So does anyone have any information about SB's clinical sites. In the information that was emailed regarding stuff given out at second look it said that 40 students would be assigned to Winthrop University Hospital. I was not aware that they did this. Can anyone elaborate?
For the clinical years, Winthrop is basically "Stony Brook West Campus" and a certain number of students go over there to do the majority of their rotations, while the rest remain at Stony. This was put into place a couple years after I did my core rotations, so I have no idea how many actually go to Winthrop.
Originally, students had a choice between the following for core rotations:
Stony Brook University Hospital
Northport VA
Winthrop Hospital
Nassau University Medical Center
Flushing Hospital
Some students stayed at Stony and did everything there, while others, like myself, went all over the place. I liked moving from site to site and having to get used to different settings, as some of these hospitals were much different from each other (i.e. VA is military hospital for vets, NUMC is a community hospital, etc.). I believe now only a couple or so rotations are being offered at NUMC and Flushing.
I did Neurology, Pediatrics, Radiology, and Ambulatory Medicine (outpatient IM) rotations at Winthrop. Their pediatric specialty clinics are fantastic, patients come from all over the eastern seaboard. They have a great PICU and NICU there too (although the latter is mostly off limits to med students, but the chair gives lectures to med students in there).
Surgery and OBGYN are intense at Winthrop, with a ton of OR time (you can probably get more there than at Stony) and you get assigned a billion preceptors so you can really rack up some rec letters if you do well.
The only weird thing at Winthrop is their Internal Medicine. Since all the IM attendings at Winthrop are private, there are no attending rounds. They come in randomly during the day and write instructions in the chart and then the residents just carry out their orders. There may be rounds you do with the residents, but nothing where you work with attendings other than your preceptor. It's a strange way to educate both medical students and residents, but Winthrop claims it is a superior method...
This change in the clinical sites was one of many alterations made to the overall curriculum for medical students at Stony Brook, a massive overhaul that, unofficially, was catalyzed by the opening of Hofstra Medical School. Some of the changes were good, some bad, some were wayyyy overdue.
