Our Health Science undergraduate program aims to prepare students for entry into health professional graduate programs such as Medicine, Physician Assistant Studies, Physical Therapy, Nursing, and Pharmacy. Our students are required to take two upper division physiology lecture courses worth 3 credits each and a 1-credit physiology laboratory course. Physiology Part A and Physiology Part B lecture courses each cover six organ systems in-depth. The laboratory course is designed to complement and reinforce systems taught in Physiology Part B which include Respiratory, Cardiovascular, Renal, Gastrointestinal, Skeletal, and Muscular Systems, and Exercise Physiology. We hypothesized that teaching our students clinical skills would simplify complex physiological concepts while providing real-world examples and desirable skills for entry into graduate programs. While we previously taught several clinical skills in this laboratory course, I implemented a major redesign of the curriculum between Spring 2022-Spring 2023 to incorporate substantially more skills which now include measuring and diagnosing/interpreting stretch reflexes, length-tension relationships, lung sounds, lung capacities, electrocardiograms (ECG), echocardiograms (Echo), blood pressure, vital signs, a patient assessment, and an exercise test. In addition to practicing these clinical skills, students analyze graphs, do calculations, solve worksheets containing ECG and Echo images, and make preliminary diagnoses given vital signs data and patient scenarios. Course assessments include two midterms and a final consisting of both written and practical components. Each exam is worth 30% of the course grade, with participation worth 10%. Between Spring 2022 – Fall 2025, I have taught 18 sections of our physiology laboratory course, to a total of 311 students. Learning and practicing clinical skills in lab significantly improves students’ understanding of key physiological concepts through real-world applications. By the end of the semester, there is a strong sense of community in the class and students are comfortable conducting a physical exam and taking medical history. This approach to teaching labs fosters technical competency in skills that our students regularly use during their clinical work experiences, which is a prerequisite for entry into several health professional graduate programs. Moreover, making preliminary diagnoses based on emergency medicine patient scenarios enhances their critical thinking ability. Finally, in keeping with our department’s vision, our laboratories include discussions about healthy diet and exercise to promote health and prevent disease. Student feedback about this course is overwhelmingly positive. Alumni often tell me about specific skills they learned in this course that helped them ace a job interview or make a positive impression on their supervisor. Additionally, having taught in our university’s Physician Assistant Studies graduate program, I have observed that alumni from our Health Science program breeze through cardiovascular and pulmonary pathophysiology. In conclusion, our skills-based laboratories facilitated the development of technical competency, critical thinking, and ability to analyze case-based applications that reflect real-world clinical practice. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
Manjari Murali (Fri,) studied this question.