Medicine Clerkship

Welcome to the Medicine Clerkship. The next eight weeks of your medical school career will be both challenging and immensely rewarding. By immersing yourself in the care of acutely ill patients, with the guidance of expert faculty and resident educators, you will emerge after these short weeks with the core skills that will make you a successful resident and future physician. And, we hope that we can show you the excitement of a life as an internist.

The focus of the Medicine Clerkship is the care of hospitalized patients with complex medical and psychosocial problems. You will take a complete history, conduct a thorough and accurate physical exam, take into consideration complex psycho-social issues, formulate a problem list, construct a relevant differential diagnosis, and along with your team begin to manage the daily details of the care of your patients. The clerkship is composed of two 4-week components at two sites: NMH and the Jesse Brown VA. Every student will spend at least four weeks at NMH; some will go to the VA for a month while others will be at NMH for two months (on two separate teams).

We consider our students to be integral parts of the ward team. Year in and year out, students say (and we agree) that the best learning experience is to take an H&P one-on-one with a patient, develop an independent assessment and plan, and get feedback from your teachers. Thus, the majority of your time will be spent on the wards, caring for patients. To supplement this core aspect of your teaching, we have a number of additional requirements, including weekly conferences, physical examination rounds, and meetings with your Site Director faculty liaison to discuss your performance.

In addition to the above activities, students will be responsible for completing and actively maintain their online clerkship log to ensure they are completing the clinical requirements of the clerkship; they will also take the end of rotation Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and the NBME Subject Examination at the end of the clerkship.

The Phase 2 Medicine Clerkship will provide the foundation of knowledge and skills which you will need in caring for sick patients, regardless of the specialty you decide to enter. During this eight-week clerkship, we will assist you in achieving the following important objectives. We do not expect mastery of all objectives listed but through efficient use of your time good progress will be made in attaining these objectives.