Sree Cheruku
03-03-2008, 11:44 PM
It was my first day today, so I thought I'd share my experiences.
The hospital facilities are great. The library is better than that of any other hospital I've been to, with updated journals and good computer access. Classrooms are nice with modern technology and the attendings and members of the medical education staff like to teach. There appears to be a good didactic component to all the core clinical rotations. The consensus among students who have been rotating there is that Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn are the best rotations.
The downside is that there's 600 students, so administrative tasks like orientation and group assignments take forever - roll call itself takes 10 minutes. Also, there are never enough seats for everyone - ever. I've also been told that students don't have much access to call rooms during 24 hour calls, which isn't much fun if you're in surgery.
They make a huge deal about titers, so if you don't have lab-drawn titer levels for MMR, V-Z, and Hepatitis as well as proof of PPD and physical exam in the last 12 months, your rotation will get cancelled. You have to bring them with you to the hospital. I also carry proof of passing Step 1 score and transcript just in case. Lots of people got bumped today because of not having titers.
The clinical coordinator here, JR, is pretty responsive to student needs. I don't think he likes ValueMD very much, based on his speech today, but I get that a lot from school/hospital adminstrators.
So far my Peds is going just as was described by another student in this thread (http://www.valuemd.com/aua-medical-school-clinical-forum/146753-wyckoff-st-john-hours.html) - I'll update this thread as I learn more.
Forgot to mention, I've gathered from my classmates who've called the clinical department in the last week that the current wait time for Pediatrics at Wyckoff is around 7-8 months, so make sure you schedule this rotation the minute that you have your Step 1 score back. You can use those 7-8 months to take care of all your other cores, which have much shorter wait times.
The hospital facilities are great. The library is better than that of any other hospital I've been to, with updated journals and good computer access. Classrooms are nice with modern technology and the attendings and members of the medical education staff like to teach. There appears to be a good didactic component to all the core clinical rotations. The consensus among students who have been rotating there is that Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn are the best rotations.
The downside is that there's 600 students, so administrative tasks like orientation and group assignments take forever - roll call itself takes 10 minutes. Also, there are never enough seats for everyone - ever. I've also been told that students don't have much access to call rooms during 24 hour calls, which isn't much fun if you're in surgery.
They make a huge deal about titers, so if you don't have lab-drawn titer levels for MMR, V-Z, and Hepatitis as well as proof of PPD and physical exam in the last 12 months, your rotation will get cancelled. You have to bring them with you to the hospital. I also carry proof of passing Step 1 score and transcript just in case. Lots of people got bumped today because of not having titers.
The clinical coordinator here, JR, is pretty responsive to student needs. I don't think he likes ValueMD very much, based on his speech today, but I get that a lot from school/hospital adminstrators.
So far my Peds is going just as was described by another student in this thread (http://www.valuemd.com/aua-medical-school-clinical-forum/146753-wyckoff-st-john-hours.html) - I'll update this thread as I learn more.
Forgot to mention, I've gathered from my classmates who've called the clinical department in the last week that the current wait time for Pediatrics at Wyckoff is around 7-8 months, so make sure you schedule this rotation the minute that you have your Step 1 score back. You can use those 7-8 months to take care of all your other cores, which have much shorter wait times.