applying for clerkships

[janV88]

Hello Podiatry Students,

I have been browsing the AACPM website and stumbled upon the 2010 clerkship handbook. Can someone explain how applications for clerkships work? Do clerkships have a certain number of "spots" they can accommodate at a time? Do schools have "reserved" spots or is it a free for all?

For example:
Clerkship A can take 50 students total for the whole year...does Scholl have 5 spots and DMU have 5 spots and Temple have 5 spots, etc. reserved? Or is it just 50 for everyone and first come first serve.

I also noticed that

"Between Aug. and Oct. 2009, SCPM third year students will be applying for clerkship positions to be served in Jan - May 2010. All other students must wait until Oct. to begin applying for clerkships."

and...

"OCPM students will be applying for clerkships to serve between March 2010 – February 2011. All other students will be applying for clerkships to serve between May 2010 and April 2011."

Does this mean that Scholl only does clerkships from Jan. 2010 through May 2010? or Jan. 2010 through April 2011? Why do OCPM clerkships end in Feb. 2011?

According to how I percieve this and what I was told during interviews...Scholl gets more clerkships than any other school. It looks like Scholl gets an additional 4 clerkships. And it also looks like Scholl students get "first dibs" from Jan. through May since they are the only ones allowed to do clerkships at that time...well actually Jan. and Feb. since OCPM starts in March at which time OCPM and SCPM have "first dibs" in March and April.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

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[Feli]

Different residency programs have different number of clerks/month that they take (for example, my program takes up to 4 students per month). Some programs absolutely require clerkship for consideration, and other programs don't even have a clerkship since their hospital admin/insurance doesn't want or have room for students. Total/monthly spots are not divided per school, but most programs get more/less clerks from certain pod schools just due to typical applicant interest.

Some hospital's clerkships are first come, first serve (so Priority Mail your app ASAP after the application goes online to show the programs that you are a motivated and proactive student), and other programs tend to wait until about a month after apps started flowing in to pick the best students who applied overall. I would always encourage everyone to do clerkships at the best hospitals they can get accepted to, but be a bit careful if you aren't a great student. Most students all want to clerk at the same top 50-100 residency programs, but they can't all match those programs. Then, some avg/poor students are always left scratching their heads... "I applied and interviewed at all the programs I clerked at, why did I scramble?" You can always visit other programs besides your clerkships to diversify your match options. GL

 

[janV88]

So the programs are first come first serve in that there are no reserved spots for specific schools. Getting a clerkship depends on a number of factors like gpa, class rank, EC's, etc.

Now what about SCPM being able to apply early and being able to do clerkships from Jan. - May while OCPM starts in March and all the other schools start in May. Does this mean that SCPM students will have "first dibs" in Jan. and Feb.? Does this mean that all 4 spots in your program will be exclusive to Scholl in those 2 months?