Discovery Curriculum

MCW's three-year Discovery curriculum is a calendar-efficient program available at MCW-Central Wisconsin, allowing for graduation one year earlier than traditional programs. This is achieved by reducing the number of electives and the length of the traditional medical school breaks, and is appealing if you prefer to graduate sooner and begin working as a physician sooner.

One of the hallmarks of an MCW education is participating in a Scholarly Pathway, allowing you to individualize your medical education. As an MCW-Central Wisconsin student, the Physician in the Community Pathway will link your medical education with the resources and needs of the Central Wisconsin area communities and our partners to promote health in the region. 

This unique MCW educational experience is designed to cultivate your medical skills and interests and transform them into a quest for lifelong learning in your practice as a primary care physician, general surgeon, psychiatrist or other specialty shortage fields.

Your MCW-Central Wisconsin medical education experience will include participation in our Physician in the Community Scholarly Pathway, linking your medical education with the resources of our clinical partners and the needs of communities and organizations in Central Wisconsin. This experience is designed to cultivate your medical skills and interests and transform them into a lifelong quest for learning your practice as a primary care physician or psychiatrist.

Beginning in the First Year summer, you will learn basic clinical competencies required for meaningful patient interaction in the Foundations of Clinical Medicine course. Additionally, your Clinical Apprenticeship runs through the Year One Fall and Year One Spring. In both Foundations of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Apprenticeship, preceptors mentor you, observe your respective levels of patient care and provide direct feedback. Beginning in the Year One Spring, you will also have dedicated learning activities through the Bench-to-Bedside course. This course will supplement direct patient care experiences and include basic science context to enhance your learning and retention. Your first clerkship rotations start the summer between your M1 and M2 years, and continue the following summer and through much of your M3 year.

Students at MCW-Central Wisconsin will require a car to travel to their assigned clinical sites, beginning ½ day per week in their M1 fall semester. For the clerkship experience between the M1 and M2 years, a fuel or housing stipend is available to help offset costs associated with housing that will be needed for that summer experience before returning to Wausau for the M2 year. For the clerkship experience in the M3 year, relocating to the clerkship site will make sense and a stipends are available to help offset fuel and overnight stays when the student needs to return to Wausau for required activities. Some clinical sites offer assistance in finding housing and some have housing available to students for a reasonable rate. MCW-Central Wisconsin works closely with our healthcare partners to help connect students with all available resources during their clerkship experiences.

You will learn about and participate in various IPE sessions throughout the Curriculum. You will be introduced to IPE early on and have an opportunity to work in student interdisciplinary teams with various health program students from partnering institutions. Your IPE experiences will provide you with the tools to identify your own professional role, identify the roles of other professionals, and learn how to effectively collaborate with other health professionals in order to establish mutual respect, dignity, diversity, ethical integrity and trust.