Presented By: Charles Scott, Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Co-Authors: Michael Baram, Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Rosemarie Frasso, Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Christopher Haines, Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Matthias Schnell, Thomas Jefferson University Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Geoffrey Toner, Kanbar College of Design, Engineering & Commerce, Thomas Jefferson University

Purpose 
Sustaining and enhancing basic science competency during clinical phases of medical education is a significant challenge. Herein we describe a team-based approach for delivery of advanced basic science education in the clinical phase that integrates clinical and basic science content to provide an overview and critical evaluation of the response of the healthcare community to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that challenges students to distill best practices and apply them to emerging viruses with pandemic potential. 

Methods 
Course faculty reviewed public health policy decisions, hospital system innovations, clinical trials design, and evidence-based clinical interventions to COVID-19, as well as advanced basic science topics such as traditional and mRNA vaccine design and development, monoclonal antibody characterization and manufacturing and small molecule antiviral drug discovery, which were delivered at a level that was far beyond what we had curricular time to present to students in the pre-clinical phase of their medical education. Student teams were tasked with applying lessons learned to an emerging infectious disease (H5N1 influenza). 

Results 
The response of the two fourth-year medical student cohorts who have taken the course thus far was uniformly positive. Moreover, student team volunteer statistics and feedback suggest broad enthusiasm for advanced basic science content when presented in an integrated clinical context.

Conclusions 
Many clinical challenges and innovations (e.g., immunotherapy, opioid epidemic, genome editing) are amenable to an instructional format that integrates clinical and basic science concepts. Although we anticipated that a "spoonful of sugar" (clinical content) would help the "medicine" (basic science) go down, group preference data suggests an appetite among fourth year medical students for continued exposure to cutting edge training in advanced basic sciences.