The Fast Track Summer 2017
GETTING THROUGH
CORE CLERKSHIPS Hala Ashraf, OMS-IV VCOM
With summer in full force, medical students have transitioned into and are now settling into their new roles. Second-years have moved on from preclinical studies to clerkships. Third-years are auditioning at programs of interest and preparing to interview for residencies, and fourth-years are embarking on the next phase of their education as resident physicians. With each transition, it is important to reflect on how far you have come, and how your experiences have shaped your education thus far. As a soon-to-be OMS-IV, preparing for the Level 2 exam and audition rotations, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what I learned from my third-year clerkships. As it is with many other schools, my school does not consider emergency medicine to be a core clerkship for OMS-III students. But that does not have to be the end of the world. There is still so much to learn about emergency medicine, no matter what clerkship you are on. The beauty of emergency
in your new role, things aren’t so bad. You have got the basic anatomy and physiology down, and now you get to apply it to real patients. As your preceptors start to give you more responsibility with charting and orders, you can learn to develop treatment plans for your patients with the safety net of having a physician behind you to catch your mistakes before you make them. You get to explore different specialties and hopefully begin to figure out where your best fit may be. And if you already
”WITH EACH TRANSITION, IT IS IMPORTANT TO REFLECT ON HOW FAR YOU HAVE COME, AND HOW YOUR EXPERIENCES HAVE SHAPED YOUR EDUCATION THUS FAR.” medicine is that you never know what pathology is going to roll through those doors. Core clerkships just give you a little view of what happens before and after that ED visit. Third-year students are in a unique position. Most of us probably started our first clerkship as confused, awkward students who felt more in the way than anything else. After spending two years knowing exactly what needed to be done to pass classes and crush boards, we were suddenly thrust into a world where there was no Pathoma and those long uWorld vignettes were now hour-long patient interviews, with differential diagnoses much narrower than A thruN answer choices. But once you get a little more comfortable
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know what specialty you want to pursue, third-year is the perfect opportunity to gain exposure to areas of medicine you may not see again once you begin residency. So, what’s the best way to take advantage of this year? KEEP AN OPEN MIND. It can be tempting to want to blow off a rotation just because you think you will never end up in that specialty. Ultimately, you never know what you might end up loving, or hating, if you do not give every clerkship a fair shot. At the most, it will only be eight weeks of your life. Dedicate yourself to it, and you may end up surprising yourself.