In 2013, five medical students volunteered to participate in the first year of the AIM Program. The Texas A&M Integrated Medicine (AIM) Program at the Bryan Clinical Campus differs from most medical school clerkships. As a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship, AIM students go through the six medical school disciplines concurrently, rather than in consecutive blocks. The block model remains the dominant form of clerkship education in the world today, but the seven AIM students I followed through the program would question the wisdom of that fact.
From October 2022 through July 2023, I followed seven students through their third and fourth years of medical school in Bryan, Texas. In the classroom, in the clinics, in the hospitals, and even into the operating room. Through interviews with the students, their preceptors, and the AIM Program staff and leadership, I attempted to tell their story, and to demonstrate the obvious benefits of breaking away from the traditional block model.