Phase 3: Career Differentiation and Exploration
The advanced clinical experience phase is a time for you to complete your core curriculum requirements and explore your own interests in medicine through sub-internships and electives. The required core rotations include medicine, critical care, emergency medicine and health system and interprofessional healthcare experiences.
Requirements for advanced clinical experiences
| Activity | Curriculum overview* |
| Required rotations | Advanced clinical experiences in Medicine sub-internship, Critical Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Health Systems Interprofessional Sciences. |
| Elective rotations | Patient and nonpatient care elective opportunities to enhance your learning and expand knowledge in specialty areas, research, medical humanities and teaching. |
| Transition to residency | Participate in a variety of in-person and virtual sessions that will prepare you for transition into the graduate medical education phase of your training. Match activities also included. |
*Length of curriculum blocks is based on Medical Curriculum Committee review each year.
Phase 3 Required Courses
MD 900 Medicine Sub-internship (4 weeks)
The internal medicine (IM) sub-internship prepares you to perform efficiently and effectively while completing the clinical work of residency. This required rotation allows you to build on the following core clinical skills required for residency training, regardless of specialty:
- Managing time wisely. Organization and time management are critical for the busy intern and resident. You’ll begin to develop a routine that will organize your daily tasks, learn how to prioritize competing demands and develop insight into your limitations and the need to ask for help.
- Communicating effectively in the healthcare team. This takes many forms, including clinical documentation, oral presentation, handovers, calling consultants, communication with nursing and pharmacy, discharge planning and more. Complete, concise and accurate communication is critical for quality of care and patient safety. The sub-internship is the time to practice these communication forms not typically performed by Phase 2 students.
- Recognizing sick vs. non-sick patients. Exposure to a broad range of patients in the inpatient setting will prepare you for gathering clinical data, synthesizing information and determining acuity and prioritization of patients’ needs.
- Knowing when to ask for help. Most importantly, you should recognize the need to call for help with unstable patients. This means recognizing your own limitations of clinical skill and knowledge, as well as knowing the process for accessing help.
MD 903 Critical Care Medicine (4 weeks)
During this rotation, you’ll gain advanced clinical experience in critical care medicine by working in a designated intensive care unit under direct supervision. By the end of this rotation, you will:
- Acquire more in-depth knowledge about critically ill patients
- Attain further clinical skills, knowledge and professional behaviors required to evaluate and care for critically ill adult patients
- Become familiar with the Intensive Care Unit and with working with the multidisciplinary team
- Learn multitasking skills to allow you to care for patients with complex needs simultaneously
- Value the role of palliative care medicine principles in the Intensive Care Unit setting
MD 911 Emergency Medicine Clerkship (4 weeks)
The Emergency Department provides the safety net of care for the modern American healthcare system. While emergency medicine is a specialty built upon the nuanced, timely and critical care of the acutely ill, the specialty also administers acute unscheduled care when access to other providers or resources is limited.
Emergency medicine is an inclusive and diverse specialty that crosses cultural and socioeconomic boundaries on a minute-to-minute basis. It is a field that requires a unique set of cognitive skills to manage the dynamic nature of patient and system needs.
The primary goal of this clerkship is to develop skills in assessing and treating a broad range of clinical conditions by offering an abundance of patient care experiences through participating in the delivery of emergency medical care in a manner that fulfills learning needs.
The faculty recognizes that each student will have an independent set of needs and interests and opportunities to participate in the delivery of emergent, urgent and unscheduled care. A structured format is provided to objectively assess your progress and to set appropriate expectations, but should be viewed as a framework on which to build a successful experience.
Emergency medicine is an inclusive and diverse specialty that crosses cultural and socioeconomic boundaries on a minute-to-minute basis. It is a field that requires a unique set of cognitive skills to manage the dynamic nature of patient and system needs.
The primary goal of this clerkship is to develop skills in assessing and treating a broad range of clinical conditions by offering an abundance of patient care experiences through participating in the delivery of emergency medical care in a manner that fulfills learning needs.
The faculty recognizes that each student will have an independent set of needs and interests and opportunities to participate in the delivery of emergent, urgent and unscheduled care. A structured format is provided to objectively assess your progress and to set appropriate expectations, but should be viewed as a framework on which to build a successful experience.
MD 9015 Health Systems Interprofessional Selective (4 weeks)
This course requirement broadens your exposure to the practical aspects of healthcare delivery. During the selective, you'll participate in direct clinical care and explore the interplay of themes like social determinants of health, population health and high-value care over various clinical settings and within healthcare teams.
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