Hi, I've been reading around a bit and I have no idea what these terms mean. When someone says I went to that place to do my cores or they don't let you do electives there or I'm doing my clinicals...and sometimes people talk about rotations. Are rotations like the training you get in your residency period?
So these are the terms I don't understand so far:
-clinicals
-rotations
-electives
-cores
is there anything else I should no?
thanks
Here's the straight dope. In medical school, you have two years of basic sciences, which are lecture/lab based. The subsequent two years are the clinical years, where you are primarily working in the wards of hospitals (or sometimes in ambulatory medicine settings, clinics, etc). Thus "clinicals" refers to the third and fourth year of med school. During your clinical years, you delve into various specialties, generally spending between 1-3 months in each discipline. These 1-3 month blocks are referred to as "rotations" because you are rotating through specialties, or sometimes referred to as "clerkships". During your third year (at most med schools), you will be spending all of your rotations completing the "core" rotations, which are the basic set of rotations the LCME has determined all US med students should have completed, and are also the rotations featured on Step II of the USMLE licensing exam. The core rotations are Psychiatry, Internal Medicine, Surgery, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, and Family Medicine. (Some places also include Neurology or EM as a core). During the 4th year you generally get to take "electives" which are rotations that aren't specifically mandated by the LCME, but you take them because you (1) are interested, or (2) to see if this is a field you might want to work in.
Rotations are sort of like a "residency - lite". You are getting exposure to the wards, but not really getting a full dose of what residency will be like. In your fourth year, most schools require you to do one or more "Sub-I's" (sub-internships) where you will act as if you are a resident (but with a lot more oversight), and get a flavor for what the next year will bring. So the rotations aren't really like the training you will get in your residency, but you will get a sense of it. And you will get to learn a lot of procedures, get better working with patients and with attendings, and get a sense on long hours.
on spring break at the moment, relaxing and not hitting SDN too much
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