Purpose
Does exposure to a multi-disciplinary case-based session led by multiple attending physicians in different specialties increase students’ perceived level of knowledge and confidence in their preparedness for clerkships?

Methods
We measured student confidence and perceived level of clinical knowledge related to multidisciplinary case conference (MCC) sessions in the pre-clinical classroom and utilized both quantitative and qualitative data in the pulmonary system course. The MCC utilizes multiple attending faculty from varied specialties assigned to groups of students who act within that specialty to make clinical decisions based on information presented in the case. Students are assigned specialty-specific preparatory materials, and the patient or patient's family joins the session for the final hour.

Results
Student confidence in approaching multidisciplinary cases increased, as well as their perceived level of clinical knowledge. Students found the patient portion of the MCC to be impactful for their learning and commented that the MCC was one of the greatest strengths of their preclinical education, assisting in their preparation for clinical rotations.

Conclusions
The positive outcome for student learning and professional development suggests that the IMCC format could be applied to a variety of body-systems-based courses and disease processes in pre-clinical medical education. While the present study did not test student content-knowledge development as it is difficult to isolate this learning related to a single session, our findings do suggest that this format is useful in assisting pre-clinical medical students approach multidisciplinary patient care. Finally, this session also utilizes an integrative approach to early clinical exposure for medical students, answering several calls to action for improving pre-clinical medical education.