While the core MD curriculum of IU School of Medicine is the same across all nine statewide campuses, the West Lafayette campus offers some special attributes, including small class sizes, a high level of personal attention from tenured and award-winning faculty, and local opportunities for summer research and clinical experience. Enrichment programs include a summer program that focuses on Emergency Room experience.
Learning experiences extend the classroom beyond enriching lectures and laboratories. Small-group discussions, case-based problem learning, team-based learning, clinical mentorships, service-learning projects and clinical experiences are used to help students gain fundamental medical knowledge and develop lifelong skills. Many optional inter-professional education scenarios with various groups, including Purdue University Pharmacy and Nursing, are available to medical students, and the opportunity to earn dual degrees—such as MD/PhD, MD/MPH, MD/MBA and MD/MS—while attending IU School of Medicine-West Lafayette is also available.
This IU School of Medicine campus enjoys close proximity to two new hospitals: Franciscan Health Lafayette East Health and IU Health Arnett, and medical students here benefit from working at River Bend, an in-patient mental health facility and other reputable clinical care facilities. The clinical education portion of the IU School of Medicine MD curriculum, including third- and fourth-year clerkships and electives in Greater Lafayette are held at these patient care facilities.