If you can believe it, third year is even better than second year. You finally get to put everything you learned in the classroom into practice, and things start falling into place. Third year starts with a Basic Surgical Skills course, where you’ll learn aseptic technique, gowning and gloving, knot tying, and suturing. This is a course that is both fun and practical -- you’ll be able to start scrubbing in on cases as soon as you’ve finished this class. After that, you only have two big classes left (Emergency Medicine/Podiatric Trauma and Community Health) that last about three weeks with two exams apiece. Again, your best study materials are your lecture notes. As you’re taking these classes, you’ll also be doing clinical rotations. If you’re double-booked, class and lab always trump clinic. However, if you have class until 10 am and clinic is scheduled until noon, you’ll be heading to clinic once class is over. Clinic groups are often a little larger at this point in the year, so you may only be seeing one patient each day. Be sure to use downtime in clinic wisely -- practice suturing or knot tying, discuss cases with your classmates, or read journal articles. Once you finish those classes, you start the Evidence-Based Medicine course.
You are placed in a smaller clinic group and start going through a new set of rotations. You will spend time with every doctor in our clinic, as well as a month with a local podiatrist at their private practice, 2 weeks doing a vascular rotation, 2 weeks doing an internal medicine rotation, 2 weeks in the simulation lab, and a month over at the VA. While you are on campus and at the VA you will participate in an EBM course. You will also give an evidence-based medicine presentation, design a scientific poster, and write a medical document portfolio.
During your third year, you will select and apply for clerkships. You will be instructed on the process when it gets closer, so there’s no need to think about it too much now. Each student has the opportunity to meet with the Clinical Affairs advisor to discuss their 3 month core rotation as well as their other rotations. 4th year students and alumni are often happy to discuss their experiences with certain programs and are an excellent resource to use when trying to decide where you’d like to go.
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Year 3
From the kitchen of Ali D'Andelet