Scholarly Projects Program

The Scholarly Projects Program (SPP) links medical students with faculty mentors to explore an area of medical practice or research with the aim of creating new knowledge. We encourage students to select a project that allows for immersion with the hope that this experience will consolidate the learning developed through Fundamentals and the Major Clinical Year into an individual professional passion.

Students have four to ten months of protected time during Differentiation and Integration to finish a scholarly project, which may be completed in continuous or divided blocks. All students are required to complete a scholarly project, though students who complete a second academic degree during medical school may elect to apply their dual-degree experience in fulfillment of the scholarly project requirement.

Students wishing to complete projects longer than four months enroll in the Scholarly Projects Plus program and need to meet with the SPP Director to develop an individualized learning plan (ILP) as part of their project review process.

The SPP aims to develop students’ abilities in the following schoolwide learning objectives: (1) generate hypotheses, exhibit curiosity, and develop a pattern of lifelong learning, and (2) participate in the process through which new knowledge is generated and assess the importance of novel ideas.

Specifically, students completing the SPP will have the opportunity to ask innovative questions, deepen their experience of medicine, and contribute to the academic environment.

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