VCOM College Catalog and Student Handbook

Course Descriptions – Osteopathic Medical School Year One

OMS 1 – Semester 1, Block 1 – Foundations of Medicine

Courses: • (MED 7014) Histology/Pathology: 1.5 credit hours

This course fits into the mission/curriculum of the College by providing foundational content in support of several other biomedical courses. The course itself is a general introduction to histology and the cellular changes that occur in pathologic conditions. This part of the histology-pathology course will provide the student with sufficient coverage of basic principles to facilitate learning and understanding in other biomedical and clinical science courses, and in the systems based pathology courses in subsequent blocks. Pathology serves as the foundation for clinical medicine. Mastery of this material is crucial for success in other biomedical courses, and students are encouraged to review this material as needed to support learning in these other courses. • (MED 7016) Immunology: 2 credit hours Immunology provides the basics of the human immune system and the responses of the basic cellular components of this system to the environment, infection, and disease. The information spans the development of the immune system to the host immune response and includes the cellular basis for the most common immune deficiencies. This course prepares the student for clinical immunological diseases taught in Clinical Medicine. • (MED 7025) Genetics: 1.5 credit hours This course is focused on the underlying basic principles of human genetics as they apply to clinical medicine. Topics include DNA/RNA metabolism, protein synthesis, molecular tools of genetics, cytogenetics, Mendelian inheritance, mitochondrial inheritance, epigenetics, multifactorial inheritance, cancer genetics, population genetics, genetic screening, pharmacogenetics, gene therapy and genetic counseling. Although chromosomal syndromes and genetic diseases are touched upon within this course, more detailed discussion is reserved for future systems blocks in the Clinical Medicine course. • (MED 7035) Medical Microbiology: 2 credit hours The course presents the bacterial, viral, parasitic, and mycotic organisms that infect the human body, their etiology, epidemiology, and pathogenesis. This course provides the foundations for infectious disease topics taught in Clinical Medicine and for pharmacology. Laboratory exercises accompanying the course include identification, culture, staining, and other clinical laboratory procedures. • (MED 7096) Foundations of Skeletal Anatomy and Embryology: 1 credit hour This course provides the student with education on the essential development of the human embryo from fertilization through basic system development, with emphasis on musculoskeletal developments and potential defects. The course also provides a large-scale overview of the skeletal elements for both axial and appendicular skeletons, structural and functional norms of the skeletal system and the embryologic development of the systems. The application of anatomy in clinical medicine is strengthened through radiographs and importance of the anatomical surgical landmarks and structures and the alterations that may occur in various surgical clinical conditions. This course is taught in lecture format supplemented by The concentration of this course is Biochemistry, the structure and function of the cells of the body, and their chemical reactions. The material ranges from how the human body obtains energy from food, to the chemical basis of heredity, and includes the fundamental biochemical changes that occur in the process of disease. The course also includes the basic nutrition introduction from the biochemical standpoint to prepare student for the clinical nutrition introduced in each block. The Biochemistry curriculum provides the molecular basis to prepare students for the physiology, pharmacology, and pathophysiology that follows. The majority of the course is presented early in the block in order to prepare the student for material presented in genetics and microbiology within the same block. laboratory study of the skeletal structures of the fetal and adult human. • (MED 7125) Cell Biology and Biochemistry: 3 credit hours

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