General Schedule for Fourth Year
| Clerkship Period | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 12.5 |
| Length (in Weeks) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3-4 |
During the combined clinical years (MS-3 & MS-4) students rotate through 10 required clerkships in any sequence. Additional requirements are 1 Acting Internship, 1 Integrated Life Sciences Selective, 1 Boot Camp Selective, 8 electives, and 3 Clinical Focus Courses. Students are required to take at least one clinical elective after period 7.
What does the MS-4 year include?
- Eight electives
- One acting internship
- One integrated life science course
- One boot camp course
- Two recess/interview periods
- One recess week in the Fall
Acting Internship
An acting internship (sub-internship) of four-week duration is required during the senior year. An AI is a clinical rotation offered on an in-patient service in which one or more attending physicians have overall responsibility for coordinated patient care. The service will be structured with both attending staff and house staff.
The acting internship should include the assignment to the student of specific groups of patients upon whom he or she completes an initial history and physical examination, constructs a differential diagnosis, formulates a treatment plan, writes orders, and carries out necessary therapy, all under careful supervision.
Acting internships that fulfill this requirement are offered in:
- Cardiothoracic Surgery
- Family Medicine
- Internal Medicine
- Medical Intensive Care Unit
- NICU
- Pediatric
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
- Surgery
Search the Course Catalog for more information on Acting internships.
Acting internships in other departments or out of the city will not fulfill the AI requirement.
Integrated Life Science Course
The fourth year Integrated Life Science (ILS) Program includes a choice of courses that revisit some aspect of basic science after students have had several years of clinical experience. Because of the level of sophistication that students have developed by this stage in their medical education, they can better understand the relevance of basic science to clinical problems. Each student is required to complete one ILS course.
ILS Courses
- Changing Science, Changing Society: A Guide to 21st Century Medicine
- Clinical Pharmacology
- Infectious Disease in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine
- Introducion to Oncology
- Neurosurgery and Head and Neck Dissection
- Science of Resuscitation
- The 'I's Have It: Immunization, Immunodeficiency, and Inflammation in Kids
Boot Camp
A Residency Boot Camp of four-week duration is required during the senior year.
Boot Camps that fulfill this requirement are offered in:
- Anesthesiology
- Emergency Medicine
- Internal Medicine
- Obstetrics & Gynecology
- Pediatrics
- Psychiatry
- Surgery
Recommended Electives
In order to provide diversity, it is strongly recommended that you take at least one elective in each of the following blocks:
- Medicine or Neurology
- Pediatrics, Pediatric Neurology, Pediatric Pathology, Pediatric Surgery
- Surgery or Surgical Subspecialties, Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Ambulatory Care, Community Medicine, or Psychiatry