EXPLORE

The EXPLORE program in the Gateway Curriculum is a formalized approach to career development that helps WashU Med students find their niche in academic medicine. It allows students to explore and define their individual career interests and aspirations, then to pursue those interests and gain exposure to academic careers.

EXPLORE is a longitudinal, immersive experience that begins during Phase 1 and continues throughout medical school. It connects students to physician role models and mentors, creates opportunity for scholarship in key academic pathways, and provides core training in the respective career pathway.

Students select one of four EXPLORE pathways, catered to their career aspirations: Advocacy/Global Health, Education, Innovation, and Research. During Phase 1, the pre-clerkship phase of the curriculum, there is a four-week period dedicated to the EXPLORE Immersion. Students develop their knowledge and skills in their chosen pathway by working closely with a faculty mentor on a scholarly project.

If you are at all interested in a career in global/public health work, public policy, or health equity, I would highly encourage you to pursue the EXPLORE pathway in Global Health/Advocacy! The faculty involved in the pathway display such passion in the subjects they teach. There are very informal opportunities during EXPLORE to network and get to know these leaders better — many students who have gone through the pathway have met physicians to shadow or even research PIs through these sessions! During the pathway specific sessions, you get the opportunity to learn about topics you would not get to hear about anywhere else in your medical school curriculum, such as HIV advocacy, climate change, and neo-colonialism in global health. You also get to apply your knowledge in hands on experiences such as participating in a World Health Organization simulation and writing policy briefs and op-eds. If you are particularly passionate about these subjects, the faculty are happy to work with you to get some of this work published on a greater scale as well! It’s a fantastic opportunity to explore (pun intended) and develop your interest in these fields alongside phenomenal, supportive faculty.

I chose the Education pathway not only for my interest in MedEd but also because every Education Pathway student in the year above me rated it 5/5 in the Course Evaluation (as did everyone in my year). Of course, you’ll learn how to properly design Course Evaluation, in addition to the sciences of curricular design, assessment (yes, it’s different from evaluation), presenting skills (yes, you have much more to learn, I didn’t think I did), and qualitative and quantitative analyses. Part of the reason I chose WashU Med was to be part of a brand new curriculum with passionate educators, and as part of the formal MedEd training in this pathway, I was taught each pillar of medical education from the faculty member that brought that specific expertise to the design of the Gateway Curriculum. I came in passionate about climate change, and with the Education pathway mentorship and training, I designed a Lecture+ (you’ll learn about this too) on the health impacts of climate change that is now an integrated and required part of the curriculum, am currently in the process of designing longitudinal modules to teach students more advanced topics at the interface of climate and disease (“spiral learning”), and in a few years am hoping to have at least three publications related to making these resources freely available and implementing curriculum changes as a first-year medical student.

The EXPLORE Innovation pathway is unique because it teaches you topics and skills that are difficult to find in other areas of medical education, namely business. From the first week, it ramps up with quite a lot of work as you start learning about and conducting stakeholder interviews. You then “create” a prototype and explore the financial aspects of your project (how big the potential markets are, how your competition affects your market, etc.). You do weekly presentations as you go through your project, and you get direct feedback from the pathway leads. At the end of the three weeks, you’ll get even more direct feedback from actual investors who look at your presentation as if you’re actually pitching them your product, which is an experience you won’t find elsewhere!

With WashU Med being well-known as a research powerhouse, I couldn’t imagine missing out on the chance to engage with the school’s incredible research faculty members and clinician scientists. For students eager to pursue research — whether it’s basic science, clinical, epidemiologic, or translational — the Research EXPLORE pathway is a fantastic opportunity to acquire foundational statistical skills including coding in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, hearing from premier physician-scientists at WashU Med, and even developing a research proposal and poster presentation for the end-of-the-year EXPLORE symposium.