Regional MINI Medical Schools
Build Community Relations

Through their successful mini medical schools, IUSM's regional medical education centers in Muncie, Gary, Terre Haute and South Bend all offer lectures to enhance the medical and scientific literacy of the public. High school students, housewives and retirees are among those attending. Topics are wide-ranging. Recent lectures have touched on surgical procedures, exercise and physical fitness, testis cancer, and spirituality in medicine.

According to the National Institutes of Health, about sixty mini medical school programs exist nationwide. The School's program, patterned after those at the University of Colorado and University of Virginia medical schools, began on the Indianapolis campus five years ago. Center directors saw the program as an opportunity to build better relations with their communities.

At the Northwest Center for Medical Education in Gary, members of the local medical community present many of the lectures, which are held in the Lake County Public Library and are open to the public at no charge. As many as one hundred individuals attend each session. They are given the opportunity to vote for the following year's lecture topics. The South Bend Center for Medical Education has sponsored its medical school since 1995. Both SBCME faculty and local physicians give presentations which typically include basic science information as well as clinical applications. Attendance at the sessions ranges from 125-150 with a heavy concentration of students and retirees.

To enhance community outreach by the Terre Haute Center for Medical Education, it partners with Indiana State University, Union Hospital, Terre Haute Regional Hospital, Hamilton Center, Inc., and Larry Bird's Home Court Hotel to sponsor its mini medical school. Fifty to a hundred individuals attend each session, and about half the audience attends all nine sessions offered.

For the past three years the Muncie Center for Medical Education has offered a mini medical school consisting of four to six classes with an average attendance of fifty people per class. Classes are geared toward university students, health care professionals and the general public.