Building a “Lecture-Less” Spiral Curriculum: OCOM’s Unique Approach to Osteopathic Education

New osteopathic medical school leverages learning science and technology to shape the future of modern medical education.

The Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine (OCOM), which will welcome its first cohort of 90 students this August, aims to revolutionize osteopathic medical education through a groundbreaking “lecture-less” spiral curriculum. Lesson plans will include evidence-based elements, active learning through case-based learning, virtual anatomy, and simulation training to equip students with a comprehensive knowledge base and essential skills toward becoming caring and competent physicians. 

TrueLearn’s Chief Commercial Officer, Kate Campbell, spoke with OCOM’s Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Robert T. Hasty DO, FACOI, FACP, on his vision for the new school, its pioneering approach, and the impact on the nation’s healthcare system and community.

Kate: What initially inspired you to pursue a career in medicine?

Dr. Hasty: I wanted to make a difference in the world by improving the lives of those around me. I think that serving patients as a physician is one of the most noble professions in the world. 

Kate: When did you first sense a calling toward medical education? Was there any singular moment that solidified that decision for you?

Dr. Hasty: I never thought I could become a physician! In my first year of college, I was doing really well academically and realized that I could do anything I wanted. Then, I had a conversation with a nurse that inspired me to think about a career in medicine—that conversation completely changed my life and has now influenced the lives of so many others.

Kate: Building a brand-new medical school from the ground up is no small undertaking. Having successfully done so multiple times now, what motivates you to continue taking on that immense challenge?

Dr. Hasty: Starting a medical school is such an incredible challenge and responsibility, and can impact so many for generations to come. It’s given me an immense sense of purpose. OCOM will be the last medical school I develop, and I plan to be here until the end of my career.

Kate: Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine (OCOM) has officially been granted permission to begin accepting applicants for your inaugural class. Can you take us back to the beginning and explain how your latest mission came to be?

Dr. Hasty: OCOM’s mission is to train caring and competent osteopathic physicians who will have an impact on the Central Florida community, our nation, and our global community.

If you asked anyone from the OCOM team why we do what we do, they would probably tell you that it is our purpose in life. Creating and advancing OCOM is bigger than any of us. The quality of the excellent and caring physicians that we will train at OCOM will make an impact on so many and is something that all of us can be proud of for as long as we live. 

I remember the fall of 2022 when the walls of OCOM had just been erected, and Superintendent Lee Underwood came up to me and told me how he constructed the eight-inch concrete walls and steel frame to ensure that the OCOM building would be around for 100 years. It made me pause to think about how this building and OCOM will be around long after any of us have gone from this earth and will be making a difference for so many generations to come. 

Kate: Your venture with Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine helped to solve the very real problem of physician shortages in rural areas. What current challenges in medical education or the healthcare workforce are you hoping OCOM will help address, either locally in central Florida or nationwide?

Dr. Hasty: While a major impetus for creating OCOM was to address the current and future significant physician shortages of Central Florida, our vision is to be a leader in training caring, altruistic, and transformative osteopathic physicians in support of our mission.

Kate: What are you doing at OCOM that will make this program and the learning experience unique from other medical schools?

Dr. Hasty: We created OCOM from the ground up with a focus on creating the best and most modern medical school possible. We used evidence-based adult learning principles to guide the creation of our curriculum, which is composed of the best evidence-based components that are structured to create caring and expert physicians.

Kate: OCOM has adopted a “spiral curriculum,” which is likely a new term for many folks. Can you elaborate on what that means and the benefits of organizing learning in this manner? 

Dr. Hasty: Traditionally, most medical schools centered around mandatory, in-person, long-form lectures. While lecture-based curricula have served medical education for a very long time, we learned that there are more effective types of learning than predominantly passive models. 

“Lecture-less” is a bit of a misnomer as most schools with a “lecture-less” style actually have pre-recorded lectures that they integrate into a flipped-classroom environment like OCOM does. 

OCOM will focus more on in-person, case-based learning environments where medical students will work in small groups (eight medical students to one physician faculty member). We also have a spiral curriculum where medical students are taught information and then re-assessed on the information they have learned three to six months later in the learning consolidation course.

Kate: In addition to this consistent revisiting of topics, what other strategies or approaches do you plan to employ to support the delivery of OCOM’s unique and evidence-based curriculum?

Dr. Hasty: OCOM has a number of other components that make its curriculum robust. Overall, we have a process that requires students to complete milestones before advancing. We also have a set of Entrustable Professional Activities that all students must have proficiency in before graduating to ensure that we are training excellent and safe physicians. Additionally, we integrate a good amount of simulation throughout the curriculum and will train medical students on a wide range of skills, such as leadership, the business of medicine, and various aspects of communication and professionalism.

Kate: How will you be leveraging technology to support students’ learning throughout the program?

Dr. Hasty: We really value innovation and will be leveraging various technologies to better train our medical students. One of our goals is to be an Apple Distinguished School and to integrate Apple technology throughout. 

OCOM is a cloud-based environment built from the ground up to be secure and robust and to deliver the best technology solutions for our students, faculty and staff. On top of that, we have made a major investment in simulation and virtual anatomy that will help us train safer physicians. 

Kate: Building a solid foundational knowledge base is essential to success, not only in medical school and on boards but also as a practicing physician. Can you tell us more about how you are using your Learning Consolidation Course to protect that foundation and how you are integrating COMBANK powered by TrueLearn into the course to help accomplish that goal?

Dr. Hasty: We have learned a lot about adult learners over the past few decades. One thing that is important to know is that to drive long-term retention of knowledge, the information cannot be taught just once but needs to be reassessed after it is learned. 

There is evidence suggesting that adult learners who are re-assessed three to six months after they initially learned materials engage in deep-retrieval processes, and that improves long-term knowledge retention. We have modeled our curriculum around that, and will leverage COMBANK as a key tool in the process.

Kate: As we mentioned previously, OCOM has begun accepting applicants for its inaugural class. For those interested in applying, what can they expect regarding the timeline, and where can they learn more?

Dr. Hasty: We are currently accepting students for our inaugural class of ‘97, which will begin in August 2024. OCOM.org is the best place to learn more.

Kate: With a beautiful, brand-new building currently underway, will there be opportunities for potential future students to visit the state-of-the-art facility upon completion?

Dr. Hasty: We are hosting a number of events, including open houses and accepted student days, and we will have virtual tour options as well. You’ll find all this information and more on our website.

TrueLearn’s partnership with OCOM aligns with the school’s innovative approach to osteopathic medical education that champions learning science and technology. Integrating COMBANK, powered by TrueLearn, into the curriculum allows OCOM to seamlessly reinforce key cognitive science principles and accelerate learning while also tracking and ensuring mastery of previously delivered content in the school’s learning consolidation course.

About Dr. Robert T Hasty, DO, FACOI, FACP

Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer, OCOM

Dr. Hasty is board-certified in internal medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Osteopathic Internists and the American College of Physicians. He attended the University of Miami and graduated with a triple science major (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Chemistry, and Biology) in 1996 before going on to receive his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2000.  

In 2005, he answered a calling to become an academic physician with the NSU College of Osteopathic Medicine and later served as the Founding Program Director of the Palmetto General Hospital Internal Medicine Residency Program, where he helped develop several other graduate medical education programs. In 2013, Dr. Hasty became the Vice President of Medical Education, Regional Associate Dean, and Associate Dean for Postgraduate Affairs for Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine in North Carolina. 

Prior to founding OCOM, Dr. Hasty was the Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer of the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM), Idaho’s first medical school.