Phase 2
Phase 2, the Clerkship phase, begins with the two-week Clerkship Readiness Course. Students rotate with their learning community through clinical clerkship rotations. Clerkships occur at two campus locations, Charlottesville and Inova.
Phase 2 Clerkships
Clerkships run for 39 weeks total, in three, 13 week blocks, with three 1-week vacations between each block.
- Internal Medicine
(6 weeks) - Intersession
(1 week) - PCOM (Primary Care and Outpatient Medicine)
(6 weeks)
- Intersession
(1 week) - SAGO (Surgery, Anesthesiology, Gynecology & Obstetrics)
(12 weeks)
- Pediatrics
(6 weeks) - Psychiatry
(3 weeks) - Neurology
(3 weeks) - Intersession
(1 week)
Phase 2 Curriculum
Students learn the clinical practice of medicine as they become a member of patient care teams across various settings and disciplines.
Clerkship Readiness Course
This 2-week required course prepares learners to move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of the curriculum. The course occurs at both the Charlottesville and Inova campuses. Students have the opportunity to practice skills and demonstrate knowledge necessary for the first day of clerkships.
Hands-on training for:
- Interprofessional collaborative care
- Clinical skills & procedures
- Completion of health system requirements
- Diversity, equity & inclusion for the clinical environment
During the Phase 2 Clerkships, learners explore different medical specialties. Clerkships are completed at the Charlottesville or Inova campus. Additionally, some clerkships may occur at other sites including the Salem Veterans Administration hospital or Bon Secours hospital in Richmond.
Internal Medicine
This 6-week clerkship provides exposure to a spectrum of common acute and chronic medical conditions encountered in the inpatient Internal Medicine setting. Learners work closely with patients, practicing skills ranging from history taking and physical diagnosis to ordering diagnostic studies and developing treatment plans. Students practice evidence-based medicine and coordination of care across disciplines with a wide range of health professionals.
- Evidence-based medicine
- High-value care
- Multisystem disease
- Integration of multidisciplinary care
Primary Care and Outpatient Medicine (PCOM)
This 6-week rotation increases understanding of outpatient medicine through engaging clinical experiences and high-value teaching workshops. Students take an active role in caring for patients across a range of practices – including Family Medicine, Ambulatory Internal Medicine, and Geriatrics – and learn to identify the shared goals and differentiators among these disciplines. A consistent set of clinical ambulatory practice preceptors guide learners through the entire program as they practice skills such as history taking, physical exams, oral presentations, and written documentation. The geriatric clinical experience is woven throughout the clerkship.
- Evidence-informed decision making
- Longitudinal patient/physician relationship
- Care across the life-span
Surgery, Anesthesiology, Gynecology & Obstetrics Clerkship (SAGO)
During this 12-week rotation, students rotate through ambulatory, inpatient and operating room settings of the surgical, women’s health, and anesthesiology services. This includes time on the labor and delivery unit learning about childbirth and management of women’s health issues. High fidelity simulation opportunities reinforce concepts learned in the clinic, providing additional hands-on training.
- Peri-operative patient management
- Advanced clinical skills training
- Pain management
- Application of pharmacologic and physiologic principles
Pediatrics
The Pediatrics clerkship is a 6-week experience designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of caring for children from birth and infancy to adolescence and into young adulthood. The clerkship is divided into a three-week inpatient experience and a three-week ambulatory experience. Learners have the opportunity to participate in both general pediatric and specialty care.
- Family-centered rounds
- Preventative care and anticipatory guidance for families
- Coordination of care including addressing social influences on health
Psychiatry
During this 3-week rotation, students will learn the fundamentals of assessing, diagnosing, and treating major psychiatric illness as well as common medical and nervous system disorders related to psychiatry practice. Learners explore the interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors in patients’ lives in a variety of settings, including the acute inpatient psychiatric unit, the psychiatric consultative service, and outpatient clinics.
- Addiction medicine and Medication Administration Program (MAP) training
- Mental status examinations and assessment of capacity
- Psychopharmacology
Neurology
This 3-week rotation provides a clinical context for concepts learned in the Mind, Brain, and Behavior course during Phase 1. Learners will be assigned an inpatient core experience within general adult neurology, vascular neurology, adult neurology consults, or pediatric neurology, with additional experiences in general outpatient neurology and specialty clinics.
- Examination of the nervous system
- Localization of lesions related to neurologic signs and symptoms
- Interpretation of diagnostic testing and imaging
Intersession Course
In this course, students enhance clinical learning through activities designed to revisit basic science, incorporate curricular threads, and practice clinical skills such as physical exam, diagnostic reasoning, quality improvement, communication, and other clerkship-specific procedures and skills.
- Team-based care simulation
- Patient-care skills and procedures
- Advanced communication skills
- Preparation for increased patient responsibilities for Phase 3
- Physician self-care
FCM2: Foundations of Clinical Medicine 2
Foundations of Clinical Medicine (FCM) continues during clerkship as FCM-2. This course comprises a mix of one-on-one meetings with the student’s physician coach to reflect on performance, assess strengths and weakness, and co-create learning plans for continued development of clinical skills. Students meet at regular intervals with their small group to reflect on patient care experiences and learn from each other. This course intentionally mirrors the metacognitive and strategic thinking components of self-regulated learning so that students can practice and apply skills learned in clerkships and be motivated to incorporate these behaviors to achieve continuous, lifelong improvement as physicians.
- Continued clinical skills development
- Professional identity formation
- Mix of 1:1 meetings and small-group sessions
- Reflection on performance
- Goal setting
- Joint creation of learning plans
Learn more about FCM
EPA: Entrustable Professional Activities Program
EPA assessments are completed in each of the clerkships in Phase 2. Assessments are completed by the residents, fellows, faculty and Designator Assessor, a group of faculty with expertise in assessment who observe students across clinical disciplines and settings throughout the year. Assessments are done through direct observation of students during a patient encounter.
In addition to the EPA activities that are performed during Phase 1, students are assessed doing tasks such as:
- Entering orders
- Writing notes
- Performing general procedures
Students review EPA assessment data with the Coach during FCM II meetings during the Intersession course. The Entrustment Committee aggregates data at the end of the year to make a decision that students are ready to participate in advanced clinical elective courses.
Learn more about the EPA
Patient Student Partnership: Phase 2
As part of the Patient Student Partnership program, during the clerkship phase, students begin to play a more active role as part of their patient’s healthcare team. Students will:
- Maintain a longitudinal relationship with their patient while balancing other clinical responsibilities
- Integrate topics learned across multiple clerkships and apply them to their patient.
- Independently research a topic of their choosing and write a report on how they would apply what they learned to their patient’s unique situation.
- May even receive guidance from their patient’s primary UVA provider regarding their report, so that they may share the advice with their patient.