The UCI Master of Science in Medical Science is designed to prepare the next generation of leaders in health care. Students obtain a strong foundation in anatomy and embryology, biochemistry, neuroscience, behavioral science, ethics, pathology, microbiology, and pharmacology. Students receive exposure to the health care setting and a strong foundation in interviewing and interacting with patients. The curriculum continues to meet the changing needs of medical education within the two years of instruction. Indeed, the School of Medicine faculty views curriculum development as a continual process and feels that medical education and teaching innovations must be encouraged and supported. The curriculum is designed to encourage medical students to become participants in their education process, to be active rather than passive learners, to become lifelong learners, and to use cooperative and team-learning principles.<br><br>UCI is dedicated to the nurturing of humanistic, caring physicians and health care professionals with top-notch clinical expertise and skills. The School strives for this through a curriculum that is not only anchored in the science of medicine but also provides meaningful experiences in the humanistic dimensions of medicine. In this context, the faculty endeavors to provide students with experiences in areas such as communication and empathy, ethics and professionalism, diversity awareness, and cultural sensitivity and medical humanities. The faculty also feels that the curriculum should strive to integrate basic and clinical sciences by bringing substantial clinical material into this early phase of medical education.<br><br>The School has achieved vertical integration of the curriculum with the development of a series of Clinical Foundations courses. The courses are longitudinal multidisciplinary experiences broadly designed to prepare students for their future careers in health care through the application of experiential and self-directed learning principles. These courses also utilize small group learning sessions to reinforce core concepts of patient-physician interactions and introductory clinical reasoning skill development.