The Carle Illinois College of Medicine is the medical school of the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univers ...

. Called the "World's First Engineering-Based College of Medicine," the school trains physician-innovators by integrating several engineering and entrepreneurship approaches to healthcare into its medical training, and awards the degree of

M.D. Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. ...

upon graduation.

History

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine was established on March 12, 2015 after the University of Illinois Board of Trustees approved the creation of the new college. The college welcomed its inaugural class of 32 students on July 2, 2018. The engineering-based college of medicine currently offers an

degree focused at the intersection of medicine and engineering. The college offers an MD degree as well as an MD/ PhD program. All degrees earned at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine will be awarded by the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. In November 2015, it was announced that the University of Illinois and

Carle Foundation Hospital Carle Foundation Hospital is a 433-bed regional care hospital in Urbana, Illinois, United States, that has achieved Magnet designation. It is owned by the not-for-profit (NFPO) Carle Foundation, which also consists of Carle Physician Group and H ...

had signed a 10-year research affiliation agreement with the intent to encourage and enable new biomedical advances at the newly formed college of medicine. Dr.

Rashid Bashir Rashid Bashir is Dean of The Grainger College of Engineering, Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering and Professor of Bioengineering, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was the Executive Associate Dean and Chief Diversity O ...

and Dr. Robert Good were selected as co-chairs for the Core Curriculum Group committee charged with designing the curriculum for the college. Dr. Bashir was hired as the executive associate dean of the college in September 2017. In August 2016, King Li was named the first Dean of the college of medicine. The vision for an engineering-based medical education program gathered momentum after the University of Illinois released the results of its 2013 Visioning Future Excellence project in combination with its strategic planning process and an economic development report. Together, these visioning documents identified three major areas of positive academic, social and economic growth: data analytics, energy, and biomedical/bio-engineering. Included with the biomedical vision is the concept of an engineering-based college of medicine, which allows both University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Carle Hospital to leverage their substantial assets and skills in a truly groundbreaking endeavor. In July 2015, a key milestone was achieved with the University of Illinois Board of Trustees approving the definitive agreement between Carle and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On November 3, 2015, the first major step toward naming the Carle Illinois College of Medicine's founding dean began with the naming of a diverse 17-member committee to initiate the dean search. This became the first new college at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1957. Carle Illinois received preliminary LCME accreditation on October 10, 2017 and is expected to receive full LCME accreditation by 2023. Carle Illinois College of Medicine is one of few engineering-based medical school specifically designed to train a new kind of doctor, the earliest example of which is the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. This groundbreaking approach seamlessly integrates the university's unparalleled assets in engineering, technology and super-computing with Carle's nationally recognized, comprehensive healthcare system. The other medical school in the

University of Illinois system The University of Illinois System is a system of public universities in Illinois consisting of three universities: Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign. Across its three universities, the University of Illinois System enrolls more than ...

is the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. The

University of Illinois College of Medicine The University of Illinois College of Medicine offers a four-year program leading to the MD degree at four different sites in Illinois: Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, and formerly Urbana–Champaign. The Urbana–Champaign site stopped accepting ne ...

had a regional campus in Urbana-Champaign for over 40 years, and was the primary site for the school's MSTP program. However, after 2022, Carle Illinois will be the only College of Medicine on the Urbana-Champaign campus, with degrees being awarded from the

, not the UI Chicago campus. The final class of

students are set to graduate in 2022, the same year the first Carle Illinois students are set to complete their degrees.

Admissions

Carle Illinois uses a two-round, rolling admissions process. As of January 2019, the College only accepts applications from

United States citizens Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...

permanent residents Permanent residency is a person's legal resident status in a country or territory of which such person is not a citizen but where they have the right to reside on a permanent basis. This is usually for a permanent period; a person with such ...

who will have completed a bachelor's, master's or doctorate degree, in any field, from a U.S. or Canadian accredited college or university prior to enrollment. An

MCAT The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT; ) is a computer-based standardized examination for prospective medical students (both Allopathic M.D. and Ostepathic D.O.) in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Caribbean Islands. It is designe ...

score of at least 498 is required to apply. Carle Illinois considers applications on a holistic basis. Thus, there is no minimum

GPA Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...

requirement, letters of recommendation are required as part of the application, and the College suggests that their applicants have strong backgrounds in biology, chemistry/biochemistry, mathematics/statistics, physics and social sciences. Upon review of the first round of applications, based on the criteria above, select applicants are invited to submit a second-round application. Admissions offers are given from the pool of submissions of successful second-round applications. Carle Illinois does not conduct interviews as part of the application process, as is traditional for some other medical schools. The inaugural class of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine consisted of a group of 32 candidates, with 16 men and 16 women, averaging approximately 26 years of age. All of the students of the college's inaugural class received full, four-year privately funded scholarships, valued at approximately $250,000 each.

Education

Carle Illinois College of Medicine is one of few medical schools that have been built from the ground up to focus on the intersection of engineering and medicine. Every course in the college was designed by a team composed of a basic scientist, a clinician, and an engineer. The curriculum's four pillar approach infuses basic sciences, clinical sciences, engineering and innovation, and medical humanities into all four years and places high value on patient-centered care, systems-based delivery, innovation and research, and early clinical exposure. Carle Illinois promotes an active learning environment. An important component of this is problem-based learning. During these sessions, medical education facilitators lead groups of eight students through solving authentic, real-world healthcare problems that are directly related to the topics being covered in classes. Another important component of the active learning environment is early clinical experience. Students begin working in the clinic within their first month at Carle Illinois. Under the guidance and supervision of physicians, students meet with real patients to apply the skills they learn in classes.

Research

Research Advisory Board

Carle Illinois has two Research Advisory Boards: External and Internal. The external Research Advisory Board is composed of professors and doctors from colleges, universities and hospitals all across the country, while the internal board is composed of professors from various colleges at the University of Illinois, directors and other individuals from research labs across campus, and doctors from Carle Foundation Hospital.

Research mentors

The students also have the opportunity to work closely with research mentors, researchers and professors from departments and colleges across the University. These research mentors are experts in their fields, and their goal is to help train and build the ideas of Carle Illinois students to develop high impact solutions for the real world.

Health Maker Lab

The Health Maker Lab is an interconnected network of design and making facilities that stand ready and able to enable everyone to participate in the process of improving human health. Carle Illinois students have access to any of the facilities in the Health Maker Lab system to help them innovate new ideas at the intersection of engineering and medicine. The Health Maker Lab hosts an annual “Health Make-a-thon" competition in which students, community members, and citizen scientists submit their ideas on how to improve the human condition. Winners of the competition receive $10,000 in idea support to the Health Maker Lab network and mentorship from University of Illinois experts to further build their ideas. All Illinois citizens are eligible participate.

Student life

Carle Illinois offers a comprehensive wellness program. The goal of the wellness program is to help the medical students maintain their overall wellness so they can focus on becoming high-impact physician-innovators. The college has also divided students up into Innovation Pods. The pods are groups of students and mentors that act as a support system for students, enable them to build meaningful personal relationships with each other and foster a community environment. Finally, Carle Illinois offers a program called Thrive, made of weekly, student-led wellness workshops that are designed to equip students with the tools and strategies they will need in medical school and in the medical profession. Carle Illinois students participate in these workshops alongside peers and student directors. Carle Illinois students also have access to the university-wide resources available at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Leadership

Faculty

Mark S. Cohen
- Dean * Stephen Boppart - Executive Associate Dean, Chief Diversity Officer
George Mejicano
- Associate Dean, Academic Affairs
Blair Rowitz
- Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs
Ruby Mendenhall
- Associate Dean for Diversity & Democratization of Health Innovation
Amy Wagoner Johnson
- Department Head, Biomedical & Translational Sciences
Issam Moussa
- Associate Dean for Research

References

External links

Official Press Release

Article: "Alexa, Give Me A Diagnosis"
{{coord, 40, 06, 30.0, N, 88, 13, 45.3, W, region:US-IL_type:edu, display=title Educational institutions established in 2015 Medical schools in Illinois University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign colleges and schools Public–private partnership projects in the United States 2015 establishments in Illinois