Third Year Clerkships
Medicine
12 weeks
- Clerkship Directors: Drs. Adam Cifu, Krista Johnson, and Scott Stern | (773) 834-1745 | acifu@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
- Clerkship Coordinator: Debra Milton | (773) 702-0351 | dmilton@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
Description
The Medicine clerkship is a three-month rotation that includes both inpatient and outpatient experiences. The goal of the rotation is provide students with a foundation of knowledge in general internal medicine necessary to practice in any medical or surgical specialty.
The ambulatory component of the clerkship is a two-week block during which students spend at least 6 half days a week in an outpatient office. During the ambulatory portion of the rotation students also receive didactic sessions focused on palliative care and have experiences in urgent care and subspecialty practices.
During the nine week inpatient portion of the clerkship students rotate on the general medicine service and hematology/oncology service. The majority of students also have an inpatient cardiology experience. During each of these rotations, the students function as active members of the ward team and assume a prominent role in the management of the patients. Two times per week, students meet in small groups with a faculty preceptor. In addition to significant teaching responsibilities, the preceptor has primary responsibility for monitoring the progress of each student during the clerkship. Each student is required to meet at least twice during the clerkship with the preceptor for the sole purpose of receiving feedback. The preceptor is a person to whom students can turn if problems arise during the clerkship. The course directors are also readily available in case of problems.
Available teaching conferences include Resident Morning report, the Medical Morbidity and Mortality Conference and Medical Grand Rounds. Teaching conferences provided specifically for students include Noon Report (twice weekly), EKG lecture series (4 times/quarter), palliative care lectures (once during outpatient rotation) and a full day of didactic lectures.
Clinical Evaluation
Students are evaluated in several areas, including the quality of written and oral presentations, clinical reasoning skill, general fund of knowledge, the ability to interact with patients and colleagues, reliability in caring for patients, and humanistic qualities. Feedback about each student’s clinical performance is solicited from physicians with whom the student works. Course directors encourage each attending and housestaff physician to meet personally with each student in order to provide feedback, and they encourage the students to review the written evaluations submitted by these physicians.
Objectives
To gain insight into clinical principles and practice of internal medicine. Expectations regarding oral and written case presentations, number of cases to be seen and preceptor group participation are all explicitly stated during a two-day orientation.
Evaluation of Clinical Clerks
- 5% Evidence Based Medicine Presentation
- 25% NBME Subject Exam
- 70% Clinical Performance
Recommended Textbooks
- Symptom to Diagnosis: An Evidence Based Guide, Stern, Cifu, Altkorn
- Clerkship Preceptor Group and Ambulatory Syllabus
- EKG Interpretation, Dale Dubin
- Updated general medicine texts