so what are clinicals like?

[uknowwhoitis]

Hi all,

I was just wondering what you do in the last two years of school. I know its hands on training basically but exactly what does it consist of? For example, are there tests? etc. Just an overall idea of what one does...for example in undergrad you go to lecture, discussions, and do homework and take tests. Give us a day-in-a-life in a rotation? Thanks
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[jrosenberg]

There are a bunch of posts about this but basically.....Your third year you do your core rotations, Peds, surgery, obgyn, psych, and intrenal medicine. Each one is either six weeks or twelve weeks long. EVery hospital has a different set-up that will make a difference in terms of ehat kind of hours you have for each rotation and what kind of lecture time you have. My husband is at Elmhurst in Queens. He has minimal lecture time and more hands on. He just finished Peds so I can tell you that schedule. He was in from 8-6 every day mon-fri. No overnight call. (I know his friends at other hospitals did have overnight for peds) Twice a week, he had to present to the head of the program a case he had seen that week. It was fairly time consuming. He had to do research at the hospital and work on the presentation at home. At the end of his rotation, he had a written exam of 100 questions on Thursday and an oral presentation that he had to create on powerpoint and speak for 1/2 hour about a case on Friday. he just started psych and he has 8:30-5:30 every day Mon-Friday except Tuesday and Friday nights where he is there till 9 PM. he has four cases he has to present throught the core. Every rotation ends with a written exam at the end. That is standard at all the hospitals as the exam is from the school. Peds he worked two weeks in the outpatient clinic seeing sick children, two weeks at te NICU and two weeks at the pediatric ER. He goes on grand rounds, discusses the patients, admits patients to the hospital, does physical exams etc. He likes it a lot better than school as he is not a lecture type person and prefers to learn from hands on! Hope this helps.