Women's Health

The Women’s Health Clerkship will provide clinical exposure to the various aspects of women’s health issues. Students will gain knowledge, experience, and competence in the diagnosis and management of gynecologic and obstetric patients in inpatient and outpatient clinical settings. Students will also become competent in their knowledge of the physiologic adaptations of pregnancy and the process of normal and abnormal labor and delivery as well as general reproductive health. 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 Women’s Health 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.

Women's health refers to the health of women, which differs from that of men in many unique ways. Women's health is an example of population health, where health is defined by the World Health Organization as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".