Guest DalHopeful Posted February 6, 2003 Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 I was wondering what exactly do you do when your doing your clerkships? What do I mean? Well, do you just walk around with 5 other med students, pen and paper in hand taking notes while a doctor rambles about one patient to the next? Or are there classes aswell? How are you evaluated? I saw on here that you have to buy books, what sorts of things would you need to study? Im not being naive, I probably could figure out some things you would need to study, but it would be better to know from someone who has experienced it. Do you work 9-5? How does it work?.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted February 6, 2003 Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 I'm not 100% sure about clerkship as I don't start for another 7 months, but this I'll go over what I know. At UWO, you're a clerk for one year. You have 6 blocks, two of which are 12 weeks (Medicine, which is essentially Internal medicine, and Surgery) and 4 of which are 6 weeks (Pediatrics, Obstetrics&Gynecology, Family Medicine, Psychiatry.) My schedule (I just found out) works like this: 8 September - November 30 Medicine November 30 - January 18 Family Medicine January 19 - Feb 29 Psychiatry March 1 - May 30 Surgery May 31 - July 11 Pediatrics (Windsor) July 12 - August 22 Obstetrics & Gynecology (Windsor) As for the day to day, that somewhat depends on the service (ie specialty) you're on. But it mostly involves WORKING in the hospital (for free, except in BC.) You'll be given a roster of patients whose care is YOUR responsibility, including writing patient orders. Of course you will often be asking the residents what to do often, especially at first, as you're still pretty much a bonehead as a clerk. No offence to any clerks out there! In services such as surgery you might get the chance to scrub in, whereas in Obs/Gyn you'll be delivering babies. At UWO, you'll also be FIRST call where your on call if there's a problem - it's you shot to try and figure it out first, but if you can't you can buzz the resident. At UWO, you also get "academic half days." Not sure how those fit into the picture, but they're essentially like lectures. As far as evaluation goes, at UWO as of this year, you're not. Evaluated that is. We're now P/F for clerkship, and to get an F, you have to be grossly incompetent. Hope this gives you a reasonable picture. . . it's not complete, I still need to learn a lot about clerkship myself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted February 6, 2003 Report Share Posted February 6, 2003 What UWOMEDS2005 said is basically it. You work at the hospital, and do the same tasks that the residents (and to a lesser degree, the staff doctors) do. If a patient is downstairs in Emerg with a broken hip, if you are on Orthopedic surgery, the Emerg doc will call you down to see the patient, take a history and do a physical exam, you'll go over to radiology to see the patient's x-rays and maybe discuss them with the on call radiologist/radiology resident, figure out what blood tests you want to order on the patient (ie. coagulation profile, complete blood count), and write down what medications the patient should receive and in what dosages. If your patient has a previous heart problem (say a previous MI), maybe you'll order an EKG, and then look at it to see what sorts of problems they've had, or may have during/after surgery. Once you are in surgery, you'll scrub in and help out, although your job will likely be pretty menial (ie. positioning the patient, maybe doing some injections or helping to close the skin incision), and after the surgery, while the patient is recovering in the hospital until they are mobile enough to go home, you need to take care of them (ie. order them enough pain medication, make sure that their heart condition is stable after the surgery, make sure they don't develop any surgical complications such as wound infections, etc.) Essentially, you are like a very, very junior doctor. You have patients who are your responsibility, and your job is to get them through whatever problem required them to go to the hospital. In the Emergency room, you'll be the one suturing patient's, casting their fractures, looking at their EKG's and x-rays, deciding if a patient is well enough to go home, or is sick enough that they need to stay in hospital, etc. In Ob/GYN, you get to deliver babies, assist on Caesarian sections, etc. And so on. By a long shot, it is the year in medical school that you learn the most, and usually by far it is simultaneously both the most exhausting year, but also the most fun year. In general, everyone loves third year because you finally are getting a true taste of what it is like to be a doctor. Ian UBC, Med 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest me maniac Posted February 7, 2003 Report Share Posted February 7, 2003 Did UWOMED2005 say that in BC you get paid for it? me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted February 7, 2003 Report Share Posted February 7, 2003 Something most UBC med students don't find out until they hit clerkships is that we actually get paid roughly $500 a month (it's around $480) for the twelve months of third year; it's like getting a free $6000 for third year. This is done because it is easier to get us insured if we are considered employees of the hospital/UBC or something to that effect. I'm not sure how long this has been going on for at UBC, nor whether it will continue indefinitely, so I think it's one of those things that you shouldn't count on for when you set up a budget, but just see as a fortunate occurrence when/if it happens (this is basically what happened to me in second year: "What? We get paid next year? Sweet.") Ian UBC, Med 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ceds Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 I think I read somewhere that Ontario schools used to do it to a number of years back. It stopped due to funding issues I believe, but don't quote me on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted February 11, 2003 Report Share Posted February 11, 2003 There is definitely NO PAY for clerkship in Ontario....much to the annoyance of Ontario students....seeing as we pay the highest tuition.... While clerkship will be a fantastic learning experience, it does seem a little unfair that we are PAYING $15 000 for the privilege of working..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UWOMED2005 Posted February 11, 2003 Report Share Posted February 11, 2003 Then again, let us remind ourselves that we probably would have gone to the ends of the earth for the chance to be clerks before we got in. Wow, we were nuts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted February 11, 2003 Report Share Posted February 11, 2003 Very true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ian Wong Posted August 16, 2005 Report Share Posted August 16, 2005 Floating back to the top... Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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