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Emergency Medicine Advance Clinical Elective

Visiting students enjoy an afternoon exploring the lovely surroundings of Charlottesville.

Course Description

This elective is for senior medical students looking to function at the highest clinical level afforded to students in the emergency department. Students will learn to apply knowledge that they acquired in the emergency medicine clerkship and other rotations to evaluate and manage undifferentiated and acutely ill patients in the emergency department efficiently and effectively. Students will take primary responsibility for their patients, leading the initial assessment, developing a targeted differential diagnosis, and then crafting and implementing a treatment plan. Within the RIME framework, students will progress from early interpreters to managers, utilizing their burgeoning clinical reasoning skills to analyze the strengths and weakness of potential diagnostic and therapeutic plans. This is a unique opportunity for students to manage time sensitive critical conditions. With supervision from the attending physician, students will make clinical decisions and enact these decisions. Students will be the primary point person for their patients, including with patients, families, consultants, primary care physicians, nursing, and ancillary staff.

Students will provide patient care at the level of an emergency medicine intern. On the required emergency medicine clerkship, students’ progress within the RIME framework from reporters to interpreters in the emergency department. On this elective, students will hone their interpretation skills and primarily manage their patients. Interpretation skills will focus on applying knowledge learned in the clerkship to more complex situations, e.g., prioritize the differential for a polytrauma patient as opposed to an isolated head injury or respiratory distress in a patient with sepsis and congestive heart failure. Students will learn to tailor their approach to patients’ individual circumstances and preferences, learning how and when to act. Moreover, in contradistinction to the required clerkship students will focus on achieving the following objectives on patients with more emergent presentations.

Visiting Students

Welcome to UVA! We are excited that you are considering rotating with us. We have a busy quaternary care ED that draws from a huge catchment area, extending from Washington DC to Richmond to Western Virginia. Our patients tend to be complex and quite ill. Our greatest strength is the people in our programs; we have a diverse, passionate, fun loving, hard working group of residents, faculty, and nurses.

Our visiting student rotation is designed for senior medical students planning careers in emergency medicine. Students will function as sub-interns, managing their patients, while working 1:1 with senior emergency medicine residents and attendings. They will be fully integrated into the clinical team and participate in all intern related events, e.g., resident conference, simulation, procedure workshops, journal club, special event management, etc. They will work approximately 15 8 hour shifts over the course of the month. Students will also benefit from advising from our residency leadership on the application process. If interested, students may also spend time with our toxicology, ultrasound, pediatrics, and EMS teams. All student are welcome to receive an eSLOE from their rotation, based on shift evaluations, presentations at conference, and an end of rotation exam.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to meeting you!

Applying

We will begin reviewing applications for the 2023 application cycle on April 10, 2023. In compliance with national recommendations, we will not accept students that plan to complete another away rotation at a different institution.

We will offer four week rotations on the following dates:

  • June 5, 2023
  • July 3, 2023
  • July 31, 2023
  • August 28, 2023
  • September 25, 2023

Please complete all requested information on VSAS. In addition, we ask that you briefly tell us:

  1. Why are you interested in the UVA Emergency Medicine Residency Program?
  2. What else would you like us to know about you?

 

** UVA does not accept osteopathic or international visiting medical students.**

Resources

More information about applying can be found here: Visiting Medical Student Application

More information about Med Tox and Peds EM can be found here: Elective Options

Want to learn more about our residency program? Check it out here: Residency Information

Contact Information

Joshua Easter, MD, MSc
Director, Senior Medical Student Electives
Associate Residency Program Director
E-mail: jeaster@virginia.edu

Kyle Williams
Coordinator, Medical Education
E-mail: Kew6k@virginia.edu