Thinking Like a VMD, Earlier

In 2023, Bellwether spoke with a few faculty and two first-year students as Penn Vet launched the most sweeping overhaul of its curriculum in more than 50 years. Now, with the Class of 2026 on the verge of graduation, we checked back in with the same students (and one more) to see what held up, what changed, and what it meant to be the first class to go through the integrated framework.

When the Class of 2026 arrived at Penn Vet, they stepped into a great unknown. Their first year was also the start of the School’s modernized curriculum. V’26 would be the first to learn under it. Trailblazers? Sure! Trepidatious? No doubt.

“We knew we were first,” said Kiera Zimmerman, V’26. “Many of us had anxiety about whether we’d be prepared at the end of four years, but we also knew the changes were necessary.”

Zimmerman—who will soon commission as a U.S. Army veterinarian at Fort Hood, caring for military working dogs and providing general practice support for service members’ pets—can pinpoint exactly when she realized things were clicking.

“Early in our third year, I found myself observing classmates,” she said. “I’d watch them work and give off ‘doctor vibes.’ We had a lot to learn still, but it was all coming into focus—they were so obviously stepping into being professionals.”

A 21st-Century Curriculum

The new curriculum takes an outcome-based, learner-centered approach, teaching students to find, assess, and integrate information across disciplines, think through complex problems, and arrive at sound decisions—whether in patient care, research, or practice management. Knowledge remains foundational, but the framework places equal weight on its practical application: building competencies that layer atop one another, so graduates can continue learning and excelling long after they leave the classroom.

The first two years are organized into biological process blocks: Movement & Support, Digestion & Metabolism, Circulation & Respiration, Elimination & Detoxification, Defense & Barriers, Cognition, Senses & Response, and Reproduction & Development.

Year one explores Animals in Health. Year two revisits the same systems through Animals in Disease. Students begin each semester with a foundational toolkit and end with a capstone that reinforces and integrates everything they’ve learned. Two longitudinal “ribbon courses”—Hippiatrika and Of Clouds and Clocks—build clinical skills and scientific thinking.

Years three and four are spent in clinical rotations and elective clinical coursework. For David “Bucky” Buckwalter, V’26, the block structure was appealing. “I knew exactly what was expected and what was going to be given to us,” he said. “Being able to focus on one system and then move on to the next, integrating it as you go, was extremely helpful. Unlike jumping from subject to subject—like an undergrad approach—which mixes a lot of the material in your head.”

Charting a values-driven career

While scientific knowledge and rigor remain central, the four-year program also includes explicit opportunities for students to begin shaping their professional identities.

Through coursework in communication, wellness, and professional identity formation, the soon-to-be veterinarians reflect on their values, examine how workplace alignment (or misalignment) can lead to moral distress and burnout, and develop the skills needed to care for patients, clients, and themselves—all of which are necessary for a healthy 21st-century work life.

“We’re helping students tune into who they’re becoming, not just what they know,” said Amy Durham, MS, VMD, MSEd, DACVP, associate dean for education.

She described a reflective exercise introduced for V’28. “At the start of each year, students write a letter to themselves based on a prompt, seal it, and give it to me to hold. The following year, I return it, offer a new prompt, and they add another letter. This continues through clinical orientation before third year. At graduation, I will return all letters at once—so students can look back and see their progression.”

The goal is to ready them for a profession at the intersection of humans and animals, life and death.

“The reality is that practicing veterinary medicine is often hard,” said Liz Arbittier, VMD, associate director of academic and community affairs, New Bolton Center, and associate professor of Clinical Equine Field Service. “Clinics are hard. The career is hard. We have to prepare students for the emotional toll—conflict, grief, challenge—because resiliency is core to a sustainable career.”

Zimmerman found the curriculum’s emphasis on identity offered a framework for thinking about the kind of veterinarian she wants to be. “We’re more balanced and finding our footing technically but also professionally,” she said. “And talking to students in the years after us, you can see them experiencing the benefits, too.”

Iterating in real time

Designing a curriculum for a rapidly changing profession requires flexibility, and feedback loops were built into the rollout.

The class provided block-by-block evaluations and participated in facilitated focus groups. Because the input was immediate, faculty often made changes before the next cohort took the course.

Alexis Massey, V’26, remembered the process as responsive. “Of course, like any new program, there were things to fine-tune,” she said. “But what stood out was how open and responsive the team was to our feedback. They truly listened and made real improvements along the way. It felt energizing to be part of something growing and evolving.”

At the same time, data also reinforced the need for responsiveness.

Results from V’26’s Veterinary Educational Assessment (VEA)—a preclinical test of biomedical sciences—highlighted an opportunity to strengthen engagement in a pass/fail Hippiatrika course that teaches clinical pathology. Faculty recognized that students were likely prioritizing letter-graded courses over a pass/fail course.

In response, attendance at key sessions became mandatory, and students were required to demonstrate competency to pass. The following year, V’27 posted higher scores than the previous few years.

Other structural changes included reorganizing foundational toolkit courses into coherent themes, after students indicated the courses felt “disorganized and shotgun.” One dense four-week course expanded to five weeks to allow deeper absorption. To create that space, the fall capstone was shortened and rebuilt as a mix of required sessions and electives, giving faculty flexibility to deliver focused, hands-on instruction on topics they’re passionate about.

“Through it all, students showed remarkable resilience and grace,” Durham said. “We were building the plane mid-flight, and they were right there with us. Their input, questions, and eagerness to help iterate made us more thoughtful about pedagogy and clearer about our rationale. And a big shout out to V’25, as well, for their patience and grace during the changes.”

Buckwalter offered the student take. “Professors and those developing the curriculum were flexible and willing to hear us,” he said. “Nothing was set in stone. And that’s life. Just the willingness to be flexible taught students something too: Things won’t always run as expected. It’s a bigger education lesson—bigger than just sitting in class listening to a lecture all day.”

Skills, Confidence, and Entrustment — Earlier

At New Bolton Center, Arbittier has had a front-row seat to V’26’s progress through clinics.

“At the very beginning, the differences with earlier classes weren’t dramatic,” she said. “But as we went into the second clinical year, we saw higher-order reasoning appear earlier—students thinking through diagnostics, treatment options, and case workflows, and then carrying them out with confidence.”

Arbittier pointed to more time in clinics as a likely factor in earlier entrustment: Under the legacy curriculum, students entered clinics in May of their third year—after nearly three full years of classroom education. Now they arrive in late August of their rising third year, meaning they’re working with patients and clients six to 12 months sooner. By January of year four, many students are demonstrating independent clinical skills, “thinking like a doctor” when creating diagnostic and treatment plans, and operating at what Arbittier called “near intern level not previously seen until just prior to graduation.”

Part of the shift, she believes, also came from introducing students to clinics before the beginning of year three—the legacy curriculum had virtually no orientation to the clinical environment. Now, every class spends two intensive weeks on everything from learning the computer systems at Ryan Hospital and New Bolton Center to practicing large-animal handling and walking through scenarios they’ll likely face during rotations.

“It’s a little overwhelming to go from classrooms to clinics. When students know what to expect, the experience isn’t a total shock to the system,” Arbittier explained.

Moreover, long before students reach their clinical years, they take Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), which are intense, timed, directly observed skills tests. First-year students complete five stations; second-year students complete eight or nine. Each station might combine multiple tasks: calculating medications, placing a catheter, performing suture patterns— all in six minutes and with a proctor watching. Students must pass to advance to the next year in the curriculum.

“By the time they pass those OSCEs, those foundational skills are solid,” Arbittier said. “It pays off in clinics.”

Massey credits the Hippiatrika communication labs—sessions where clinicians brought in actors to play clients—with giving her skills she didn’t fully recognize until she was using them. “I didn’t realize I was doing those things,” she said. “I would feel and also display empathy when something hard was happening—and then I’d think, I learned that. I can put a name to it now.”

She felt the payoff during a particularly challenging experience, while on an internal medicine rotation.  A dog with Cushing’s syndrome, diabetes, and other comorbidities came in. Massey took the patient’s history and attended the client consultation. When the primary clinician left the room, the client, overwhelmed by the discharge information, asked Massey to review everything again.  

“I used chunking—breaking down the plan into manageable pieces—and also mirrored back what I heard the patient say,” she said. “That was when I felt my training really kick in—I trusted the foundation I’d built, and that I am well prepared to be a practicing veterinarian.” And practice she will, when she joins a South Jersey practice after graduation.

What the data say

Although Zimmerman, Massey, and Buckwalter had positive experiences, Durham, consistent with Penn Vet’s identity as a research institution, sought objective evidence that the redesign is achieving its objectives. She led a mixed-methods study comparing students in the legacy curriculum with those in the integrated model: “Veterinary Medical Students’ Retention of and Attitudes Toward the Biomedical Sciences: A Comparison Between Students in the Legacy and in the New Integrated Curriculum.”

Published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, the paper assesses biomedical science retention by comparing the performance of both cohorts on the Veterinary Educational Assessment.

Despite less time in the classroom, V’26 outcomes were comparable across most domains. In two areas—pharmacology and pathology—legacy students outperformed their integrated curriculum peers. Armed with this data, faculty made immediate alterations to the curriculum, and V’27 scores reflected the changes. (The study was conducted before changes to the clinical pathology content were made.)

Equally interesting were shifts in student attitude. Students in the integrated curriculum were more likely to say that understanding biomedical science is central to veterinary practice, that basic science should integrate with clinical work early, and that what they were learning felt fundamental to their future roles.

In open responses, students across cohorts named the same purposes for biomedical knowledge—diagnosis, treatment, evidence-based decisions, client education—but those trained in the integrated model articulated the connections with greater ease and conviction.

“We’re always learning something—from data, from students, from faculty,” Durham said. “There’s something to be said for having the curriculum under a microscope—because we’re doing continual evaluations, we can make continual improvements. I would love for us to do that forever.”

Change is why

Buckwalter is all for it! The new curriculum drew him to Penn Vet in the first place.

He grew up watching veterinarians work in rural Pennsylvania—the question was never whether vet school, but which vet school. When it was time to apply, he knew Penn Vet was overhauling its decades-old curriculum.

“That was a signal for me. I thought—they’re adapting to the profession I’m entering,” he said. “And it’s a great framework.”

Now, as he looks ahead to a career in food animal medicine and swine production, he has some thoughts about being a pioneer: “It was interesting—and pretty cool—to help shape what students after us will experience.”