Pathways

Director: Dr. Firdaus Dhabhar
Description: Hippocrates said: “I’d rather know the PATIENT who has the disease, than know the disease the patient has.” Modern science could be used to do both, i.e., treat the patient and the disease together. Therefore, the overall goal of this pathway is to enable physicians to maximize healing and recovery by harnessing endogenous defenses that come from within the patient, while also applying all that medicine can provide from the outside. This pathway will explore how traditional and indigenous systems of medicine from across the world, and modern medical science, approach Mind-Body Medicine. We will delve into psycho-neuro-immune pathways and biological mechanisms through which the brain affects health and healing. We will also investigate mechanisms of resilience and well-being. Students will be encouraged, supported, and mentored to explore novel and potentially impactful ideas and hypotheses for their Capstone projects. It is hoped that the concepts, knowledge and experience gained through this pathway will be beneficial for pathway participants and for their future patients.

Click here to learn more about the Advancing Mind-Body Medicine Pathway.

Director: Dr. Noel Ziebarth
Description: To provide integrated medical and engineering training to prepare future physician innovators. In addition to course work in biomedical engineering, they will engage in a mentored capstone design project that addresses a specific healthcare need. Students will receive training in engineering design focused on medical devices and systems, and enhance their technical skills in areas including programming, data processing, device prototyping, and/or tissue engineering. Students will work under the supervision of a research mentor and may be partnered with a biomedical engineering capstone design team. 

 Click here to learn more about the Biomedical Engineering Pathway.

Directors: Drs. Sabrina Taldone, Jonathan Azoulai, and Dr. Bhavarth Shukla
Description: The Business of Medicine, Quality Improvement, and Patient Safety Pathway will help students to broaden their knowledge of the healthcare system and provide them with the skills and strategies needed to facilitate change within this structure. To prepare students to become transformative leaders, students should have a basic understanding of their role in the team of healthcare professionals within the framework of our healthcare system. As such, this course aims to provide students with a better understanding of how health care disciplines outside of medicine (such as nursing, pharmacy, laboratory, etc.) as well as business, administration, and public health fields, interact. One method of learning this cross-disciplinary intersection is through familiarizing oneself with the basics of quality improvement as it applies to health care. Students will expand their learning environment beyond the typical classroom and clinical settings in order to complete a practical, relevant QI project working in collaboration with health care administrators, allied health professionals, and interdisciplinary teams, ranging from business professionals to industrial engineers.

Click here to learn more about the Business of Medicine and Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Pathway.

Director: Dr. Carmen Gomez
Description: The pathway provides a means for medical students who may be interested in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, Surgery, or Oncology to gain broad and in-depth insights into the key role of the Pathologist as vital to the health care team and the significance of the Pathology Laboratory in research and patient care. Students will be expected to work closely with a faculty mentor. 

Click here to learn more about the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Pathway. 

Click here to view the syllabus.

Director: Dr. Melissa Fellman
Description: This pathway includes an integrated curriculum that enhances the study of clinical medicine by providing educational experiences in a variety of ethics and humanities-related interests including music, art, history, anthropology, literature, religious studies, philosophy, film and theater, as they relate to the medical profession. For centuries, medicine has been known as a learned profession.  Physicians have been celebrated not just for their clinical prowess or scientific expertise, but also for their work as writers, artists, musicians, theologians, philosophers, historians, and political advocates.  While relatively few physicians have gained fame in such areas, historically all physicians have been expected to participate in appreciating these activities—a well-respected physician appreciates the humanities and might attend the opera, appreciate poetry, discuss ethical questions thoughtfully, and participate in community leadership.  Such engagement has long been considered critical to professional development of every physician; it demonstrates that a practitioner truly appreciates the privilege of participating in the most intimate matters of life and death.

Although such expectations dwindled by the middle of the 20^th century, lately there has been a reemergence of interest in professionalism.  Medical organizations have promulgated charters of professionalism, and both undergraduate and graduate medical educators have incorporated educational outcomes in ethics and professionalism.  Indeed, as medicine has become increasingly a matter of cost containment and consumer satisfaction, there has been a yearning among physicians and patients for a return to a golden age of medicine, when physicians practiced the art of medicine and patients were neighbors and friends rather than consumers of health care. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is currently working on a monograph that will include a statement of need and a commitment to integrate the humanities and arts in medical education.

For this pathway, we define ethics/humanities (E/H) broadly to include any discipline or experience in the humanities that has been historically linked to the practice of medicine by practitioners or scholars: music, art, history, anthropology, literature, religious studies, and philosophy are examples.  By agreement with the Pathway in Social Medicine, students particularly interested in health policy, epidemiology, sociology, public health, and international health experiences should pursue that pathway.  We do see overlap (and occasional co-programming) with the Social Medicine Pathway, and we would not discourage E/H Pathway students whose work led them to focus on policy issues.  Indeed, all student projects in the E/H Pathway should be relevant to current issues in medicine, but the methods used will fit in the category traditionally defined as the humanities.  “Ethics” is part of the title of the E/H Pathway because ethics is the most readily identifiable aspect of the overlap between the humanities and medicine, and at this point is the most developed field of the humanities associated with the medical school.  

Click here to learn more about the Ethics, Humanities, and Health Law Pathway.

Directors: Drs. Joyce Kaufman, Chris Haggerty, Rachael Chait
Description: This pathway will provide select students with the opportunity to expand their focus beyond domestic borders and contribute to the strengthening of health and surgical systems at a global level. Students will develop skills within global health and surgery to perform research and advocacy work. This pathway is open to all students interested in global health with non-surgical or surgical interests. 

Key to the work of academic global health and surgery is equitable and long-term collaboration with low and middle income stakeholders. This pathway will allow for student-led research and innovation in partnership with local leaders to learn about access to health and surgical care, including timeliness, capacity, safety and affordability. The program in some cases will build on existing University of Miami partnerships. In others, it will contribute to the formation of strong relationships in other parts of the world, with the goal of equalizing access to the best standards and treatment options for patients regardless of their income level or place of residence in the world. Some examples of past lecture topics include Global Health Ethics, International Research Ethics in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC), Global Macroeconomics, Global Health Equity, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, and Global Surgery. 

Click here to learn more about the Global Health and Surgery Pathway.

Director: Drs. Sonjia Kenya and Lydia Fein
Description: The pathway is focused on developing skills to achieve health equity among all populations through innovative, nontraditional approaches. Learners will be introduced to health disparities in Miami-Dade, community-based strategies to deliver patient care, and cutting-edge approaches to address sexual health among vulnerable populations, including racial and sexual minorities (LGBTQ +). As Miami-Dade County is an epicenter for HIV and other sexual health issues, participants will be exposed to current initiatives to improve sexual health outcomes and patient-centered sexual health care delivery strategies for the County’s most vulnerable populations. 
All pathway sessions incorporate discussions involving various dynamics that impact health disparities, including the social determinants of health, delivering care in resource-poor settings, minority and immigrant health, health and development economics, gender equity, health as a human right, and other socio-cultural influences on health outcomes. The program includes didactic coursework, both required and elective; experiential learning; and self-learning activities, both conventional and web-based

Director: Drs. Michelle Schladant and Judith Simms-Cendan
Description: The maternal child health pathway is designed to empower medical students to become leaders in maternal health, child development, and family well-being. Students will gain invaluable, real-world insights through diverse experiences in pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology. Under expert mentorship, students will complete a scholarly project that demonstrates not just leadership but also effective meaningful systems-level changes for the maternal-child health population. 
 
This pathway is backed by the esteemed, federally-funded Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) training program at the Mailman Center for Child Development. Our holistic and comprehensive curriculum is focused on developing crucial skills in inter-professional teaming, engaging in enriching family-professional partnerships, and cultivating cultural humility while adopting a life course perspective in treating women and children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and special healthcare needs. 
 
Students will have the opportunity to participate with professionals and family members/people with disabilities in a dynamic learning environment, that includes online learning modalities, and small-group interactions with graduate students from 12 disciplines—pediatric medicine, psychology, nursing, social work, speech, and language pathology, and more.  

Click here to learn more about the Maternal and Child Health: Research, Advocacy, and Leadership Pathway.

Director: Dr. Nicole Sur
Description: The Pathway is a longitudinal experience focused on taking students through the basics of neuroscience and behavioral science (didactics) and the practice of clinical neurology, neurosurgery, and behavioral science (clinical electives), while providing guidance on career development strategies, career pathways (small group sessions, formal mentoring, exposure to professional societies, national meetings, networking, etc.). Additionally, students will be mentored through a research project of their choice focusing on the foundations of conducting research, from developing a clinical question and designing a study, to presenting/publishing their work. 

Click here to learn more about the Neuroscience Pathway.

Director: Drs. Emmanuel Thomas and Gina D'Amato
Description: Provide a means for medical students interested in the many topics encompassed by contemporary Oncology and related issues pertinent to our catchment area in South Florida to gain broad and in-depth insights in their relevance to the practice of medicine. In particular, students will gain knowledge in multiple areas of oncology.

Click here to learn more about Oncology and Related Health Disparities.

For addition information visit,

https://umiamihealth.org/sylvester-comprehensive-cancer-center/research/education-and-training/medical-students

Director: Dr. Lina Shehadeh
Description: Regenerative Medicine will consist of four subspecialized pathways corresponding to particular clinical topics or types of therapy: Cell and Gene Therapy, Cell Transplantation, Transplantation Immunology, Stem Cell Engineering. Students will initially complete didactic and research activities common to all sub pathways and then differentiate into focused areas.  

Click here to learn more about the Regenerative Medicine Pathway. 

Director: Dr. Kenneth Muller
Description: The pathway (1) trains you in biomedical research to generate a Capstone project, (2) enhances your suitability for residency programs, and (3) gives experience to keep you abreast of advances in your medical specialty and to evaluate those advances critically even after graduation.  To do this, the pathway taps into the expertise of a broad range of faculty whose research programs include collaborative translational projects involving rigorous research at the cellular and molecular level in 4 focus areas:

• Pharmacology and Drug Development 
• Physiology: from Molecules to Health 
• Translational Approaches of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 
• Translational Immunology and Infectious Disease 

Click here to learn more about the Translational and Molecular Medicine Pathway.

Director: Dr. Chris Alabiad
Description: The objectives of the pathway include exposing students to vision physiology and pathophysiology on a molecular level through seminars and didactics delivered by our faculty. This foundation will be supplemented by establishing a firm understanding of the scientific process and exposure to various wet bench techniques that will equip students to engage in scholarly research within the lab of one of the Bascom Palmer basic science faculty. Students exposure will also be broadened through Visiting professors who share their laboratory experiences and approaches as part of our Frontiers in vision science lecture series at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.

Click here to learn more about the Vision Science Pathway.