The following requirements and criteria for electives at Baylor College of Medicine were approved by the School of Medicine Curriculum Committee on June 15, 2015 (not retroactive).
Common Elements of All Electives
Goals and objectives must be derived from the Institutions Core Competency Graduation Goals and explicitly link to them.
The elective must have a course director who is a faculty member of the Baylor College of Medicine.
The elective director must have full oversight over all elements of the elective and must ensure that the goals and objectives of the elective are being met.
The elective director is responsible for notifying the registrar’s office regarding any changes to the catalog listing of the elective
The elective director has the ultimate responsibility of making sure that the grades and evaluations are completed in a timely manner (within 4 weeks after the end of the elective)
The elective should not overlap in timings and logistics with required courses and should not interfere with the workload requirements of required courses.
Each elective must have defined grading criteria. For non-clinical electives, the grading will be Pass/Fail and for Clinical Electives, the grading will be Honors/High Pass/ Pass/ Minimal Pass and Fail.
Each elective must have a Blackboard site with relevant information about the elective including Institutional CCGGs, Elective Goals and Objectives explicitly linked to the Institutional CCGGs, Grading Rubric, and Overview of Elective. The elective director will have the responsibility to update the site at least yearly.
Please see graduation requirements for elective credit requirements.
Non-Clinical Electives at BCM
A maximum of six credits from non-clinical electives can be used towards the total electives requirement. There are three different kinds of non-clinical electives:
Pre-clerkship Electives: Pre-clerkship electives occur during the pre-clerkship terms/years of the curriculum
Non-clinical Advanced Electives: These electives occur during the clinical years/terms of the curriculum. These electives may be lecture/seminar based and do not meet the requirements of clinical electives
Research electives: These electives occur during the clinical years/terms of the curriculum. Research electives include both basic science research and clinical research. Research electives should involve at least 40 hours/week of research-related activities.
The research elective course director is responsible for the oversight of the research activities of the student. The research elective course director is responsible for ensuring that each student has an appropriate research mentor
Clinical Electives at BCM
Clinical electives occur during the clinical terms/years of the curriculum
The clinical elective must occur in a clinical setting (ambulatory or inpatient).
Clinical electives will have a pre-requisite of completion of at least one core clinical rotation.
Clinical electives should last for at least two (2) weeks
Clinical electives should involve at least 40 hours per week of at least 20 could be direct patient related contact.
Clinical electives credits awarded are limited to a maximum of 40 Hours/week
Research electives do not count towards the clinical electives requirement
Electives required for each graduating class are outlined in the graduation requirements.
Distance Education
Visit the distance education webpage for information.
