Collegiate Times

The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine reached out to prospective students in an information session Thursday night that emphasized a unique educational experience based on four individual value domains.

Cynda Johnson, Dean of the VTC School of Medicine, said she is excited for the opportunity to meet with prospective students.

"I am really looking forward to tonight," Johnson said. "We have not had the opportunity to advertise to students until we got accredited, which happened during the first week of June this year."

Tim Johnson, the associate dean for research for VTC, said that research is one of the four major domains of the curriculum.

"It is a four yearlong exposure to research," Tim Johnson said. "The first year is instructional, and the second, third, and fourth years are actually the practice of research."

Tim Johnson said that a part of his responsibilities would be to help students identify any areas or mentors that will lead them in their research projects.

"We are interested in developing the student's research process instead of having them produce an actual product, although they will eventually, they will produce a product of publishable quality," Tim Johnson said. "We are interested in this process to the extent that it allows them to develop these research skills and techniques."

Students will be working with mentors from Tech as well as Carilion and other affiliated institutions, Tim Johnson said.

Cynda Johnson said the four domains of VTC separate the medical school from others around the country.

"We have (VTC) based on four value domains, which are basic and clinical science, inter-professionalism and research," Cynda Johnson said. "Those four foundations are integrated through all four years of the medical, so it is not split up into little pieces, so from day one we will be integrating and putting together clinical and basic science and teaching on a case-based method."

Tim Johnson said that students are going to work on the same project throughout all of their time at VTC.

"They will not really have their project created and out the door until sometime during the fourth year," Tim Johnson said. "All of our students will be placed with very competent mentors and very accomplished laboratories, but their impact on the overall theme of things will be seen as the conclusion of their research project."

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