M-Home Learning Community

M-Home exists to build strong personal and professional support around students. Medical school is a time of tremendous growth, new experiences and challenges unique to every individual. We want you to feel at home here and thrive. That’s why we'll welcome you into M-Home from the start.

On your first day of Launch, you will discover which House you are in and immediately begin interacting with fellow House members. Within your House, you join a smaller Doctoring group with 10-12 students that is led by two faculty instructors. One of these faculty members will become your personal leadership coach.

Your M-Home experience embraces community building, coaching, well-being, creating a culture of authenticity and peer mentorship and development. 

When you arrive on campus, you inherit an instant community through M-Home. You will be welcomed by students from other classes, and they will be your teammates in house competitions like the M-Home Olympics and our “Med School versus Law School” trivia nights. 

In addition to your peers and Doctoring faculty coaches within your House, you have access to a Student Affairs counselor, a comprehensive collection of insider info through the Office of Medical Student Education intranet and many other resources available.

Neer Peer Advisors

Near Peer Advisors are M3-M4 students who serve to demystify clinical year for rising M2s by providing on-boarding sessions including learning styles on the wards, pre-rounding on patients, and operating MiChart.

After these initial sessions address questions during the transition, groups of M2 students are paired based on their track with advisors to have longitudinal support for any questions or concerns that arise as the year goes on. Our advisors cover questions ranging from technical to life organization so students feel supported with up-to-date information from those who most recently experienced the same hardships (i.e., a near peer)!

M-Home encourages student engagement and leadership at all levels. We encourage students to propose ideas for new activities and initiatives that will help foster authentic connections, community and well-being. We’ll coach and support you if you want to launch those ideas.

M-Home activities present students with opportunities to form networks and connect authentically with peers and faculty at various stages of their learning journeys. These activities range from the fun and social, like M-Home Olympics, CAMP and board game nights, to the challenging and thought-provoking, such as our Healers' Art elective course, our writing workshops and panels featuring physicians talking about recovery from substance use disorder. These events bring our community together to erode silos, build trust and learn from each other.

M-Home Representatives 

M-Home relies on student leadership to bring our community building efforts to life. M-Home representatives are part of the UMMS Student Council and encourage programming for their peers. They operate as part of a high-level team with faculty and staff to build authentic connections and relationships within the medical school experience.

M-Home supports well-being for all students. Well-being, or the art of “being well,” means different things for different students. Some students want to participate in weekly studio yoga classes. Others prefer outdoor bonding experiences, such as hiking with peers. A number of students want to develop their mindfulness and meditation techniques or experience joy and camaraderie through bowling nights, painting classes, baking nights or through the holiday parties we throw. We help you manage and relieve stress in healthy and productive ways, build resilience with the fluctuations of life during med school, make thoughtful choices to reduce harm and promote meaning and purpose every day.