Not new to the forum but have never posted thought I would give back for some of the good advice that I had received over the past 2 years.

I have just completed the fifth semester and here is some info from my experience.

The fifth semester is set up into 12 weeks which are subsequently divided up into 3-4 weeks of clinical rotations. (I personally had 2 weeks at one location and then two separate one week rotations at different clinics (will discuss below)). One weekend of BTLS/ACLS certifications and one week of BTLS lectures which are held in the 7000 building (the main campus in miami so to speak). There is one week of CHS lectures where you go to North Shore Clinic (cant remember which exit but its off I-95) and sit through four lectures from different physicians (diabetes, HT, Pulmonary, and AIDS). The rest of the weeks are case study weeks where you must attend small group/large group lectures and then have the rest of the week to study. The first week of classes/registration are held at the Hyatt Downtown (Exit 2 I think off I-95) where the expectations of the semester and all of the introductory material is handed out. The actual registration is at the 7000 building where you get your financial aid checks, sign up for the USMLE (bring check cause it costs $695), take new picture IDs, and also pay the 300$ for the BTLS/ACLS course/certification and get a copy of your most up to date transcript. Large group lectures are held at the Hyatt every Wednesday and start at 9am (usually) and go to either 12pm or 4pm, they consist of lectures by some of the faculty and guest faculty. I personally felt that some of the lectures were helpful and some were a little low yield, but it is a good chance to get some material down that you may be rusty on (anemia, leukemias, lymphomas, IBD etc.) All of the large group lectures are mandatory and they take attendance with your CPS unit, also the CPS unit is used to answer questions before the start of the large group lecture. The small group lecture is held at the 7000 building and can be on any day except for when there is large group lecture. It is for 2 hours and there are usually between 20-50 students in the classroom. In the small group they go over topics in more detail with the use of a clinical scenario (this is an interactive type of group learning so they ask people questions in a round robin style). I found the small group to be helpful with lab images and slightly helpful in presenting clinical scenarios.


The grade in the fifth semester is made up from 1 or 2 writeups (30%), midterm and final exam (40-50%), physical exam (20%), and 10% for professionalism. I will talk about each of these individually.

Write Up- The patient writes up are probably the most frustrating part of the fifth semester since they are graded a lot more stringently then on the island, but at the end of the whole process it really helps you learn how to fully write up a patient. The first write up is worth 10% (or can be 30 if you choose to not do a second write up), also if you keep your 4th semester write up and turn it in they will grade it again and give you a new grade. If this grade is a satisfactory or higher the grade you receive on your first write up will be bumped up to the next highest grade. I recommend going to the “optional” write up reviews where they go over your HPI with you and really clear up any other problems that you are having. Again the passing grade is a Sat (which is a 78%), the next highest is Sat+ (80%), Good (around 85%), Very Good (88%), and Excellent (90+%). If you choose to do the second write up (which most people do since it is the only way that you can do the extra credit SOAP note at the end of the semester) there is another review that you can attend and they listen to your HPI and give you feedback again. If there are any more questions about the write up just post some responses and I will try to answer your questions.

PE- Worth 20% of the grade, I recommend to start practicing at least 2 weeks before you are scheduled to go. The TA’s will demonstrate a full PE at the beginning of the semester and also again in groups of 4 students where you can perform the techniques with critique. Towards the PE testing period (last two weeks in the semester or so), they will hold review sessions that are pretty helpful (5 stations, HEENT, opht, cardiac, respir, and abdomen) so be sure to attend since it will clear up any last minute problems you may be having. Actual testing is set up with you and your partner in one of the clinical rooms in the 7000 building with two TA’s or a course teacher and a TA grading you. You must get done within 45 minutes (they time you) so while you are practicing you should time yourself and get down to about 43 minutes. BE sure to follow the order in the TA PE guide that will be posted on ecollege while you practice. (the pdf not the excel file). Overall, some people had problems with the PE since you can miss only a total of 20 points (out of about 200) to pass. If you do fail you must remediate the week after the semester final and can only achieve a max grade of B.

Midterm/Final – The midterm was made up of 100 MCQs and two essays. The MCQ were made up of questions from the pretest (so be sure to go look at yours) and lectures that were given until the midterm. The two essays were random (one bone, one GI) and were out of 25 points each. The final was 100 MCQ from the whole semester worth of lectures (more emphasis on post midterm though), and 7 essay questions. For the final topics were given out to study for the essay questions so that made it more reasonable. For the midterm look at your pretest since there will be similar questions, for the final make sure you study all of the notes since a lot of the questions come from the small/large group sessions.

Epitest – The epi test is a pass/fail open book w/one page of notes multiple choice test. They sell the epicize book for 30$ but be sure to add notes into it about relative risk etc from the Epi lectures since it is not in the book but is on the exam. The epi lectures are optional to attend, but they are worth it since the epi we had during third semester on the island was pretty horrible.

Clincal Rotations – Your assignments are generally emailed out the weekend before you must attend. Check ecollge for the exact location and directions to your assigned spot. The time you spend at the rotation is set up by the physicians and the amount of work you get to do is also set up by the physicians. Some of the rotations are fun and you learn quite a bit, others you do not get to do much and just sit around. It is mainly luck of the draw, but if you do have a rotation that you want to do email the course director and he will most likely set it up for you. As far as my personal rotations I did two weeks at a large medicaid/medicare clinic where on different floors there were different clinics (one floor peds, one floor FP, one floor OB/GYN. At this rotation I didn’t get to do that much but the doctors were helpful in explaining things that they were doing on patients. The second rotation I had was at a private Peds practice where we would go into the rooms with the patients first and talk to them (or really the parents) about the presenting symptoms etc and then before the doctor came in we would present the case to him. This rotation was good as we learnt a lot about some the common problems seen in a PEDS clinic. My third rotation was at a FP clinic. This rotation was good as the doctor would give us 45 min with each patient and allow us to do a full PE (my partner and I would rotate patient to patient) on them while she attended to her other patients.


Professionalism – basically your CPS usage, clinical rotations, professional behavior and dress are added into this grade.

Well I could have written a lot more but here are some HY tips for doing well in the fifth.
1)Get to know your TA and faculty, talk to them because trust me in this semester that counts for a lot.
2)Get you heavy partying done within the first three weeks or so and then get to work on studying for the midterm.
3)Practice early for the PE (at least three weeks before) and attend all of the sessions that are available to you.
4)Attend the optional review for the first and second paper since with the right TA these sessions are helpful.
5)Make the most out of your clinical rotations and make sure you fill out the clinical log sheets and turn them in.
6)The course director seems to like students who are making the effort (so things that are voluntary usually means he wants you to go) so try to attend any so called voluntary sessions.
7)Do the EC SOAP note since it can add up to 5% to your grade at the end of the semester. (be sure to stay for the whole optional review since they took attendance at the end and used that for 10 out of the 50 points)
8)When you get frustrated (and most people do) due to set up of the semester just deal with it and remember that you are no longer in Dominica, you are in Miami where nightlife, good food and everything else you want is very close by.
9)Work hard on your write ups and remember they want to see chronological order and pertinent ROS in the HPI, focused PE, and basically link everything together in the write up so as one TA put it “I can almost tell what your patient is presenting with by reading ANY part of the write up”
10)Get through the semester and then study hard for the STEP (like I think im doin now…)

Alright if anyone has any questions about where to live, more details about any of the other topics, or anything else about the fifth that I can help with just respond to the post and I will try my best to help you out. For all those people in my class who want to add to what I have said please feel free 2...

You are a GOD (or maybe GODDESS)!

This is, perhaps, the most useful post I've seen on ValueMD!

THANK YOU!!

__________________
MitchDC/MD
RUSM 2006 Graduate

Mitch,

You're the other most valuable asset here on ValueMD!

A public thanks to you for all your help!

Thank you for the helpful information!

However, what is the "CPS unit?"

Thanks!

Hi, thanks so much for the information!
What area do you recommend I stay in? I'm a transfer into 5th already having completed step 1 so the studying in terms of that won't be intense. I'd like to live somewhere that I can go outside for jogs and soak in miami.

The CPS unit is a RFID remote that the school uses to answer questions during class and take attendance. Basically, they post a question via projector and give the class one minute to answer, then tallies up the answers and shows how many people got it correct etc.

Sara123456 - Most of the Ross Students either live in South Beach, Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Dadeland area, or Kendall. Each area is within reasonable distance to most locations (some closer to some things other closer to others), I personally live in Coral Gables, pretty close to Miracle Mile (about one mile worth of rest/shops), there are place around here to jog (around golf courses) and there are quite a few restaurants etc. Most of the places here have gone "condo" (which means there are individual owners of each appt within a building so you should def try to barter down the rent when this is the case.) I do have friends that live in the South Beach area, 1200$ everything included, and obviously the real feel of Miami is found there (I guess at least the tourist version). They usually run on the beach and soak up plenty of Miami nightlife. Also have some friends in Coconut Grove, lots of restaurants here, most of the nightlife provided by UM students so more college feeling to the bars, can run close to the water at this location also. Dadeland/Sunset is extremely close to the 7000 building, but a bit further from the Hyatt, nice atmosphere in sunset (movie theater/restaurant)s, dadeland mall is nice as well, lots of places to live. Kendall is a bit further out, but you will save money on rent. People who live here usually have to leave earlier in order to get to locations on time. More of a residential feel to parts of Kendall. Hope this helps, if you want more details just post again and I will try to help...

the advantage of kendall is that you can ride the train and get to downtown hyatt faster than by car. If you take the train, it's only $1.50 one way. If you take the bus+train, it's $2.00 total the whole way.
gas is too expensive these days, and you'll find yourself burning a $3 gallon sitting in traffic.

^ its not just gas, parking in miami is a beast. everything costs so much

oh yeah. parking is $7.
so public transit is looking even more attractive.