Specialties
Our lecture covers all of the basic medical sciences in a very high yield fashion. Time is the most precious thing to a student, so it is very important to always learn medical information in a high yield fashion. We start with the concepts that are the foundation of all of medicine. We start at the top of the pyramid, rather than the bottom. Students are taught how to think rather than what to think. Students are empowered to figure out the ‘How’s’ and the ‘Why’s’ of medical information. Your knowledge is not limited to only what you have read, rather you will be able to apply foundational concepts to any fact pattern.
History
Established in 1996.
The PASS Program was started almost twenty years ago here in Champaign, Illinois. The objective was to establish a place where any medical student could come to in order to truly understand medical information, beginning with the basic medical sciences. We wanted an environment in which a student felt no shame, no loss of pride, and no humiliation for the academic difficulties that he or she had suffered. We wanted them to look forward to, rather than to fear, the future.
We have worked with dental students, nursing students, occupational therapy students, physician assistant students, residents, pediatricians, internists, ER physicians, rheumatologists, and orthopedic surgeons in addition to medical students from all over the country and the world.
Meet the Business Owner: Francis I.
Dr. Francis Ihejirika, was born in a small village of Owerri, Nigeria. He emigrated to the United States at the age of eight, two years after the onset of a Civil War in Nigeria. His family was in fact the first refugee family allowed into the United States in 1969. This required new legislation from Illinois senators at that time. Francis attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, graduating with a degree in Biology. He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Champaign, Illinois. He did his Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency at Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois and enjoyed a very successful practice there for nearly 10 years.
He returned to the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1997 as a Faculty Member in the department of Pathology and became the academic support for the Urban Health Program which assisted minority students. He then developed, and is now current director, of the PASS Program.
