to do their assignments.
Another big change in the curriculum is that instead of having several classes throughout the semester, we have one big superclass. Within this one class we have different professors teaching different material such as anatomy, histology, neurology, and physiology. However, we have one big test for all of the material. This means that our grades are usually composed of one midterm, one final and a couple of quizzes. That may seem scary to you. To have one test make up 30% of your 9-10 credit class is kinda weird. However, I really enjoy it. Not only does this make the professors work together to present the material and write the tests (so there is little confusion of opinions), but if you aren't doing so great in one section, you can still get an overall good grade as long as you do well enough on the other sections. This really helped me out last quarter as I was not doing well in respiratory physiology. If I had a test on respiratory phys., I would have failed it. But, because it was incorporated into a test with anatomy and histology (which I rocked at) and other sections, I was able to maintain my grade.
There are other little tweaks that I won't get into right now, cuz I have to get to bed, but this should give you an idea of our new curriculum. It really is an awesome way to learn. Our professors are always trying to tie in out experiences in clinics with what we are learning in class and it is extremely helpful for me. I am very much a "why" kind of learner and this curriculum is all about "WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS STUFF." That isn't to say that there are not downsides to this curriculum, but I feel as if this will someday be the norm among vet schools.
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