First Professional Program, MD Curriculum

Clerkships

• Adult Inpatient Medicine 
• Adult Outpatient Medicine
• Anesthesiology (Required in third year for Legacy only)Family Medicine 
• Neurology
• Obstetrics and Gynecology 
• Pediatric Medicine 
• Psychiatry 
• Specialty Care (Legacy only)
• Surgery 

Clinical Clerkships

Ten required clerkships form the core of the combined clinical years. The overall aim of the clerkship experience is to provide students with the essential experiences where they will apply their knowledge and skills as they develop competence in the care of patients. Together, the clerkships, and all other clinical experiences, share a fundamental set of objectives.

Overall, the objectives of the required clerkships are for students to be able to:

• Integrate basic science concepts with clinical reasoning.

• Establish and maintain appropriate therapeutic relationships with patients.

• Obtain a sensitive and thorough medical history.

• Perform a sensitive and accurate physical examination.

• Perform general clinical procedures.

• Participate in discussions and decision-making with patients and families.

• Clearly communicate medical information in spoken and written form.

• Develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes to practice the basic principles of prevention.

• Demonstrate sound clinical reasoning.

• Appropriately assess patients with common signs and symptoms.

• Appropriately use testing to guide diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.

• Diagnose and demonstrate basic understanding of common diseases and conditions.

• Describe therapeutic options and participate in the care of patients with common problems.

• Recognize acute life-threatening medical problems and initiate care.

• Develop the knowledge and exhibit the skills necessary to assist in the management of chronic diseases.

• Participate in care in a variety of settings.

• Develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to provide culturally competent care.

• Recognize and develop approaches to mitigate bias, social inequities, and systemic racism that undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at individual, organizational, and societal levels.t undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at individual, organizational, and societal levels undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at individual, organizational, and societal levels.

• Use information and educational technology to facilitate research, education and patient care.

• Incorporate ethical and legal principles in clinical practice and research.

• Demonstrate professional behaviors.

• Work effectively with others as a member or leader of a health care team or other professional group.

• Develop an understanding of the impact of nonmedical determinants of health on health outcomes and health equity.

General Schedule for Fourth Year

During the combined clinical years (MS-3 & MS-4) students rotate through required clerkships in any sequence. Additional requirements are 1 Acting Internship, 1 Integrated Life Sciences Selective, 1 Boot Camp Selective, and 8 electives.

What do the 12.5 Periods in the MS-4 year include?

• Eight electives
• One acting internship
• One integrated life science course
• One boot camp course
• Two recess/interview periods
• One recess week in the fall

Acting Internship

An acting internship (sub-internship) of four-week duration is required during the senior year. An AI is a clinical rotation offered on an in-patient service in which one or more attending physicians have overall responsibility for coordinated patient care. The service will be structured with both attending staff and house staff.

The acting internship should include the assignment to the student of specific groups of patients upon whom he or she completes an initial history and physical examination, constructs a differential diagnosis, formulates a treatment plan, writes orders, and carries out necessary therapy, all under careful supervision.

Acting internships that fulfill this requirement are offered in:

• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Family medicine
• Internal Medicine
• Medical Intensive Care Unit
• NICU
• Pediatric
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• Surgery

Search the Course Catalog for more information on Acting internships.

Acting internships in other departments or out of the city will not fulfill the AI requirement.

Integrated Life Science Course

The fourth year Integrated Life Science (ILS) Program includes a choice of courses that revisit some aspect of basic science after students have had several years of clinical experience. Because of the level of sophistication that students have developed by this stage in their medical education, they can better understand the relevance of basic science to clinical problems.  Each student is required to complete one ILS course.

ILS Courses

• Changing Science, Changing Society: A Guide to 21st Century Medicine - MSELCT 5700  
• Clinical Pharmacology - MED 5710  
• Immunization, Immune Deficiency, and Inflammation in Kids - PEDS 5710  
• Infectious Disease in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine - OBGYN 5725  
• Neoplasia and Neoplastic Disease - MED 5715  
• Neurosurgery and Head and Neck Dissection - NSURG 5705  
• Science of Resuscitation - EMED 5735  

Boot Camp

A Residency Boot Camp of four-week duration is required during the senior year. 

Boot Camps that fulfill this requirement are offered in:

• Anesthesiology
• Emergency Medicine
• Internal Medicine
• Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
• Pediatrics
• Psychiatry
• Surgery 

Recommended Electives

In order to provide diversity, it is strongly recommended that you take at least one elective in each of the following blocks:

1. Medicine or neurology
2. Pediatrics, pediatric neurology, pediatric pathology, pediatric surgery
3. Surgery or surgical subspecialties, obstetrics and gynecology
4. Ambulatory care, community medicine, or psychiatry.

Clinical Competency Assessment (CCA)

• Clinical Competency Assessment Orientation Handbook