Medical schools across the country are implementing components of self-directed learning into the curriculum in order to help students develop skills for life-long learning. At the Medical College of Georgia, the First Patient Discoveries Activity was developed to allow first year medical students the opportunity to investigate the life and death of their first patient – their body donor in the gross anatomy lab. This is a yearlong integrative exercise in which anatomy groups practice clinical problem solving by utilizing gross and histological pathology findings to hypothesize their body donor’s cause of death, as well as to investigate how these findings may have impacted their body donor’s quality of life. This process inspires students to search diligently throughout each dissection to identify different pathologies and take biopsies. These biopsies not only help further the narrative the students are forming about their body donor's life, but they help culture a curiosity in the students that they will hopefully carry into their future careers as physicians.

As part of the First Patient Discoveries Activity, when a potential pathology is found, a biopsy is taken by the students. Students complete pathology reports, reporting their findings and hypotheses related to potential differential diagnoses. Once a histological preparation of the biopsy sample is complete, students receive microscopic slides to examine. Students then report their findings and update their hypotheses related to their differential diagnoses. Students also have the opportunity to meet with a pathologist to learn more about their pathological specimens.