Southern Illinois University School of Medicine is a
medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...
located in
Springfield, the capital of the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...
of
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. It is part of the
Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois.
Board of trustees
The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...
system, which includes a campus in
Edwardsville as well as the flagship in
Carbondale. The medical school was founded in 1970 and achieved full accreditation in 1972. It was founded to relieve a chronic shortage of
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
s in
downstate Illinois
Downstate Illinois refers to the part of the U.S. state of Illinois south of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is in the northeast corner of the state and has been dominant in American history, politics, and culture. It is defined as the part ...
.
Notability
SIU was once the only medical school in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
with its main campus outside of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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or its suburbs until the
Carle Illinois College of Medicine
The Carle Illinois College of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Called the "World's First Engineering-Based College of Medicine," the school trains physician-innovators by integrating several engineer ...
was formed in 2018 (although the
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...
does maintain
satellites in
Peoria and
Rockford). SIU was early to incorporate
problem-based learning
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of solving an open-ended problem found in trigger material. The PBL process does not focus on problem solving with a define ...
(PBL) into their curricula (see below) and "standardized patients" for medical student testing purposes. Being able to interact with standardized patients now comprises the majority of one of the four major exams that all US allopathic medical students must pass (the USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills). SIU students begin care of patients in a clinical setting within the first two weeks of classes. By the end of their first trimester, they are tested on their ability to obtain medical histories from, examine, and diagnose the diseases simulated by standardized patients. Such education measures and SIU's large primary care faculty led ''
U.S. News & World Report'' to rank SIU in the top 10 medical schools in the country for primary care in the early 1990s. However, for the 2021 ''U.S. News & World Report'' rankings, SIU was Unranked in both Primary Care and Research.
SIU students also receive in depth training in medicolegal issues thanks to the medical school's close relationship with the
Southern Illinois University School of Law
Southern Illinois University School of Law (SIU Law) is one of four public law schools in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in Carbondale, Illinois, it is the only law school in the southern region of Illinois.
History
The Southern Illinois Uni ...
and the retention of
attorneys on its Springfield faculty in the Department of Medical Humanities.
In 2013, SIU School of Medicine was the only medical school in the world to receive three international ASPIRE awards for medical education from the Internationa
Association for Medical Education in Europe(AMEE).
In 2015, the School of Medicine received its second consecutive LCME accreditation with no findings of concern – a rare achievement among medical schools.
In 2016, Dr. Jerry Kruse began serving as the dean and provost, only the fourth dean in the medical school's 45-year history.
Curriculum
The School of Medicine offers the following degree programs: medical, MD/MPH, MD/JD, doctoral, master's, and physician assistant studies.
The School of Medicine has more than 300 full-time faculty members as well as more than 900 part-time and volunteer faculty members.
Medical students spend the first year at the main campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale before moving to Springfield. Physician assistant students learn during their first year at the Carbondale campus.
SIU-Med employs
problem-based learning
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of solving an open-ended problem found in trigger material. The PBL process does not focus on problem solving with a define ...
, which involves using small groups of students, along with a faculty mentor. The students are presented with a clinical scenario and must approach it as if they were trying to diagnose and treat a real patient. Each clinical scenario is accessed on a secure website that provides information about the patient. When the students face basic science and clinical problems that they do not know, they incorporate these issues into a list and divide the list amongst themselves for self-directed learning. At their next faculty-supervised meeting, the students teach each other what they have learned, with input also provided on the topics by the faculty member. Each case also has set learning issues, so that all students in all the small groups within the class learn the objectives planned by the faculty in both basic and clinical science for that particular case. Each case is designed to be completed over three meetings lasting around 9 hours in total. This style of learning is also used with traditional lectures and laboratory sessions over the first two years of medical school. Simulated patients and nurse educators are also used to assist with learning clinical skills. Since it is more interactive, these methods promote better problem-solving skills useful in real life situations than traditional lecture-based learning. Nearly every medical school in the U.S. uses the problem-based learning model.
Patient care
Training programs in Springfield are supported primarily by the city's two large tertiary care hospitals –
Memorial Medical Center (507 beds) and HSHS
St. John's Hospital (431 beds). Combined, these hospitals have more than 45,000 admissions and more than 123,000 emergency room visits annually. Services include the only Level 1 trauma center in the area between Peoria and St. Louis and a regional burn center. SIU has additional affiliations with hospitals in Quincy, Decatur, and Carbondale. Outreach clinics go to 100 sites in 46 communities. SIU partners with many hospitals and addition clinics in other communities in central and southern Illinois.
To complement the hospital-based setting
SIU HealthCare the ambulatory clinics of SIU School of Medicine, employ nearly 300 full-time physicians who supervise more than 477,000 clinic visits per year in our primary and specialty care clinics as well as approximately 145,000 hospital visits. The patient base of the Springfield region includes more than 500,000 people in at least 10 counties.
The Simmons Cancer Institute at SIU has dedicated clinics for patients with
breast
The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues.
In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and secret ...
,
colorectal
The large intestine, also known as the large bowel, is the last part of the gastrointestinal tract and of the digestive system in tetrapods. Water is absorbed here and the remaining waste material is stored in the rectum as feces before being ...
, gynecologic,
head and neck
This article describes the anatomy of the head and neck of the human body, including the brain, bones, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, glands, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, and throat.
Structure Bones
The head rests on the top part of the vertebra ...
,
hematologic
Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...
,
skin
Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation.
Other cuticle, animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have diffe ...
, pediatric,
prostate
The prostate is both an Male accessory gland, accessory gland of the male reproductive system and a muscle-driven mechanical switch between urination and ejaculation. It is found only in some mammals. It differs between species anatomically, ...
, and
lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...
.
Research
Research at SIU School of Medicine, as of 2016, consists of numerous projects underway in 100-plus laboratories. Notable areas of research include hearing loss, including tinnitus, noise-induced and age-related hearing loss, Alzheimer's Disease and aging. One of the other leading areas of research at SIU is in oncology, with the Simmons Cancer Institute at SIU being the largest oncology facility in Illinois outside of Chicago. Ongoing research includes projects on basic molecular mechanism of tumorigenesis, identifying molecular biomarkers for early detection of cancer, developing an effective vaccine against herpes simplex and identifying targets for molecular level cancer treatment. The Springfield Combined Laboratory Facility is a five-story building, and an additional facility that houses immunology and virology laboratories and a biomedical research imaging suite. The Springfield and Carbondale campuses have multiple other medical research buildings. For the 2021 ''U.S. News & World Report'' rankings, SIU was Unranked in Research.
[
]
HSV Vaccine Controversy
A Herpes Simplex Virus
Herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2), also known by their taxonomical names ''Human alphaherpesvirus 1'' and '' Human alphaherpesvirus 2'', are two members of the human ''Herpesviridae'' family, a set of viruses that produce viral inf ...
vaccine developed at SIU School of Medicine came to be at the center of a 2017 controversy over human trials. Clinical trial
Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, dietar ...
s were conducted without institutional review board
An institutional review board (IRB), also known as an independent ethics committee (IEC), ethical review board (ERB), or research ethics board (REB), is a committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ens ...
oversight and approval, and in apparent violation of SIU and federal
Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to:
Politics
General
*Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies
*Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
rules for medical research. The findings were rejected from peer-review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
academic publication
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
for both scientific and ethical deficiencies. Investigations were later launched by the St. Kitts and Nevis Ministry of Health and Social Services, the United States Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is " ...
, and SIU's institutional review board.
Residency programs
SIU School of Medicine offers 2
residency programs
in dermatology
Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medical ...
, emergency medicine
Emergency medicine is the medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians (often called “ER doctors” in the United States) continuously learn to care for unsche ...
, family medicine
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primary ...
(5 programs at 5 sites), general surgery
General surgery is a surgical specialty that focuses on alimentary canal and abdominal contents including the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, appendix and bile ducts, and often the thyroid ...
, internal medicine, medicine/psychiatry, neurology
Neurology (from el, wikt:νεῦρον, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine), medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of co ...
, neurological surgery
Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...
, obstetrics and gynecology
Obstetrics and Gynaecology (also spelled as Obstetrics and Gynecology; abbreviated as Obs and Gynae, O&G, OB-GYN and OB/GYN) is the medical specialty that encompasses the two subspecialties of obstetrics (covering pregnancy, childbirth, and t ...
, orthopedics and rehabilitation, otolaryngology
Otorhinolaryngology ( , abbreviated ORL and also known as otolaryngology, otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (ORL–H&N or OHNS), or ear, nose, and throat (ENT)) is a surgical subspeciality within medicine that deals with the surgical a ...
, pediatrics
Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until th ...
, plastic and reconstructive surgery
''Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal and the official publication of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. It covers all aspects of plastic and reconstructive surgery
Reconstructive surgery is surgery p ...
, psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
Initial psych ...
, radiology
Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiat ...
, urology
Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and '' -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary-tract system and the reproductive org ...
, and vascular surgery
Vascular surgery is a surgical subspecialty in which diseases of the vascular system, or arteries, veins and lymphatic circulation, are managed by medical therapy, minimally-invasive catheter procedures and surgical reconstruction. The specialty ...
. It has fellowships in adult reconstructive surgery, cardiology, child and adolescent psychiatry, colon and rectal surgery, endocrinology hand surgery, hematology
Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...
/oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...
, infectious diseases, pulmonary critical care, and sports medicine.
Library and budget
The SIU School of Medicine Medical Library houses more than 108,000 volumes, 3,300 print and electronic periodicals, 3,900 audiovisual programs, and a collection of historical medical documents. SIU's total annual budget is approximately $159 million; $10.8 million is from state appropriations.
Notable Achievements
* One of only two medical schools in the world to receive 5 awards from internationally acclaimed ASPIRE program (AMEE)
* One of only 5 lung volume reduction programs in the nation
* First medical school to publish detailed objectives of entire M.D. curriculum
* First to implement a clinical performance exam
References
External links
Official website
{{authority control
Medical schools in Illinois
Southern Illinois University system
Universities and colleges in Springfield, Illinois