question all you want, the fact remains that I have never heard anything from any of the visiting students regarding medical malpractice insurance.
Just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean that it isn't a requirement.
It's not a frequent topic of conversation here, either - even when we're discussing away rotations! - but it's a real requirement that needs to be addressed.
ALL U.S. MEDICAL STUDENTS that have clinical duties
MUST BE COVERED BY MALPRACTICE INSURANCE. You don't realize it, but in order to allow you to rotate through the hospital (even your home institution), your medical school had to cover you. Anytime there is a possibility of a malpractice "incident," you need insurance coverage. (So yes - even you're covered.)
The thing is, these malpractice insurance arrangements are usually done quietly, and not announced to the students until such a time is necessary. I didn't even know whether or not I HAD malpractice insurance until I read the application to do an away rotation, and freaked out. I called my dean in a blind panic, and she told me that, actually, I've been covered for the past year now.
If the visiting students that you see are even TOUCHING patients without constant resident supervision, then trust me - they're insured in some way. If they don't have insurance, then they CANNOT do even a basic lung exam without a resident in the room. We had a visiting student who, for financial reasons, did an observership. All she could do was talk to the patient, and get a history - but she couldn't do an unsupervised physical exam.
and since away rotations are not very popular among Hopkins students, very few of us have to worry about the specifics/requirement. So they don't "teach" us such minor details "up here".
I don't know if I'd be proud of my ignorance in how things are done at other institutions. Especially since you might match at one of these other institutions at some point - not everyone can stay at Hopkins forever.
And these aren't minor details! These are details that reflect the financial and legal climate of how we practice. If you're a resident, you need malpractice insurance. That's just how it works. And if you're a student,
even to do a mandatory third year rotation at your HOME INSTITUTION, you also need malpractice insurance.
I can't believe that Hopkins students don't want to do away rotations. Baltimore isn't THAT nice that I'd turn my nose up at a chance to do a radiology elective in Maui or San Diego.
(It also depends on who you talk to. Away rotations are, generally, fairly uncommon among people who plan on going into internal medicine. They're somewhat more common among people who plan on doing surgery, OB/gyn, and emergency. They're VERY common among people who plan on doing urology, ENT, and ortho.
So it could be that you're just not talking to the right people. Even the people at Hopkins who want to do something uber-competitive - ex: ortho or ENT - will do multiple away rotations. That's just the way it works out.)