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Welcome to Clinical Medicine Info!!!

What this page is meant to do:

       Help MUA students understand what Clinical Medicine entails when you start

       Serve as a guide for core and elective rotations

       Hopefully answer your questions about what is and isn’t “Greenbook” and what it means

       Help you with finding a place to live with some references, I will add to this as I find out more

 

Introduction

        Well first things first. We have all been there, we get bits and pieces of information here and there through our Basic Sciences in Nevis about Clinical Medicine and Rotations. Some of the information we get, and some of it still leaves us feeling completely lost and with many questions. Where are we going for “cores” and what do we do about “electives” once we’ve finally passed and finished Step One.

        Clinical Medicine startes with your “core” rotations. These are your third year’s rotations assigned by the school you attend. All medical schools, even US based schools have their own core rotations and some of the time allotted for each one varies depending on what school you are attending. For us, it is 6 weeks of psychiatry (which is usually the “easiest” in terms of hours and workload), 6 weeks of ObGyn, 12 weeks of Internal Medicine, 12 weeks of General Surgery, and 6 weeks of pediatrics you see in your clinical medicine handbook.

        For the most part, these rotations must be assigned by the Clinical Medicine department because they are the hardest the get out of all rotations. US medical schools have their own university hospitals attached to them but will not allow foreign medical students to engage in a core, 3^rd year rotation. Some university based programs will allow you to do a 4^th year elective rotation at their hospital, where you will be one on one in groups of US medical students, but it’s one of those things where you have to “shop around”. Some will let you do an elective, and some will not. Each University has a board of directors that decided whether or not their program will allow foreign students to do elective rotations or not and some of the subspecialties will allow you to whereas others will not (meaning a university program could allow you to do a trauma surgery elective but their internal medicine division will not).

        Your 4^th year Elective rotations can be anything that you choose. Most will recommend, especially as a foreign student, that you do elective rotations around the specialty that you are planning to go into. For example, if you want to do Family Pratice, you should look for electives in rural medicine and such, or if you want to do ObGyn you should at least do a couple of electives in reproductive endocrinology, neonatology, gynecologic oncology and so forth. You have a total of 30 weeks (7 1/2 months) of electives which really isn’t a whole lot of time when you think about it. I would strongly recommend doing a Family Practice elective no matter what field you want for residency because some residency programs require that you have done at least one Family Practice rotation, even though it is not required by our school’s curriculum.

        Getting a 4^th year elective can also be tricky. Like I said before, most University based programs won’t let us in. Another tip: try to do an elective at a hospital that you plan to apply for residency in, especially in that given field, it will help improve your chances of getting interviews and matching by impressing the residents and directors earlier and showing them how much you want to learn. To see a list of hospitals that you can apply for electives at Click here.Click Here

        Do your absolute BEST in every rotation you do, when you apply for residency you will need letters of recommendation from your preceptors (Attending physician that follow you in your rotation and also gives you your grade). Letters of recommendation from your core rotations count the most towards your chances of an interview for residency. If you do a crappy job and don’t try to get along and be helpful to those around, appear lazy, don’t study, or uninterested that will be a bad evaluation for your grade, and a bad letter of rec from an attending if you ask for one. Because we tend to “bounce around” from state to state for rotations, most will recommend you ask for a letter of recommendation from your preceptor when you finish your rotation, and just keep it on hand for your applications in the future.

        Now, for the biggest question of all, what the heck is GREENBOOK and why does everyone make such a big deal about it??? Ok first of all, Greenbook simply means that whatever rotation you are doing also had Residents in that rotation. So if you are doing an Internal Medicine rotation, and it has Internal Medicine residents, it is “greenbook” because it is considered a teaching program. Greenbook rotations are thought to be more educational because you are working with residents that are also learning. The whole term Greenbook came into existence because all the residency programs in the US at various hospitals are categorized into a book that is in fact green. There, problem solved.

        The reason some people make a big deal of the “greenbook” rotations is because some states, especially the southern states, require for your acceptance into a program that your 3^rd year core rotations were greenbook, this is also important for licensure in that state for residency to practice medicine. You can do a residency in a state that does not require this and then move back to a southern state for practice after residency for your long term practice. Each state is different, and if you have an exact state in mind where you want to wind up living happily ever after, then it’s best to look into it ahead of time so you know whether you really want greenbook rotations or not. To ensure that any rotation you are going to do is greenbook, just google search the hospital and find out if residents or fellows are in the program you are going to.

 

       

 

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