RMstudents Technology meets medical education

Location

Stroger

# Weeks

4

Hours/week on site

31-40 (2)

Open to M3s?

yes

Scheduled through OASIS?

yes

On Rush schedule?

no

# other students

4 or more

Prerequisites

Medicine, Ob/Gyn, Peds, Surgery

Interviewing/Step 2 flexibility

schedule is flexible as long as you work 15 shifts

Overnight call?

no (1), yes (1)

Work weekends?

no

Weekend call?

no

Is there an exam at the end of the rotation

yes

Students required to give a presentation

no

Teaching hours/day

2-3, 1-2

Teaching style

Morning report/Case conference, lecture given by resident or attending , clinical skills lab

Attendings teach after you staff each patient with them, time permitting of course

Suggested reading/pocket contents

The clerkship director provides a textbook that he wrote for reading during the clerkship.  Pocket contents:  notebook, penlight, trauma shears, stethoscope.

The black Pocket Emergency Medicine in your coat, Dr. Sherman (course
director) wrote a book that that you use for the exam ("Roadmap to
Emergency Medicine")

Structure of rotation

One-on-one with attendings/residents

Amt/quality of time residents/attendings

Directly present to attendings, can present to residents first to sharpen presentation for attending.  Both teach a lot.

You are assigned to one attending per shift and you report solely to that attending.  Its a great one on one experience

You spend your entire 8 hour shift with one attending. They teach
depending on the time and their personality. Most teaching is in the
form of EM pearls but occasionally you'll get a big talk on one subject
(usually during night shifts). The time spent with the attendings are
good ways to get your EM letter of rec (most want 2+ shifts with them
for a letter though).

Proportion of time evaluating pts alone

75-100%

# pts evaluated/day

6-8 (2), 8-10

Procedures

A few times/day, a few times/wk

Typical day

Shifts are 8 hours:  8a-4p, 4p-12a, 12a-8a.  You work 15 shifts for the 4 weeks.  Start with sign-out from previous team.  As the student you see new patients and present directly to attending who sees patient with you and asks you what labs/tests you want to order.  There really is no down time, you are moving all the time depending on what team you are on.  Red is critical patients, green is ortho, sutures etc, blue is everything in between.  Lectures for students Mon/Tues 12:30-3:30 and for residents 8-11 Wed and 8-10 Thurs.

Start with sign-out board rounds by the team leaving, you then start
picking up new patients (the residents monitor the left over patients
that were seen by the previous team) and present them to the attending.
Then repeat until the end of your shift (8 hours).

Usefulness for any residency (# stars/5)

5, 4

Usefulness for this residency (# stars/5)

5, 5

Useful for other specialties

EM, IM at least.  Any specialty.

Overall rating (# stars/5)

5, 5

Recommended to other students (# stars/5)

5, 5

Other comments

This is a well-balanced elective with lectures, procedure labs, and clinical time.  Procedure labs include ultrasound, splinting, slit lamp, suturing, common ED procedures, EKG interpretation, and simulation lab.  Plus you get to hang out in the resuscitation rooms for the really sick patients.  Entire rotation is very hands-on and lots of opportunities to learn from patients and attendings.  I can't say enough good things, but I am biased toward it!

This is a great rotation, especially if you are interested in EM. The
program and many attendings there are nationally/internationally known.
It is a good way to get letters of rec for EM. It also helps during the
residency interview process because the program and its population is
well know across the country, so if yo do well here it translates to
other busy, urban programs. If you are thinking about EM, do one
rotation here and at least one somewhere else to get a sense of what
type of ED setting you would like to train in for residency.

Location

Northwestern Memorial Hospital

# Weeks

4

Hours/week on site

31-40

Open to M3s?

no

Scheduled through OASIS?

no

On Rush schedule?

yes

# other students

4 or more

Prerequisites

All the cores except neuro.

Interviewing/Step 2 flexibility

They would just schedule you to work around the days you needed off. You just need to do 16 shifts during the 4 weeks.

Overnight call?

no

Work weekends?

yes

Weekend call?

no

Is there an exam at the end of the rotation

yes

Students required to give a presentation

yes

Teaching hours/day

1-2

Teaching style

Morning report/Case conference, Lecture given by resident or attending, Student presentations

Suggested reading/pocket contents

They provided a book for us to read throughout the month, basically asked us to read the respective chapters prior to the weekly lectures. We had 3-4 hours of lecture on one afternoon per week.

Structure of rotation

One-on-one with attendings/residents

Amt/quality of time residents/attendings

Equal amounts of time were spent with the senior resident and attending for that shift (each shift had a different team, and you were assigned to 1 of 4 areas in the ED). You are in charge of entering all orders - there is a lot of autonomy in this rotation and responsibility...

Proportion of time evaluating pts alone

75-100%

# pts evaluated/day

6-8

Procedures

A few times/week

Typical day

Shifts were 8 hours, morning, evening, night shifts, any day of the week (incl. weekends).  You would assess patients as they came in, doing a focused history and physical - depending on patients' condition you'd have to rush on to get the attending to see the patient. This is an adult ER only, so no peds exposure during this rotation, however I saw EVERYTHING else, including a delivery in the ER... (this is not very common though.) You will also do suturing, casting, and less common procedures like joint taps, paracentesis, dental nerve blocks and others. You'll read a lot of X-rays/CT scans and EKGs.

Usefulness for any residency

5 of 5 stars

Usefulness for this residency

5 of 5 stars

Useful for other specialties

Emergency, General Surgery, Anesthesia, Medicine, Family, OB/Gyn, Radiology

Overall rating

5 of 5 stars

Recommended to other students

5 of 5 stars

Other comments

Northwestern is an excellent ER residency program for those interested in ER, however it is a 4-year program so only bother doing this away rotation if you are interested in 4-year programs in ER. Otherwise, if this is just an elective without interest in ER, you can do your ER rotation at Cook Co. and get the same experience.