Clinical Curriculum: Senior Year

Overview

OSA deans assist juniors in selecting their senior schedules to help toward programming a balanced, useful senior-year curriculum that fulfills the student's needs and also provides a thorough and varied medical education experience. Computer programs through the Office of Medical Education are used to equitably award schedule requests. Time is possible for scheduling residency interviewing during the planning of the senior schedule.

Year IV - 32 weeks

Senior Year Electives

A student may do up to 2 of the 4 electives in the same specialty or area. If participating in research electives, only one (4 weeks) research elective in senior year will count toward graduation credit. Also, up to 2 months of electives may be done outside the UMB system. Additional off-campus courses in the senior year may be granted on request by the Clinical Years Committee. Up to three months of senior elective credit may be accrued through pre-clinical electives. A complete list of on-campus electives may be found here.

International Electives

Many students are interested in participating in international electives for credit and for their own professional development in clinical and research environments. We do allow those experiences subject to review and approval by the School of Medicine. The quality of the educational experience and the safety of the site will factor significantly into the decision. Travel to countries with Department of State restrictions and/or high alerts will not be permitted.  Students should check for disease epidemics in their area of planned travel prior to final departure and should cancel or rearrange their plans if such a situation exists.

Along with an International Elective Request Form, students requesting permission for international studies must review the UMB International Travel Risk Policy, review and sign the Student Travel Release, and the Medical Student Location Report. To finalize the process, sign and return the letter Sample MMCIP Coverage Letter that you will receive, via email and return it to the OSA. All required materials must be returned to OSA at least four weeks prior to your departure.

The following are additional links which you may find useful in preparing for an international elective:

AMSA: www.amsa.org/global/ih
GHEC: http://globalhealthedu.org/resources/Pages/default.aspx
CIA World Fact Book: www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
WHO: www.who.int/ith/en  

If you have the UMB student health insurance plan then you are eligible for the evacuation/foreign travel health policy. All you need to do is go to Student Accounting on 2nd floor of HSHSL and ask for your group policy card/information packet from "Zurich Travel Assist". The packet has the group coverage card and will give you the policy number. Contact person: Judith Archambault - (410)706-2929.

Subinternships

A sub-internship is defined as a clinical experience in which the student is involved in direct patient care at an intern level, with appropriate and adequate supervision, and must demonstrate independent thinking and clinical decision making. Eight weeks are spent completing subinternships with students functioning at the intern level on an inpatient unit in one of four clinical fields: Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, Family Medicine, Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Orthopaedics, Otorhinolaryngology and Anesthesiology.

These rotations are offered at the University of Maryland Medical System and in approved affiliated hospitals.

Students may not begin a Senior subtinernship until the third year rotation in that specialty has been successfully completed.  Any additional prerequisites are listed in the subinternship catalogue which may be found here.

Area Health Education Center (AHEC)

All students are required to do two consecutive months of AHEC either in Maryland or with the Indian Health Service,  or one month of Maryland AHEC and one month of a "selective."  Selective options include: a month with the Indian Health Service, a month with an AHEC in another state, a month of an international health experience, a month of public health or another project for one month designed independently and approved by the course director.  This last project may be research involving underserved populations or another special project, usually involving public health, and having an advisor in epidemiology in addition to a mentor in another department if necessary. MD/PhD students may choose a selective in which they return to the lab to complete research in their field.  MD/MPH students may receive credit for the public health month selective as part of their original MPH degree. 

The primary mission of the AHEC is to improve health in underserved areas. The centers are interdisciplinary in nature. They work with medical students, nursing students, pharmacy students and other medical professional students. 

Our students may go to western Maryland, the eastern shore, southern Maryland, or Baltimore city. Selection for Baltimore city goes to students with children or other pressing needs to stay local. Those decisions are made on a case by case basis by the course director.

For further information contact Leslie S. Robinson, M.D.  at lrobinson@medicine.umaryland.edu.

Departmental Grand Rounds

Interested students and professionals are welcome to attend these weekly functions.

They are scheduled as follows:

Other grand rounds and special programs are held irregularly or at less than weekly intervals. Look for announcements posted in the hospital's first floor and on other bulletin boards in the hospital corridors, Howard Hall, the Bressler Research Building, the Health Sciences Facility and the VA Medical Center.

Last Revision: March 31, 2010