Third Year
Clinical Skills Week
Clinical Skills Week provides rising third year medical students with the basic tools necessary to successfully transition from the pre-clerkship years into clinical training. The course offer students a basic orientation to the third year (policies, procedures and requirements) through multiple interactive seminars (maximizing learning, feedback and evaluation, evidence based practice) and skill based sessions (basic procedures, note writing, and chart review practice).
Pediatrics
This six-week clerkship provides students with opportunities to care for pediatric patients across a variety of settings including inpatient, outpatient and in the well baby nursery. Students address issues unique to the newborn period, childhood, and adolescence by focusing on growth and development, and by emphasizing the impact of family, community, and society on child health and well-being. Students actively participate in the care of patients, apply their knowledge of pathophysiologic principles to clinical care and learn how the context of care and the values of patients and their families influence medical decision making.
Obstetrics and Gynecology
This six-week clerkship is designed to enhance medical student education by providing students with opportunities to learn about the general and unique features of obstetrics, gynecology, and primary and preventive care of women's health.
Internal Medicine-Geriatrics
This 12-week clerkship provides students with distinctive opportunities to care for complex adult, geriatric and palliative care patients across a variety of settings including inpatient, outpatient and the home. During the clerkship, students actively participate in the care of patients, apply their knowledge of pathophysiologic principles to clinical care and learn how the context of care and the values of patients and their families influence medical decision making.
Surgery
This eight-week clerkship allows students to experience the excitement and satisfaction of the field of surgery: specifically, the ability to work up a patient's chief complaint, arrive at a diagnosis and provide immediate treatment that alleviates their problems. Students participate in the pre, post and intra-operative care of patients and also have an opportunity for selective experiences at specialized surgical services, the surgical ICU, or at community hospital practices.
Anesthesiology
This one-week clerkship exposes students to the field of Anesthesia. Students are offered opportunities in the operating room, interactive didactic sessions and practical training at the Human Patient Simulator.
Neurology
This four-week clerkship prepares students to perform a competent screening neurologic examination, recognize and neuroscientifically-contextualize abnormal neurologic signs, formulate targeted neurologic differential diagnosis, design evidence-based initial neurologic diagnostic testing and develop an evidence-based initial neurologic management plan.
Psychiatry
This four-week clerkship provides students with skills to effectively listen to, empathically communicate with and diagnose patients with psychiatric illness. Students are primarily assigned to the inpatient psychiatry service, but also have exposure to one or more of the following: Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry, Psychiatric Emergency Room, Geriatric Psychiatry, and Outpatient Psychiatry.
Ambulatory Care Clerkship
This four-week clerkship prepares students to provide comprehensive community-based health care to individuals and families using a bio-psycho-social approach. Disease prevention, chronic illness management, nutrition, health and wellness, the medical home and public health are additional areas of focus in this clerkship.
Intersession
Intersession is a week-long retreat from the clinical experiences of the third year that provides students with the opportunity to reflect and integrate the knowledge, skills and attitudes of clinical practice. It includes sessions on career and professional development, health policy, medical errors, and preparation for residency.
InterACT
The 11-week Interclerkship Ambulatory Care Track provides select third year medical students with a longitudinal clinical experience grounded in the foundations of ambulatory medicine and chronic illness care. It develops students committed to the practice of longitudinal patient centered care who are able to navigate the health care systems while addressing the social, economic, and cultural factors which impact chronic illness care in an urban setting.
Neuroscience Elective
This four-week elective is a component of a unified 12-week Integrated Clinical Neuroscience Block. The purpose of this program is to provide a time-expanded and content-enriched third year medical school experience in clinical neuroscience. The four-week neuroscience elective includes one week of neurosurgery, one week of neuroradiology and two weeks of neurology/psychiatry sub-specialties (movement disorders, depression, epilepsy, cognitive disorders, OCD, PTSD, addiction, pain management and autism spectrum and learning disorders). A neurology/psychiatry disorder self-study/research project is concurrently mentored throughout the 12 week Neuroscience block. This program is intended for those students interested in a neuroscientific medical specialty.
Electives
Electives are important ways to enhance educational areas of weakness, to experience new opportunities, and to promote a residency plan in some situations. Students may take clinical electives at Mount Sinai or its affiliates, at off-campus scholarly institutions or, with the approval of the Global Health office, at an international venue. Electives should represent longitudinal clinical or research experiences and are typically four weeks in duration. Students may create a tailor-made elective or may register for an elective that has been created for the curriculum and is advertised on the website.
Courses Without Walls (CWW)
Courses Without Walls refer to essential themes in medical education. At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, these threads are woven throughout the core curriculum. Topics are taught and reinforced in depth and breadth as students advance in their training. Ultimately, the CWW themes build into a matrix that is horizontally and vertically integrated over the four-year core curriculum, and is represented in the content and assessments of many host courses. CWW themes include Ethics, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Diagnostic Radiology, Palliative Care, Clinical Laboratories, Global Health, Population Health including evidence-based medicine, medical informatics and library science, Nutrition, Cultural Competency and Health Policy.
Comprehensive Assessment (COMPASS) 2
Toward the end of third year, the COMPASS 2 clinical skills exercise uses Standardized Patients (SPs) to assess students' abilities to apply knowledge, concepts and principles and to demonstrate fundamental clinical skills essential to safe and effective patient care under supervision. In addition, this experience prepares students for the USMLE Step 2CS examination. Students complete six SP encounters and clinical notes and are assessed on their history and physical exam techniques, communication and interpersonal skills and note-writing abilities. In addition, a written exercise and small group debrief focuses on identifying and applying ethical principles to resolve patient care issues.