Course Descriptions
Clerkships
Clerkship Director: Melissa Fischer, MD
The Internal Medicine clerkship is a 12-week experience with broad objectives. Each student spends 8 weeks in the inpatient setting at one of our 5 teaching sites, and 4 weeks in a community physician's office. Through these experiences, the student will gain knowledge and understanding of the illnesses of adults of all ages and their pathophysiology. They will further develop important clinical skills such as history taking, physical examination techniques, written and oral communication, clinical reasoning, ability to generate differential diagnosis and creating diagnostic and management plans. They will appreciate the impact of illness on the patient, physician and society; health promotion; and disease prevention. They will explore ethical dilemmas, issues in geriatric medicine, and end of life issues. Students are evaluated on their clinical performance by preceptors, their performance on our OSCE, and on the National Board Internal Medicine shelf exam.
Pediatrics
Clerkship Director: Ann Salerno, MD
This 6-week clerkship utilizes the pediatric interview and a clinical problem-solving orientation to encourage patient/student interaction, critical thinking and preceptor/student discussion. Students become familiar with the primary care and subspecialty aspects of the field of pediatrics and the important role that the pediatrician plays in the physical and emotional development of children of all ages. Students spend three weeks as a member of a health care team in a community outpatient office and have brief experiences in urgent care, newborn nursery and patient home visits. Students also spend three weeks caring for inpatients. For the entire six weeks the students actively participate in the health care of children, allowing them to apply and refine their interviewing and clinical problem-solving skills.
Family Medicine
Clerkship Director: Frank Domino, MD
The Family Medicine Clerkship gives the student a broad exposure to both the actual and theoretical concepts of Family Medicine. The student spends 80% of their time working one-on-one with a community-based preceptor, seeing patients, and following them over the 6 weeks. This provides the student with a "real world" understanding of the role continuity plays in patient care. The other 20% of the student's time is spent on the university campus, managing the care of the virtual "McQ" family. This teaching tool is a series of patient encounters spanning 3 generations of one family as they go through pregnancy, childhood illness, adolescent issues, adult health, and disease management. Additionally, the students participate in an online program on Ambulatory Medical Ethics, and a-hands on curriculum in Evidence Based Medicine.
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Clerkship Director: Edward Peskin, MD& Kate O'Dell, MS
During this 6-week rotation, students have opportunities to participate in women's health care in both inpatient and ambulatory settings. Clinical sites vary between large tertiary referral centers and smaller community hospitals. Formal didactic and clinical sessions are interwoven to help students build on interviewing, physical examination, and diagostic and management planning skills. Experience will be enhanced both in prevention and treatment of common women's health problems. Medical knowledge will markedly increase in a variety of areas related to health needs throughout the life cycle, including family planning, prenatal care, normal and abnormal labor management, gynecologic surgery, cancer screening and treatment, care of menopausal women, and assessment and management of gyn-related pain, infection, and bleeding.
Surgery
Clerkship Director: Mitchell Cahan, MD
During this 12-week clerkship students learn a broad base of both basic and clinical knowledge about surgery and related subjects. The clerkship provides students with a variety of learning experiences, including the traditional surgical specialties, the subspecialties, basic science and clinical lectures and some surgical techniques. Students spend two months on surgical services and one month on subspecialty services. In addition to seeing patients in the hospital, emergency rooms and clinics, students attend conferences and participate in small group discussion utilizing the case study method of teaching.
Psychiatry
Clerkship Director: Deborah Field, MD & Julia Matthews, MD, PhD
During this 6-week internship students further develop interviewing, reasoning and communications skills fundamental to psychiatric diagnosis and intervention. An integrative model is stressed, emphasizing the biologic, psychodynamic, social and behavioral aspects of treatment. Students learn about the diagnosis and treatment of the common psychiatric disorders and develop an appreciation for the unique individual factors, which influence presentation, treatment response, and prognosis. Students also learn the role of psychiatrist and other mental health disciplines in the care of persons with mental illness and learn how to collaborate and when to refer.
Internal Medicine Subinternship
Clerkship Director: Sonia Chimienti, MD
A required elective for fourth year students who have successfully finished their third year clinical rotations, this course allows students to experience the role of a medicine intern on the inpatient medical service under direct supervision of medical residents and attendings. Duties include admission evaluation of the patient, subsequent coordination of care for that patient during hospital stay, and discharge planning. Students are expected to take overnight call with his/her assigned team, and patient load is comparable to the other interns on the team.
Neurology
Clerkship Director: Lan Qin, MD
UMass students have a 4-week required clerkship in Neurology in their senior (4th) year. Students may choose to do the clerkship at one of five possible locations: UMassMemorial (University campus -- 4 positions available); UMassMemorial (Memorial campus) -- 1 position); Worcester Medical Center -- 3 positions; Lahey Clinic -- 1 position; and when necessary, it is possible to have positions at each of Milford hospital and MetroWest Medical Center. The major thrust of the clerkship is to gain a solid foundation in the neurological examination and the interpretation and significance of neurological examination findings. Much attention is devoted to clinical-anatomical correlation and refining the skills of "lesion localization." Students spend most of their clinical time on in-patient or consultation services, but there is an opportunity for exposure to some outpatient neurology. There are weekly clinical problem solving sessions with a senior faculty member that provide for both a broad and an in-depth exploration of clinical problems at all levels of the neuraxis. Students are integrated into the daily resident schedule of special seminars and teaching conferences. At the beginning of the clerkship, students are loaned an excellent monograph with case histories and discussions, and a learning guide (containing questions related to important aspects of clinical neurology reflecting the core information in the field). During the second week of the clerkship, a morning is devoted to a review of common problems in clinical neurology -- a session called "Neurology School." At the conclusion of the Clerkship, there is an OSCE followed by a multiple choice style examination. The final grade is based on the evaluations of clinical performance and the grades on the multiple-choice examination and OSCE.