Medical Doctor Scholarly Reflection and Concentration Capstone Course
The Scholarly Reflection and Concentration/Capstone course allows you to personalize your curriculum and prepares you for scholarly endeavors during residency and future practice. You will self-design and execute a capstone project in an area you are passionate about over the course of four years.
Course Overview
During the first two years of the MD program, the curriculum is organized around three integrated courses that provide students with a comprehensive view of evidence-based medicine:
- Foundations of Medicine (18 hours/week)
- Scholarly Reflection and Concentration/Capstone course (4 hours/week)
- Clinical Arts and Sciences (6 hours/week)
Scholarly Reflection and Concentration/Capstone (SRCC) is a four-year course that allows students to personalize their curriculum. Students use narrative medicine and mentoring to develop personally and professionally. They gain both conceptual understanding and practical skills in research methods, epidemiology, medical informatics and biostatistics to comprehend and critique medical literature. This enables students to create and execute an individual capstone project.
In self-designing their capstone curriculum, students pursue a scholarly interest through a longitudinal, mentored project. They create their own learning objectives, manage a budget, execute a scholarly project under the guidance of a mentor and reflect on the journey to develop professionally. This gives students valuable hands-on experience that helps to prepare them for success in residency and provides a foundation for building a career as a physician.
Students may develop capstone projects in any of the following concentrations:
- Basic, Translational and Clinical Science Research
- Global, Public and Community Health
- Health Communications
- Health Policy and Advocacy
- Healthcare Management and Organizational Leadership
- Interprofessional Education and Practice
- Medical Education
- Medical Humanities
- Self-Designed
Curriculum
- Concentration/Capstone
- Choose a concentration
- Develop a project proposal
- Selective coursework in area of concentration
- Concentration-specific curricula
- Research Methodology
- Biostatistics
- Responsible research practice
- Journal club
- Medical informatics
- Narrative Medicine
- Mentoring
- Identify a capstone mentor
- Narrative Medicine
- Concentration-Specific Curricula
- Capstone Project
- Medical Informatics
- Selective Coursework in Area of Concentration
- Narrative Medicine
- Concentration-Specific Curricula
- Capstone Project
- Complete Capstone Project
- Present at Capstone Scholars Day
Selective Courses
As part of their capstone experience, students select the equivalent of 6 graduate credits of course work in their concentration. In addition to selectives offered by the School of Medicine, individuals can gain interprofessional experience by taking selectives alongside graduate students in the Schools of Business, Communications, Education, Health Sciences, Law, Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences.
Capstone Projects
For her capstone project, Katelyn Norman, MD ’17, combined her background in art and medical training to develop a new methodology for forensic facial recognition from unidentified skeletal remains that is less expensive, easier and more accurate than existing methodologies. Her work ultimately led her to assist law enforcement personnel in identifying a missing Connecticut woman.
Azeez Akinlolu, MD ’19, designed a project to study the awareness of sickle cell disease on the decision to procreate in Nigeria.
Students in our recent graduating class completed capstone projects with other schools at Quinnipiac, as well as with external organizations:
- Child Health and Development Institute, Inc.
- Community Health Center, Inc.
- Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
- Hartford Hospital
- HeadZone Concussion Care
- The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp
- Masonicare
- MidState Medical Center
- ProHealth Physicians
- St. Vincent’s Medical Center
- Waterbury Hospital
- Yale University
Summer Research Fellowship
The Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine encourages scholarship in all of its forms. Our Summer Research Fellowship provides students with the opportunity to engage in meaningful scholarly activity in the summer between years one and two. Students work with a mentor, develop a proposal for an eight-week experience, and if selected, receive a stipend for living expenses. At the conclusion, students present their work to the Netter community at a Summer Research Poster Day.
Recent summer research sites include:
- Child Health and Development Institute, Inc.
- Community Health Center, Inc.
- Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
- Johns Hopkins University
- National Institutes of Health
- New England Institute for Clinical Research
- New England Institute for Neurology and Headache
- Partnership for Strong Communities
- St. Vincent’s Medical Center
- State of Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
- Yale Child Study Center
- Yale New Haven Hospital
- Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
- Clinical Toxicology Service of Tirana University Hospital, Albania
- International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine
- Free Medical Centre, Babuji Memorial Ashram, Chennai, India
- Laikipia County, Kenya
- St. Peters Hospital, Likoma Island, Malawi
- Sindhupalchok and Kathmandu, Nepal
- Good Samaritan Hospital, Batey communities, Dominican Republic
Course Leadership
Barbara Bergen
Director of Student Research
Contact Admissions
Our admissions counselors in the School of Medicine are here to answer any questions you may have and help you navigate the application process.