Welcome to SOM Educational Affairs

Areas of Scholarly Concentration ("Tracks")

  • Aerospace Medicine
    The Aerospace Medicine Track introduces medical students to aerospace medicine and to space medicine research. For more information about the track, please contact William E. Power, MD, MS.
  • Bilingual Health
    The Bilingual Health Track (BHT) is designed to graduate culturally and ethically competent bilingual in Spanish physicians. For more information, click on the Bilingual Health Track tab on this page.
  • Community Engagement Track (CET)
    The Community Engagement Track (CET) combines key aspects of the Global Health, Public Health, and Rural Health Tracks to enable students to participate in well-rounded, longitudinal, mentored scholarship in a variety of settings, both domestically and abroad.  Please contact Dr. Caley Satterfield at casatter@utmb.edu for more information.
  • Global Health
    The Global Health Education Program is the home to many global health training opportunities at UTMB. Various training opportunities are open to students in all four of our academic schools.
  • Geriatric Track
    The geriatric track at UTMB is a four year learning experience that provides a unique opportunity to enhance knowledge, skill sets, values and expertise in the care of older adults.
  • Medical Humanities
    Students enrolling in the Medical Humanities Track will be able to survey the various topics that make up the medical humanities and complete a research project of their choosing with a faculty mentor. For more information, contact Beverly Claussen.
  • Physician Healer
    The Physician Healer Track is designed to mentor students as they develop their professional identity as doctors. The training focuses on self-awareness, self-reflection, interpersonal communication skills, self-care and work-life balance. Being a source of healing for the suffering of another is both a responsibility and a privilege. In addition to our technical knowledge and skills, being a healer requires training in equanimity, wisdom and compassion.
  • Public Health
    The Public Health Track provides medical students interested in public health careers or concerned about public health issues with focused training in public health research and practice skills within the four-year Integrated Medical Curriculum.
  • Rural Health Care
    UTMB medical students that have an interest in working in a rural area will benefit by joining the Rural Health Care Track (RHCT). The Rural Health Care Track (RHCT) provides opportunities that serve to expand existing curricular experiences that emphasize the practice of rural medicine throughout the 4 years of medical school.
  • Translational Research
    Translational research integrates basic research, patient-oriented research, and population-based research and leads to the transformation of scientific discoveries made in the laboratory, clinical setting, or population setting to clinical applications such as interventions to prevent, diagnose, or treat disease.

Purpose of the Tracks:
To provide interested students opportunities to receive expanded learning experiences in non-specialty-based areas of emphasis while completing the 4-year Integrated Medical Curriculum.

Duration:
Tracks will entail 5-6 months of elective and selective experiences. A variety of configurations with regard to timing is possible. Greater flexibility will allow students to enter the track at multiple points. The following examples are simply for illustrative purposes and are not meant to exclude other approaches.

Number of Months
Between years 1-212011
Year 3 elective 11110
Year 4 electives21333
Year 4 selective* 12111
TOTAL 5 6 5 6 5

*BSHS, ACS or Acting Internship

Project Requirement:
Programs must require a scholarly project and product (e.g., manuscript, oral presentation) for successful completion. The project should represent the culmination of 5-6 months of immersion in the field. It is expected that Track Directors will hold these projects to a substantially higher standard than the typical BSHS scholarly project.

Partial Participation:
Electives and other activities should be open to interested students who do not intend to complete the entire track. Program directors may establish prerequisites for specific electives.

Student Recognition:
Successful completion of all track requirements will result in a designation of "Scholar in track name" on the student's transcript and in the commencement program. A certificate of completion will be issued at the time of graduation along with the student's UTMB diploma. Participation will also be reflected in the student's MSPE ("Dean's letter").

Funding:
Student completion of track-related electives and selectives will trigger teaching fund allocations to the home department of the responsible faculty member(s). A modest budget will be provided to the track director for track-related expenses.

Approval:
Tracks must be approved in advance by the Curriculum Committee. A standard format for proposals will be developed.