EDUCATION

'Part of something bigger': Partnership between CU, CSU welcomes first medical students

Kelly Lyell
Fort Collins Coloradoan

The first medical students to benefit from a new partnership between Colorado State University and University of Colorado School of Medicine aren't having the year anyone expected when the program was announced last year.

The partnership, designed to take advantage of what Colorado’s two largest universities each do best, began in June on the CSU campus, when 11 students from CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora came to Fort Collins to begin the clinical rotations that make up the third year of their four-year program.

The clinical rotations started about six weeks later than originally scheduled because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. A shortage of personal protective equipment prevented hospitals from allowing medical students to work alongside them, and medical practices were basically shut down from mid-March into May for anything other than urgent care.

Coronavirus concerns, challenges with the program

All 11 students in the program have shown a tremendous amount of flexibility and resolve to make it work, said Dr. Amy Reppert, the director of the clinical year for the students in Fort Collins.

“Starting an entirely new program in the midst of a pandemic has been very, very challenging,” said Reppert, who also is a full-time trauma surgeon at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital. “The combination of support we have from the CU School of Medicine, CSU and the medical community as a whole in Northern Colorado has been remarkable. It’s a really special collaboration and a unique community.”

The medical program is housed on the fourth floor of the CSU Health and Medical Center on the northwest corner of College Avenue and Prospect Road. Most of the instruction, though, takes place in doctors’ offices, medical clinics and hospitals in Fort Collins and Loveland.

BACK TO SCHOOL:CSU shares plans for COVID-19 testing, contact tracing as thousands prepare for return to campus

Students to work with physicians in core specialties

The students will work with more than 200 physicians and other medical providers to learn more about each of the core specialties they could choose to go into upon graduation. They will each be assigned a preceptor — an instructor among the specialists — in each of the specialties: OB-GYN, neurology, internal medicine, family medicine, psychology, pediatrics and anesthesia, Reppert said.

They’ll also work with those specialists to identify patients to follow through the course of a disease as part of a curriculum reform underway at CU’s medical school, Reppert said. The “longitudinal integrated curriculum” will match students with patients they will follow for a year “through a full disease and how that impacts patients economically and in their health and overall wellness,” Reppert said. 

One of the goals of the new program at CSU is to further explore “how everything works together: animals, plants, humans, to create overall wellness of the individual and ultimately overall wellness of the community,” she said.

CU’s medical school also offers the longitudinal curriculum through branch programs at Denver Health facilities and in Colorado Springs, Reppert said.

ENROLLMENT IMPACTS: Colorado's community colleges not sure what to expect for enrollment during COVID-19

“The big advantage in Fort Collins is there are a lot less residents (postgraduate medical students),” said Peter Boxley, a Fort Collins native and student in the program at CSU. “In Denver, it’s a purely academic medical center, so your learning is always kind of secondary to the resident, which is understandable because the resident needs to learn, too.

“Here, we’re the primary learners, so we get a lot more instruction. We’ll get a better clinical education up here is my sense.”

Peter Boxley studies a splint on his arm as fellow University of Colorado School of Medicine student Nick Mason looks on. Boxley and Mason are both Fort Collins natives taking part in a new program that has CU medical students completing their clinical year at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.

Most of the students in the program this year, Boxley said, have a previous connection to Fort Collins or the surrounding area. He and Nick Mason are both graduates of Fort Collins High School, another is a graduate of Poudre High, one grew up in Loveland and several others received their bachelor’s degrees from CSU, he said.

Boxley earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Chicago before coming back to Colorado for medical school. Mason earned his bachelor’s degree at Creighton University in Omaha, where he worked as an emergency medical technician while he was in school.

“I wanted to be able to diagnose and fix things, not just transport people,” he said.

Mason said he’ll be working with a preceptor at Associates in Family Medicine, the same practice his family doctor was in while he was growing up. He recently completed some rotations at Poudre Valley Hospital, where he was born.

“I don’t think we’re lapsing in anything by not being at a big academic institution,” Mason said. “I’ve had a lot more face-to-face time with attending (physicians), and I’ve been able to take more of a hands-on approach with patients, too. I’ve been able to have my own patients, of course with the attending supervising, and make a plan based on the medical conditions they have.

“You feel more ownership over what you’re doing as part of something bigger.”

Dr. Luke Day, an emergency medical physician with UCHealth, gives instructions on putting splits on injuries to Peter Boxley and other students in the University of Colorado School of Medicine's new program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.

Future of the program

Plans call for a dozen more third-year students from CU’s Anschutz Medical Center to go through their clinical rotations at CSU next year, with another group of students arriving in August 2021 who will complete their entire four-year medical degree program in Fort Collins. Clinical rotations for those students will be in their second year, a change that is part of the overall restructuring of the CU medical school’s curriculum.

Editor's note: This story has a correction. Students are admitted to the program through the University of Colorado.

Kelly Lyell is a Coloradoan reporter. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, follow him on Twitter @KellyLyell and find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. Help support Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a subscription today