Internal Medicine

The Internal Medicine Clerkship will provide clinical exposure to breadth and diversity of disease. Students will gain knowledge, experience, and competence in the diagnosis and management of various acute and chronic medical conditions in outpatient and inpatient clinical settings. Students will also become competent in their history and physical diagnosis skills, develop the ability to prioritize patient problems and generate a differential diagnosis, and implement patient management strategies and observe their effects. Prerequisite: successful completion of all pre-clinical (Year 1 and Year 2) coursework.

It is critical to note that the clinical clerkship experience is not intended to teach the student everything about Internal Medicine nor provide the student with clinical experience in every aspect of the discipline. The Clerkship Director and the assigned Preceptor may provide educational guidance, but it is each student’s individual responsibility to learn the subject content. Lifelong self-learning is the goal and is expected in this core clinical clerkship. Students must show that adequate direct patient care experience has been achieved by demonstrating adequate patient log support of an average of at least 4 outpatients or 2 inpatients per day.

Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. 

Nephrology is a specialty of medicine and pediatrics that concerns itself with the kidneys: the study of normal kidney function and kidney problems, the preservation of kidney health, and the treatment of kidney problems, from diet and medication to renal replacement therapy (dialysis and kidney transplantation). Systemic conditions that affect the kidneys (such as diabetes and autoimmune disease) and systemic problems that occur as a result of kidney problems (such as renal osteodystrophy and hypertension) are also studied in nephrology. 

The branch of medicine that focuses on infections is referred to as infectious disease. Infectious disease, also known as transmissible disease or communicable disease, is illness resulting from an infection. Infections are caused by infectious agents including viruses; viroids; prions; bacteria; nematodes such as parasitic roundworms and pinworms; arthropods such as ticks, mites, fleas, and lice; fungi such as ringworm; and other macroparasites such as tapeworms and other helminths. 

Hematology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood.