By pure coincidence, I looked this up over the weekend in order to find out how to apply for an elective in the UK (for me). Here is what you do:
It is rather pointless to do a stateside exchange during your basic science years, and I do not believe this option would be available to you. (Because we are on what you would think of as a graduate-entry four-year course, our basic sciences are two years and fast-paced, and often the subjects are organised differently.)
However, it is very easy to do a clinical elective here. Most students on both sides of the pond do it during their final year, I think. Electives typically last 4 - 8 weeks and are arranged more or less the same way as you would when rotating through another hospital in the UK. You may do as many electives here as your home university allows you to do. There are two ways you can arrange an elective clinical attachment:
1) Directly contacting teaching hospitals. Most teaching hospitals have on their web site a page that provides information for students about how to arrange an elective. Perhaps if you can tell us what specialty you wish to do an elective in (e.g. general internal medicine? general surgery? psychiatry? anaesthesia? etc), someone here may be able to find a list of electives for you. Usually lists are posted on the web sites of the professional associations for that specialty.
2) Going to your home university and asking the person who coordinates your electives whether they have established partnerships with any US medical schools to exchange students. Some universities have exchange agreements; otherwise, you can just apply directly (see #1 above).
Either way, taking a clinical elective abroad is very common in both UK and US universities. There is probably an office or administrative contact at your own uni whose job is to help students arrange electives. This should probably be your first place to go.
Some teaching hospitals provide malpractice insurance coverage for visiting students; a few do not, so you may have to arrange your own. From what I have read, it seems most UK universities will cover for electives in Europe, but possibly not in the US or Canada. I believe that if you are a UK medical student, you are eligible to register for free membership to the Medical Defence Union (UK) which does offer some sort of malpractice coverage plan that's good for US and Canadian electives.
And
http://www.scutwork.com/ is a good site to read student reviews of different electives within the US. You would probably want to apply for electives at which other students have had positive experiences.
