medical education

Graduating medical students learn where they’ll serve their residencies

Yale grad is pursuing his degree at UCI because of its multifaceted approach to the future of healthcare.

It’s not out of the ordinary for medical students to spend their summers abroad working in clinics and gaining invaluable experience. But a UC Irvine cohort has an additional mission: sharing their knowledge of portable technologies that will transform how medicine is practiced.

More than 200 medical, osteopathic and physician assistant students from 14 schools around the state streamed into the Medical Education Building May 20 to be trained in a technology that UCI faculty believe will be an important part of medicine’s future – portable ultrasound.

They entered the UC Irvine School of Medicine with dreams of making a difference someday, five eager students armed with distinctive skills, talents and experiences they hoped could be used to improve human health. They saw their dreams come into focus on Match Day, March 16, when they learned where they will start their careers as doctors.

The UC Irvine Program in Geriatrics has instituted an innovative live theater performance that highlights the dos and don’ts of patient care for older adults.

On Aug. 5, 104 members of UCI’s School of Medicine class of 2015 received their first physician’s white coat, the first steps on the shared road to becoming doctors. The paths that brought these students to this juncture, however, differ significantly. Each brings a variety of life experiences, talents and backgrounds that will enrich the medical school experience.

For graduating medical students like Marco Angulo, nothing matches Match Day – the day they learn where they will spend the next three to seven years pursuing postgraduate medical training and beginning careers as doctors.

An innovative undergraduate course, “Disparities in Medicine,” addresses diversity and how healthcare workers can embrace patients’ distinctive cultural beliefs, languages and faiths to provide better care.

The new Medical Education Simulation Center in the School of Medicine is the only one of its kind in Orange County and among the most sophisticated medical simulation facilities in the country.