College of Medicine

During this clerkship, students will participate and demonstrate competence in humanistic and evidence-based inpatient and outpatient care of patients with common medical disorders. Students will also learn appropriate health promotion and health screening for adult patients. Students will learn to work as part of a medical team in all settings and will understand the roles of the interdisciplinary patient care team. Learning activities will include preceptor-supervised clinical experience, clerkship-specific didactics, use of standardized patients and medical simulations and self-directed learning utilizing information technology. The clerkship has specified the types of patients and clinical conditions students need to encounter, and the physical examination skills and testing and procedural skills that students need to master.

Surgical Clerkship will introduce the student to the workup, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of a wide variety of surgical diseases. Evidence-based practices will be emphasized. The student will spend 4 weeks on general or oncologic surgery, 4 weeks on trauma and critical care surgery and 4 weeks on surgical selectives including vascular surgery, ENT, anesthesia, transplant, thoracic oncology, plastic & reconstructive, ophthalmology and orthopedics. Students will also participate on the pediatric and colon/rectal surgical services as part of their general surgery block.  Students will be responsible for the evaluation and workup of patients in the emergency room and wards as well as in the outpatient setting. Participation in daily inpatient multidisciplinary ward rounds will be emphasized as well as active participation in a wide array of bedside surgical procedures and major operative interventions under general anesthesia. In hospital call will be a requirement. The student will also be responsible for regular attendance at weekly didactic conferences, grand rounds, journal club conferences and morbidity and mortality conferences and simulator/animal lab experiences.

Obstetrics and Gynecology

While on the Obstetrics and Gynecology clerkship, the student will be considered an integral part of the clinical team and have the opportunity for a broad range of clinical experiences in the Labor and Delivery suite, operating room, ambulatory clinics and inpatient hospital services. Didactic sessions including lectures, clinical skills workshops and case study seminars will supplement the core clinical experience. Students should come away from the clerkship with an understanding of the role of the obstetrician/gynecologist as a primary health care provider for women of all ages, the importance of the gynecologic history and physical examination in the overall assessment of the health of women, and the major significance of competent obstetrical and gynecologic care in public health and preventive medicine.

This clerkship will introduce third-year medical students to the basic principles of general pediatrics. Through both inpatient and outpatient encounters with children across the age range of pediatric, from neonates through young adulthood, the student will get exposure to the clinical care of children. The learner will participate in the newborn nursery and outpatient health supervision visits where the fundamental concepts of the pediatric interview and physical exam, growth and development, anticipatory guidance, primary prevention, screening, and vaccination will be presented. Clinical experience with acute/chronic illness visits will afford the learner exposure to common pediatric complaints and symptoms as well as common pediatric diagnoses. Participation in the inpatient component of this course will solidify students’ pediatric skills of data gathering, data synthesis, the development of problem lists and working diagnoses, and formulating therapeutic plans while being a member of a health care team providing family-centered care to children.

Between 10% and 15% of primary care visits may involve complaints referable to the nervous system. Neurologic problems may account for up to 1 in 5 hospital admissions. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., and is the single most common cause of long-term disability, and Alzheimer’s disease is a growing public health problem. For these and other reasons, education of non-specialists in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of neurologic disease is essential to integrated health care delivery. The goal of the Neurology clerkship is to formulate a diagnosis, begin an appropriate diagnostic evaluation, and initiate a rational treatment plan for common neurologic conditions. The clerkship accomplishes these aims by application of clinical neuroscience to the neurologic history and examination. Inpatient and outpatient experiences expose students to the full spectrum of neurologic disease.

During this clerkship, students will participate in evidence-based and patient-centered inpatient and outpatient care of patients with psychiatric disorders. Learning activities will include preceptor-supervised clinical experience, clerkship-specific didactics, use of standardized patients, and self-directed learning utilizing information technology. The clerkship has specified the types of patients and clinical conditions students need to encounter, and the physical/mental examination skills, and testing and procedural skills that students need to master.

In order to minimize conflict with clerkship schedules, sessions were planned every six weeks on Friday afternoons corresponding to the final Friday of six-week clerkships or the mid-point of the 12-week rotations. Each session is four hours in length and is developed by a team of clinicians and basic scientists.

The goals of these student-centered sessions are to strengthen integration of the basic and clinical sciences, emphasize multi-disciplinary patient care and facilitate self-reflection. Each session focuses on a representative topic from the third-year experience. The topics include: seizure, anemia in the adult female, abdominal pain, chest pain, mental status changes, hypertensive crisis, vomiting infant, and dizziness/fall. Faculty involved will include clinicians from multiple specialty and sub-specialty areas, pharmacologists, physiologists, microbiologists, geneticists, anatomists, and nutritionists. The format of the sessions will include a combination of one or more of the following: student-led case conferences, basic science-clinical correlation conferences, clinical pathophysiology cases, updates in clinical pharmacology, and a student-led reflection series. Ongoing incorporation of longitudinal curricular themes, including, for example, ethics and geriatrics, will also occur with each session. The third year then culminates with the Capstone Experience, a required, one-week course designed to help students integrate their clerkship experiences into guiding principles of patient care.