The clinical curriculum begins in March of the second academic year and allows flexibility in schedules for students to customize educational plans that suit their long-term career goals. A longitudinal educational experience, Exploring Clinical Medicine, delivers curricular themes that are common across all clerkships. Exploring Clinical Medicine includes topics such as quality improvement and patient safety, transitions of care, difficult patient encounters, professional communication, value-based care, climate change and effects on health, and more. Exploring Clinical Medicine is divided into three distinct, three-month courses, each culminating in a simulated clinical skills encounter that reflects the content covered during each course.
The clinical curriculum is comprised of 48 weeks of clerkships, eight weeks of “selectives” (four weeks of inpatient sub-internship and four weeks of ambulatory care which focuses on systems of practice), 20 weeks of “electives”, and four weeks of didactics which prepare students for their internships.
Core Clerkships
Students rotate in 4 to 8 week blocks of core clerkships, assuming increasing patient care responsibility commensurate with achievement of specific milestones and competencies. Clinical clerkships may be taken in any order beginning in March of the second academic year and must be completed by the end of the third academic year.