Inquiry Immersion

Inquiry Immersion is a two week pause in the Foundational Science curriculum during Year 1 when students join together for selectives, didactics, and practical workshops. The goal of this mini deep dive is to help shift students conception of medicine from a series of facts to be learned, to a vision of medical practice as a consistent engagement with an ever-evolving and imperfect body of knowledge.

Mini-Courses offer the chance to delve into the unknown of scientific knowledge and explore the boundaries of existing research and scholarship. Faculty experts from across the university participate and represent a wide spectrum of perspectives and scholarship at UCSF. Each course delves into a current controversy or unmet need in healthcare and includes teamwork and collaboration, capstone presentation, and the showcase event.

In addition, School of Medicine students begin preparing to undertake their own Summer Explore during Inquiry Immersion. Inquiry Inspiration sessions provide a broad context of exposure to antecedent learners projects, and skill-building sessions are dedicated to mentor finding, grant application, and ethical conduct of research. Throughout Inquiry Immersion, medical students have the opportunity to meet with interested potential mentors and plan their own future scholarly work.

Mini-Course Elements

Two weeks in December, before Winter Break.
12 hours of class time, mainly after 1:00pm, spread over 2-4 days/week.
6-12 students maximum.
Students choose their Mini-Course from a “menu” of options using course summaries and titles – not schedules and speakers.
No other homework is assigned during Inquiry Immersion to enable focus on Mini-Course topic.
Students present at a Showcase at the culmination of Immersion.

Faculty who interested in proposing a Mini-Course course, please contact the Inquiry Team.

Previous Mini-Course Examples

Previous Mini-Course Examples
Research Domain	Research Question	Faculty Lead(s)
ALPHAFOLD	Personal Genome Interpretation in the Post-AlphaFold world	James Fraser, PhD
ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE	Molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis and what we can do to delay the onset & progression.	Abhijit Satpati, PhD
BIOENGINEERING	Can we build a pancreas using micro and nanotechnology?	Zev Gartner, MD
BRAIN CANCER	Why do humans get brain tumors and what can we do about it?	David R. Raleigh, MD, PhD
CANCER METABOLISM	Can we use an understanding of cancer metabolism for imaging and therapy?	Pavithra Viswanath, PhD & Viswanath Ganapathy, PhD
CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH	Climate Change, Social Justice and Health: Understanding Impacts and Finding Solutions	Gina Solomon, MD, MPH
CLINICAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE	Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: What can clinicians learn and do about AI, and its impacts on healthcare?	Augusto Garcia-Agundez, PhD
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH AND DISEASE DISCOVERY	How can inclusive collaborative research drive discovery, enhance public understanding, and address emerging infectious diseases?	Robyn Kaake, PhD
COSMETIC PSYCHIATRY AND NEURO-ENHANCEMENT	What if you could boost your brainpower and ace the exam?	Kristin Nguyen, MD, William Smith, MD, & Tianyi Zhang, MD,
DECOLONIZATION OF THE HEALTH SCIENCES	Can the Health Sciences be liberated from their colonizing practices?	Aimee Medeiros, PhD &
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & ADVOCACY	Toxic Chemicals and Commercial Determinants of Health Disparities	James Earl Schier Nolan, MPH, Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, & Rashmi Joglekar, PhD
EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE AND COMPLEX DISEASE	Why don't Monkeys get Multiple Sclerosis?	Riley Bove, MD
GENOMIC SEQUENCING	Genomics in Action: How are Sequencing Technologies Transforming Healthcare throughout the life of a patient?	Katherine Hyland, PhD & Jessica Van Ziffle, PhD
HEALTH ECONOMICS	Should all FDA approved medications be covered by health insurance plans in the US?	Rosa Rodriguez-Monguio, PhD, MS
HEALTH JUSTICE	How does immigration policy impact health in our communities?	Eva Raphael, MD, MPH
HEALTH POLICY		Mark Atalla
HIV & CANCER	Cancer in HIV-positive men and women: why is it increasing and can we stop it?	Joel Palefsky, MD
HOLISTIC MENTAL HEALTH	Can integrative healthcare heal the mind-body split in western medicine?	Sudha Prathikanti, MD & Selena Chan, DO
IMMUNO-ONCOLOGY	How can we best use the immune system to treat cancer?	Hilde Schjerven, PhD, Bridget Keenan, MD, PhD, Corynn Kasap MD PhD, & Julia Carnevale, MD
INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP	How can we accelerate drug discovery and development?	Charles Hart, PhD
INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE	Are integrative medicine approaches ready for implementation for pain management?	Anand Dhruva, MD
MEDICAL HUMANITIES	Can the medical humanities save health care, help patients, and help you become a more effective, resilient clinician?	David Elkin, MD & Shieva Khayam-Bashi, MD
MEDICINAL CANNABINOID USE	Are non-prescription cannabinoids a good complement or good alternative to prescribed medication?	Matt Cummings, PharmD
MICROBIOME	Fanning flames or battling blazes: what is the role of the microbiome in disease treatment?	Peter Turnbaugh, PhD & Vaibhav Upadhyay, MD, PhD
MINDFULNESS	What does mindfulness have to offer health professions education?	Joe Cook, MA, Carter Lebares, MD & Christopher Sha, MD
MOLECULAR AGING	Fountain of Youth: Can We Turn Fiction into Reality?	Hao Li, PhD, John Newman, MD, PhD, & Saul Villeda, PhD
NEXT GENERATION SEQUENCING	How Do We Use Next Generation Sequencing in Oncology and Infectious Disease Diagnostics?	Eric Chow, PhD, Elliot Stieglitz, MD, & Michael Wilson, MD
OPIOID CRISIS	Our Country's Opioid Crisis: How Can Every Provider Make a Difference?	Jessica Ristau, MD
OUTREACH THROUGH SURGERY	How Can Surgeons Extend Healing Beyond Our Hospital Walls?	Caitlin Collins, MD; Seung Ah Lee, MD; Gloria Sue, MD, MA;
PRECISION MEDICINE	How can primary and acquired resistance to personalized cancer therapy be overcome?	Adil Daud, MD & Harish Vasudevan, MD, PhD
PROTEIN AGGREGATION DISEASE	Where Will Cures Come From?	Jason Gestwicki, PhD
PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE	Can psychedelics help heal racial trauma?	Joseph Zamaria, PsyD
SURGERY	Is the Stereotype of the “Surgical Personality” a Myth or Reality?	Wen T. Shen MD MA
WIKIPEDIA & HEALTH	Since Wikipedia is the world's most used health information source, how do we make it accurate and digestible?	Amin Azzam, MD, MA

Example Course Overviews

Why Don't Monkeys Get Multiple Sclerosis?

OVERVIEW:

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative human disorder. While the last few decades have seen a revolution in the treatments available for MS, we still don't know its cause, or why rates appear to be increasing, especially in women. Is MS triggered, as it is in animal models, by a specific agent/pathogen? Or does MS arise spontaneously in humans, as a result of disruption of the normal homeostatic mechanisms regulating humans' prolonged period of myelin production and maintenance? This course will apply the lens of evolutionary medicine to examine the rise of MS in the modern world.

What if You Could Boost Your Brainpower and Ace the Exam?

OVERVIEW:

The emerging field of cosmetic psychiatry, namely the enhancement of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional processes in persons who do not suffer from illness or disease, is already upon us. But what is the efficacy and safety of neuro-enhancement interventions (medications, neuro-modulation, or cognitive gaming)? What are the ethical tensions at play? This Inquiry mini-course will explore the topic of cosmetic psychiatry and the challenging clinical, ethical, and public health questions in this emerging field.

Center for Advancing Scholarship in Education

Center for Faculty Educators

Inquiry Immersion