what's going on at Harvard???

[TommyGunn04]

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I was just doing some Googling and I randomly came across this page:

http://www.petitiononline.com/hms2006/petition.html

It's basically a petition from current Harvard Med students to a number of deans in protest of some new and arguably unreasonable clerkship requirements which will affect the class of 2006 and those thereafter.

I'm curious as to how all of this panned out (or perhaps it's ongoing?). Is there anyone from Harvard who can shed some light onto this situation?

 

[mamie]

I was just doing some Googling and I randomly came across this page:

http://www.petitiononline.com/hms2006/petition.html

It's basically a petition from current Harvard Med students to a number of deans in protest of some new and arguably unreasonable clerkship requirements which will affect the class of 2006 and those thereafter.

I'm curious as to how all of this panned out (or perhaps it's ongoing?). Is there anyone from Harvard who can shed some light onto this situation?

Hello, I am in the HMS class of 2006 and can shed a little light on what has been going on at HMS pertaining to clerkship training in the 3rd and 4th year. What basically happened was this: our clinical years consist of core requirements that are needed to graduate. 3 months of Medicine, 3 months of surgery, 3 months of Ob/Peds, and 1 month each of radiology, neuro, and psych equaling 12 months. The three 1 month clerkships (rad, neuro, and psych) are generally lumped into what we call the flex month. Some people like to take a month off during this period for vacation and some use one month or two months to do advanced clerkships in something they are interested in doing to gain experience and letters for the match. Some on the other hand may do all three clerkships, as I did.

What is going on is this. Many students during their flex do not take neuro or especially psych and push these one month clerkships to their fourth year, subsequently after they have already decided what field they would like to go into. This of course upsets the directors of these clerkships because for many, especially psych, they are getting few if any 3rd years to try to steer towards psych and neuro. Thus, they forced a rule onto my class, that we all would have to finish our core requirements by Dec. of our 4th year.

Now this brings up two important issues. What do you do when you need to take advanced clerkships in order to see if you like something as well as get letters for your match. Hell, I don't know about others but even at this time very few of us really know what we want to do, yet the time to make those decisions are coming up quick. It also puts unnecessary pressure on those applying to early match programs.

Hopefully, you can see the issues. The one good thing is, like most things throughout the Harvard system, these are merely guidelines and arent' strictly enforced. I decided to do all my cores in my third year because I knew that I would taking a year off for other studies. Others in my class have done what most have done in the past and are taking some of their flex months in their 4th year.

Hope that helps.

 

[SocialistMD]

Hello, I am in the HMS class of 2006 and can shed a little light on what has been going on at HMS pertaining to clerkship training in the 3rd and 4th year. What basically happened was this: our clinical years consist of core requirements that are needed to graduate. 3 months of Medicine, 3 months of surgery, 3 months of Ob/Peds, and 1 month each of radiology, neuro, and psych equaling 12 months. The three 1 month clerkships (rad, neuro, and psych) are generally lumped into what we call the flex month. Some people like to take a month off during this period for vacation and some use one month or two months to do advanced clerkships in something they are interested in doing to gain experience and letters for the match. Some on the other hand may do all three clerkships, as I did.

What is going on is this. Many students during their flex do not take neuro or especially psych and push these one month clerkships to their fourth year, subsequently after they have already decided what field they would like to go into. This of course upsets the directors of these clerkships because for many, especially psych, they are getting few if any 3rd years to try to steer towards psych and neuro. Thus, they forced a rule onto my class, that we all would have to finish our core requirements by Dec. of our 4th year.

Now this brings up two important issues. What do you do when you need to take advanced clerkships in order to see if you like something as well as get letters for your match. Hell, I don't know about others but even at this time very few of us really know what we want to do, yet the time to make those decisions are coming up quick. It also puts unnecessary pressure on those applying to early match programs.

Hopefully, you can see the issues. The one good thing is, like most things throughout the Harvard system, these are merely guidelines and arent' strictly enforced. I decided to do all my cores in my third year because I knew that I would taking a year off for other studies. Others in my class have done what most have done in the past and are taking some of their flex months in their 4th year.

Hope that helps.

Just count your blessings that you have a flex month at all. My program requires all but neuro to be done by the end of third year, which results in no electives until July of the fourth year. They are making changes to allow for one flex month during the third year, but as of now there are none.