Darnell-Cookman Middle School, with cooperation from The University of Florida College of Medicine at Shands Jacksonville Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research (CSESaR), has begun a new project entitled: “School of the Medical Arts”.

With funding from both the Duval County School System and the U.S. Department of Education, the School of the Medical Arts at Darnell-Cookman will become what we believe is the first, grade 6 to 12, full high school Magnet program in the U.S. with a medical focus.

This website was constructed to facilitate communication among students who are interested in participating in the project. This project is a major challenge for the country. Students from across the country and around the world are invited.

The amount of knowledge needed to broadly understand medicine in today’s society has grown substantially throughout the past 50 years. Extending formal medical education beyond the current 7 years typically spent in med school and residency programs has been discussed but not found to be practical. There is another alternative, however! Go in the other direction. This has already been put into practice in the form of pre-med programs in undergraduate training as well as in high schools. But the growth of medical complexity has continued relentlessly. The SoMA program is an attempt to extend this “pre-med” concept back through middle school, to grade 6. This is easier said than done.

Students, now in grade 6, following a path to a professional medical career, will not officially practice medicine for at least 15 years. At the same time, the practice of medicine, and methods of medical training are evolving at a high rate. The transition to electronic medical records and simulation based training are primary examples.

The rate of change creates a significant challenge for curriculum planners. It is one thing to predict where medicine will be in 4 years, to plan a grad school medical program for graduate level students. It is much more difficult to plan 8 years ahead for an under-grad pre-med program. We are now trying to develop a curriculum plan that is looking at medicine 15 years ahead and trying to understand how to present the appropriate medical concepts to much younger students with very different learning skills and tools. Doing this with some basis of credibility is not a trivial task. It probably requires very different attitudes toward medical practice than we currently have. Students can play a major role in this effort. Why?

Whenever society has to make radical changes, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is CHANGE. The existing system was designed around methods and technologies that could be 50 years old. People now guiding our existing system have put all their focus into optimizing the older system. This is where students can excel. They have grown up with the latest technologies and ideas. They can be a very strong partner in creating the new curriculum by helping the older generation see where the new technologies and ideas can improve the way medicine is provided.

The project is expected to attract a very large number of interested people. The site is designed to give all of the participants a lot of freedom to share ideas. To help keep communications organized, the website is divided into a number of SPECIAL INTERESTS. Each of these sections is identified by a tab in the Interest Groups Menu. Each section has a moderator. Contacts for the site are listed at the bottom of the help page. Help sections are provided for guests, members and administrators.

As a guest, you can read most of the sections of this site. To add content or make changes, you will need to log in. To log in for the first time, click the 'Need to REGISTER?' button under the log in box.

If you are new to the site, go to the help section to find a description of what each of the sections does and how it works.