New UTMB Elective and Selective Changes Announced

Due to state cuts in funding for medical student education, UTMB has recently made changes in the way departments earn teaching credits for nonclinical electives and selectives during the MS3 and MS4 years. This change will have a big impact on didactic courses offered by the UTMB Department of Dermatology. Fortunately, students already registered in these courses for the current 2011-2011 academic year are not impacted by these new guidelines. However, students still hoping to add or drop some of these electives may potentially be.

The first big change that students will notice during the current academic year is that they will not be able to add any dermatology didactic electives if there are already three students enrolled in the class. That is because according to UTMB’s new guidelines, departments will only receive teaching credit for up to 3 students per course. In the future when Ms. Keeswood receives a C Form request to add a dermatology selective or elective, she will first check to see if the there are already three or more students in the class. If there are already three or more students in the class, she will not be able to approve the C Form request. In addition, students requiring C Form permission for a late drop of a class where there are 3 or less students will not be given permission to drop unless there is another student on the class waiting list who still wants to take the class.

During the next academic year, this change will probably have a greater impact on students. The maximum class enrollment for didactic dermatology electives and selectives will be limited to 3 students for each class. This will have the biggest impact on the two popular dermatology film classes (elective DERU-4007 and selective DERU-4051). About 150 students took these two classes during the past 2009-2010 academic year. Next year only 6 students per Period (3 in each section) will be permitted to register for these classes, for a maximum annual enrollment of 78 students. Students interested in taking either of these courses during the next academic year are advised to pre-register for them during the spring enrollment period. Sadly, over-enrollments will not be permitted for any elective or selective beyond the maximum enrollment permitted.

The UTMB Dermatology Department hopes to create additional courses to address anticipated medical student demand for the next academic year. The UTMB Dermatology Interest Group (DIG) blog plans to keep everyone posted as these updates become available.