VCOM College Catalog and Student Handbook

• (MED 8305/8306) Surgical Selective: 4 credit hours Students must seek Associate Dean approval for any rotation that is less than the required length as specified below. If a site only offers a shorter rotation, the student must submit verification from the site that a longer rotation in the specialty is not offered. Students may choose from the following options: o 4 Week Rotations: Cardiovascular Surgery, General Surgery, Neurosurgery, Orthopedic-Spine Surgery, Orthopedic Sports Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, Trauma Surgery, and Surgery Critical Care o 2- or 4-Week Rotations: Anesthesiology, Breast Surgery, Gynecology-Oncology Surgery, Ophthalmology, Oro-maxillofacial Surgery, Otolaryngology, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Podiatry, Surgical Oncology, Uro-gynecology, and Urology • (MED 8500) Emergency Medicine: 4 credit hours The Emergency Medicine rotation is in the hospital setting with mixed medical and trauma emergencies. All experiences in emergency medicine have the goal of introducing students to most common emergent conditions patients are cared for by the primary care physician or emergency medicine physician in a community-based setting. This rotation must be completed at a designated VCOM core site; however, if a student is planning to apply to an EM residency and needs to use this rotation as an audition, they may do so outside of the core site with AD approval. Pediatric Emergency Medicine may be an elective but may not be used in place of the required Emergency Medicine Rotation. • (MED 8700) Research and Scholarly Activity: 4 credit hours Depending upon the type of research, a student may seek approval from the Associate Dean for OMS 4 and GME to do a medical or surgical selective rotation concurrently while completing the four-weeks of research, as long as the rotation pertains to the subject of the research. The research and scholarly activity may be on medical, surgical, or other health related topics. If a student completes an additional clinical selective concurrently with their research rotation, it will not replace any requirement for the current 5 electives, 4 selectives, or EM but would be done as an additional selective. Research and Scholarly Activity must be completed over four weeks in the OMS 4 year. The research weeks do not have to be taken consecutively if the student is only completing research and not doing a concurrent selective and should be scheduled according to the needs of the student and the type of research project. If a student gains approval to complete a concurrent selective, they must complete it over two, 2 week rotations or 4-week timeframe. During residency training and in clinical practice beyond, all physicians will be required to frequently search out, review and critically appraise a variety of clinical topics in the ever-growing body of medical literature. This scholarly activity provides students the opportunity to further develop skills in reviewing evidence based medicine, critical thinking, and writing skills, all while working in collaboration with VCOM clinical faculty members. The work must not have been previously published or presented. The student is expected to spend not less than 200 hours on this paper. The paper will receive a letter grade. The grade the student receives on their research paper will also be the grade the student receives for the Research and Scholarly Activity credit hours. • (MED 8900) Professional Development Capstone and Graduation: 4 credit hours During this course, mostly completed online, students will create and submit a medical student dossier. The dossier will include not only those items from the MSPE during the first three years of medical school but also the additional experiences gained in the OMS 4 year, which includes the patient care experience logs and the OMS 4 research and scholarly activity paper. The dossier will be kept in the student’s permanent file. Students are also required to be on campus during graduation week, generally for a minimum of 3 and up to 4 days in order to complete additional forms and attend graduation exercises. This

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