Curriculum
What Makes Our Curriculum Different?
Our Doctor of Veterinary Medicine curriculum is non-traditional but grounded. The three-year nine-semester continuous curriculum engages students in hands-on, experiential learning to develop the profession's future leaders. Collectively, the curriculum trains students to join the profession with multidisciplinary professional skills plus strategies for personal wellness and lifelong learning.
Reimagining the Classroom to Create Day-One-Ready Practitioners
Student-Centered Training
The Arizona CVM curriculum is designed to engage students in their education from week one of the program. Our approach to teaching and learning is backed by educational research and focused on maximizing the learning experience for all students. Beginning in week 1, students engage with course content with their peers during in-class activities, use state-of-the-art animal simulations, and begin working with live animals.
Developing Expertise
Our curriculum embraces evidenced-based teaching methods proven to develop expertise best. Doctor of Veterinary Medicine students do not passively receive information during a lecture. Instead, students engage by preparing for the lesson before class, and actual class time is utilized for team-based learning and hands-on training. Students interact with content throughout a course using relevant and level-appropriate clinical cases to solve problems and gain the necessary competencies to graduate as day-one career-ready veterinarians.
Spiral Curriculum
Our curriculum is designed with graduation in mind. Students repeatedly receive exposure to areas of education with increasing depth, complexity, and clinical application. For example, in the first half of the curriculum, students focus primarily on how body systems function in health and disease, then learn how to make a diagnosis. Students then begin applying their knowledge to approaches to treatment in the latter half of the curriculum. We layer this knowledge with opportunities for students to grow and develop business and communication skills essential to their future as professionals.
Curriculum content is mapped for each class to provide transparency of goals and outcomes for our students.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
We believe in tackling the most significant veterinary challenges through action-oriented, community-based inclusive excellence. Learn more about our commitment to diversity.
Our Courses
Our program breaks the mold of veterinary medicine education by taking an active learning, whole-person approach to training. Learn more about our courses.
Our Clinical Year
Students will spend their third year exposed to a large, diverse caseload through a vast network of clinical affiliates. Learn more about our clinical year model.