During the clinical years, students serve as clinical clerks. They join health care teams, which include postgraduate trainees, attending physicians, nurses, technicians, and other healthcare providers, and are expected to learn their role on the team quickly.
Direct patient contact is an essential feature of the clerkship. Students take histories, examine patients, propose diagnostic and therapeutic plans, record findings, present cases to the team, perform minor procedures under supervision, attend scheduled lectures and conferences, participate in work rounds and teaching rounds, maintain a patient log, and read extensively about their patients’ conditions.
In Surgery and Gynecology, attendance in the operating room is required. In Obstetrics, attendance is required in prenatal and postpartum clinics; and students must follow obstetrical patients through labor and delivery.