4 Year Curriculum Overview

The specialty of Family Medicine is centered on lasting, caring relationships with patients and their families. Family physicians integrate the biological, clinical and behavioral sciences to provide continuing and comprehensive health care. The scope of practice encompasses all ages, genders, each organ system and every disease entity.

The specialty is three-dimensional, combining knowledge and skill with a unique process. The patient-physician relationship is central to this process. Knowledge and skills vary among family physicians according to their patients' needs and the ability to incorporate new information into their practices. Above all, the scope of family practice is dynamic, expanding, and evolutionary.

What exactly do you do as a family physician?

• Integrated in-patient and out-patient care
• In-patient Medicine
  • Care for hospitalized patients, both adults and children
  • Provide critical care in conjunction with appropriate specialty consultation
  • Provide maternity care
  • Provide emergency care
• Out-patient Medicine
  • Treat urgent care diseases
  • Manage chronic diseases
  • Perform maternity care
  • Perform well child - prevention/screening
  • Perform well adult care – prevention/screening
  • Perform minor surgical procedures
• Community medicine
  • Promote healthcare to the community as a whole

Contact Information

The clerkship in Internal Medicine is a fast paced 8-week experience. It is divided into three activities: inpatient ward rotations, ambulatory clinics, and conferences and classes.

Ward rotations are two to four weeks in duration and end on the last Friday of the 4 week block. Students will then be off until starting the next rotation the following Monday morning. During these rotations you will be assigned to ward teams and will take call according to the published team call schedule. You can expect at least 6 to 7 night calls during each month of ward rotation.

An objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) will be scheduled at the end of the clerkship. Students will take call according to their ward schedule the weekend before the 8th week of the rotation.

On Monday through Wednesday of the 8th week, students will attend conferences and teaching rounds but will not take call or work-up new patients. Students will have Thursday off before the final written (NBME) exam on Friday.

During clerkship, the medical student will rotate on inpatient internal medicine wards and outpatient clinics with a goal of evaluating 24 or more patients in the inpatient and/or ambulatory clinic setting.

The student will also attend a series of core classes as well as departmental conferences and morning reports. As a result, the student will develop basic competencies in evaluation and management of adult patients, build core knowledge of common diseases seen in Internal Medicine, and acquire clinical skills, professional attitudes, and humanistic qualities needed for the care of Internal Medicine patients.

Contact Information

This 3rd year Clerkship in OB/GYN is intended to introduce students to patients care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communications skills, professionalism and system-based practice as it relates to women’s health care.

Students will see patients in both outpatient and inpatient settings to acquaint the student with the female patient (her unique anatomy, physiology, psychosocial make-up, health and illness issues) and to initiate training in procedural skills, treatment modalities and preventive medicine in women’s health care.

The clerkship is divided into seven weekly areas of study:
1) Prenatal (COC) Clinic
2) GYN Clinic
3) Night Float (includes L&D, ER, Consults, Inpatient care)
4) Labor and Delivery (includes Triage, which is the OB Emergency Room)
5) Inpatient GYN
6) Gynecologic Oncology (clinic and inpatient)
7) Reproductive Endocrinology (clinic and surgery) and OB ultrasound

Students rotate to a different area each week, and will learn about outpatient low risk and high risk OB patients as new, follow-up, or referred patients; inpatient obstetric, gynecologic and oncologic patient workups and care; surgery and postoperative care in benign and oncologic gynecology, as well as obstetrics; and gynecologic outpatient care including well woman visits, problem visits, diagnostic workups, colposcopy, and other procedures.

Contact Information

The most unique aspect of Pediatrics is that you will be dealing with patients in a variety of physical, developmental, and psychological stages. Not only will you be working with children, you will be interacting with parents and other caregivers.

While on the Pediatric Clerkship, you will spend time in four main clinical areas – inpatient service (ward), ambulatory service (clinics), newborn nursery and subspecialty or subspecialties of pediatrics. While the allotted time in each of these areas may vary slightly from campus to campus, the overall pediatric experience at each campus will afford ample clinical exposure and comparability of experiences to provide you adequate opportunities to master the stated competencies.

Patient-oriented teaching will be supplemented by a series of lectures and case conferences. A core of “essential” lecture topics is given at all campuses. Additional lectures may be added at individual campuses to utilize faculty strengths at each campus. You will be given a schedule of educational activities for the rotation.

In addition to specific student lectures, you will be given a schedule of departmental conferences (morning report, case conferences, Grand Rounds, journal club, etc.) that you are expected to attend.

Contact Information

 The Psychiatry Clerkship is an eight-week, full-time clinical rotation. The primary goal of this rotation is to provide for the students:

• Educational situations which facilitate continued learning about psychiatric disorders
• Clinical experiences which allow the student to further develop skills in evaluation and treatment of selected patients.

This experience will enhance not only understanding of psychiatry disorders, but also the ability to provide high quality care to patients encountered in clinical settings outside of psychiatry. 

Contact Information

The surgical clerkship is an integrated, clinical educational experience which is presented over eight weeks. These experiences are designed to introduce the student to the basic concepts of the disciplines which constitute the practice of surgery. This clerkship encompasses both the inpatient and outpatient experiences.

It is anticipated that for those students who do not pursue a career goal in Surgery, these experiences will form the basis for their surgical interactions and patient care in all other medical specialties.

Contact Information

The Integration Seminar is a Student Grand Rounds presented by MSIII students on each campus. The overarching objective of the seminar is to provide students with the opportunity to explore in depth a clinical case and to reapply the knowledge gained over the first two years of medical school to this case.

The students work as a team to present a cogent, integrated and interactive seminar to their peers, students from other years and faculty while developing their presentation skills and their ability to interpret and evaluate data from multiple sources.

The directors of the Integration Seminar choose the cases and the students are divided into six groups, each of which is assigned one case. The Integration Seminar occurs once per clerkship period.

The Directors advise the students on interpretation and presentations skills and coordinate the seminar to ensure participation of the greatest number of students and faculty in the audience.

Grading will be Pass/Fail as determined by the Campus Seminar Director.

Students will receive assistance from the Offices of Student Affairs, their mentor and a clerkship director when developing their proposed year 4 schedule. Student's proposed plans will be evaluated by Clerkship Directors in order to ensure that the plan is appropriate for the students’ educational needs and career objectives.

Each student is required to complete one 4-week Sub-internship, one 2-week Critical Care rotation, one 2-week Ambulatory rotation, the TRIAL course and 20 weeks of electives. A minimum of 8 curricular weeks must be taken on the student's campus.

Transition to Residency: Individualized Asynchronous Learning (TRIAL)

Students will be given 4 weeks of curriculum credit for this required course. The course includes 4 guided learning modules and transition to residency modules. 

Additionally students are required to provide narrative responses to specific content areas such as Geriatrics, patient safety and quality improvement.

Contacts:
Lara Johnson, MD, Director
Candace Brown, Coordinator (806-743-4199)
Jennifer Patterson, Coordinator (806-743-3407)

 A 4-week Sub-internship selective may be completed in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Gynecology, Maternal Fetal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery or Orthopedics.

The Critical Care Rotation is a 2-week selective rotation offered by three departments (Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Surgery) on all campuses.

Depending on the department, the critical care experiences may be offered in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, Burn Intensive Care Unit, Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICI), Pediatric Intensive Care Unit or Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

A 2-week Ambulatory selective may be taken in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Child Psychiatry, Adult Psychiatry, Neurology, Ophthalmology or Dermatology.

All students must complete 20 weeks of elective rotations. Of the 20 weeks, students are allowed a maximum of four 2-week elective experiences and no more than 4 weeks of asynchronous electives (not including TRIAL). 

Note that not all electives are offered on each campus.