AUC Clinical Sites

When Do We Do Clinical Rotations?
Third and Fourth years of med school. After we complete our first five semesters of Basic Science training on the island, we go back to the states (or Canada) and take the USMLE Step 1 board exam within a semester’s worth of time. Once we pass the exam, we work with our clinical advisors and schedule our clinical rotations (aka “clerkships”) for our third and fourth years of med school.

How Many Weeks are Clinical Rotations?
In total, we do 72 weeks of rotations during our third and fourth years of medical school. We do 42 weeks of Core clinical rotations and 30 weeks of Elective clinical rotations.

What Are The Core Clinical Rotations?
The five core rotations that all med students must do are Internal Medicine (12 weeks), General Surgery (12 weeks), Pediatrics (6 weeks), OB/GYN (6 weeks), and Psychiatry (6 weeks). In addition, for licensure reasons, AUC highly recommends us doing the “required electives” of Family Medicine (4 weeks) and Neurology (4 weeks). The rest of the electives we can choose ourselves.

Can We Do Elective Rotations Before Core Rotations?
Generally, we do core rotations before elective rotations, mainly because core rotations are more fundamental and elective rotations are usually sub-specialties of those fundamental core fields. There are only four elective rotations that we are allowed to do before finishing all of our core rotations: Family Medicine, Neurology, Pathology, and Radiology.

Where Can We Do Our Clinical Rotations?
We are required to do all of our core rotations at AUC’s affiliated teaching hospitals, most of which are located in the US, but also the UK. For elective rotations, we generally also complete them at AUC’s affiliated hospitals, but we also have the flexibility to complete some electives at non-affiliated hospitals as well. According to a newly-passed nation-wide law, we are allowed 8 weeks of our rotations at each institution/hospital not affiliated with our school.

What Does It Mean For A Rotation To Be “Greenbook”?
It means that the rotation is approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and is done at a teaching hospital that also has a residency program in the particular field you want to do the rotation in.

Are All of AUC’s Clinical Sites Greenbook?
All of AUC’s clinical core rotations are greenbook except Pediatrics at Kern (in California), which fall under the umbrella of Family Medicine, and Psychiatry at Metropolitan State Hospital (also in California), which only covers adolescent psychiatry. These two rotations at these two locations satisfy the requirements for California and almost all the other states for licensure, but may cause issues in Texas. If you decide to go this route, you can still get a residency in Texas, but your licensing in Texas would be delayed until after you are board certified. To ensure you’ll have no issue with licensing in Texas, I personally would just do these two rotations at another one of AUC’s many affiliated teaching hospitals.

I Don’t See Pediatrics or Psych rotations at Providence Hospital Being Listed on the ACGME Site. Is It Really Greenbook?
The Pediatrics rotation at Providence is actually done via Providence’s sister hospital of St. John’s Hospital, which is listed on ACGME, and therefore is greenbook. The Psych rotation at Providence is administered via University of Michigan, which is also listed separately on the ACGME site, and is therefore also Greenbook. There’s a couple more examples of these types of listings. Yes, the way the approved clinical rotations are listed on the site can be a little confusing sometimes, but you can be sure that all of AUC’s clinical rotation sites (except Peds at Kern and Psych at Metropolitan) are greenbook.

Is There Only One Hospital We Rotate at Each Clinical Rotation Site?
Not always. For example, if you decide to rotate at AUC’s Miami Beach Community Health Center (MBCHC) site, you’ll actually be rotating at any one of MBCHC’s sister hospitals: Miami Children’s Hospital, University of Miami Hospital, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Aventura Hospital, or Mt. Sinai Hospitals, all of which are major teaching hospitals for several medical programs in the south Florida area. We’re not just limited to that one hospital.

Which Hospitals Can I Do All 5 Core Rotations?
In the US: Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, Providence Hospital, Nassau University Medical Center, Kern (but keep in mind the Pediatrics here fall under “Family Medicine” and therefore can be an issue for licensure in some states).
In the UK: Ealing Hospital, Epsom General Hospital, and Royal Blackburn Hospital. If you choose to go to a hospital that does not offer all the cores, as a third or fourth semester student, you may have to do some traveling, but some people may like to experience different hospitals and make useful connections.

Will I Have Issues With Licensure If I Do Rotations in the UK?
No. All of AUC’s affiliated teaching hospitals in the UK are considered “Greenbook” and completely meet the requirements. Personally, I feel it would be an awesome experience to get trained in the UK for at least one of my core rotations and then return to the US to complete my third and fourth year of medical school.. I hear from several students and alumni that clinical training in England is more hands-on, and trains you well to impress your attendings once you come back to the states. Not to mention, being trained by two healthcare systems is an invaluable opportunity.

Are There Exams We Take After Each Rotation?
For each clinical rotation, we take the NBME Shelf Exam for that rotation. It counts towards our clinical grades at AUC, which is pass/fail. These exams are nationally administered and can be taken at various testing centers in the states. More importantly, after finishing our core rotations, we’ll have to take the second part of our board exams: the USMLE Step II. The Step II exam consist of a Clinical Knowledge portion (USMLE Step II ck) and a Clinical Skills portion (USMLE Step II cs). These exams are also administered at various hospitals around the country.

Where Can I Learn More About AUC’s Clinical Rotations?
Every semester, AUC’s Office of Clinical Student Affairs (OCSA) come down to the island to give a presentation/workshop about clinicals. It is open to the entire school and is a great way to get more information and get your questions answered about clinicals, as well as meet your clinical advisors. In addition, every May, AUC holds a Clinical Symposium in which representatives from most of AUC’s affiliated clinical teaching hospitals in the US and UK come to the island to talk to Basic Science students about their hospitals. You meet and talk to the people directly running the show and get a much better sense of what the sites and rotations are like. You can also contact the Office of Clinical Student Affairs directly to get any questions answered.

What are AUC’s Affiliated Teaching Hospitals?
For a complete and updated list of AUC’s clinical teaching hospitals, please visit here. Here is a list that I have compiled (updated June 23, 2011):

CLINICAL SITES IN US	LOCATION	CORE ROTATIONS
		Med	Surg	Ped	Ob/G	Psych
Aultman Hospital	Canton, OH	X
Baton Rouge General Hospital	Baton Rouge, LA	X	X
Bayfront Medical Center	St. Petersburg, FL	Electives only
Brentwood Hospital	Shreveport, LA					X
Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center	Bronx, NY	X	X	X	X	X
Brooklyn Hospital Center	Brooklyn, NY	X	X	X	X
Cleveland Clinic	Weston, FL	Electives only
Flushing Hospital	Queens, NY	X	X	X	X
Griffin Hospital	Derby, CT	X	X
Kaiser Permanente LA	Fontana, CA	Electives only
Kern Medical Center	Bakersfield, CA	X	X	X	X	X
Lutheran Medical Center	Brooklyn, NY	X			X
Metropolitan State Hospital	Norwalk, CA					X
Miami Beach Community Health Center	Miami Beach, FL	X		X	X	X
Mount Sinai Medical Center	Chicago, IL	Electives only
Mount Vernon Hospital	Mount Vernon, NY	X
Nassau University Medical Center	East Meadow, NY	X	X	X	X	X
Orlando Regional Hospital	Orlando, FL	Electives only
Providence Hospital	Southfield, MI	X	X	X	X	X
Shands at the University of Florida	Gainesville, FL	Electives only
Spring Grove Hospital Center	Catonsville, MD					X
St. Agnes Hospital	Baltimore, MD	X	X
St. John Hospital and Medical Center	Detroit, MI			X
St. John’s Episcopal Hospital	Queens, NY					X
St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center	New York, NY	Electives only
St. Mary’s Hospital	Waterbury, CT		X
St. Vincent Medical Center	Bridgeport, CT	X	X
Staten Island University Hospital	Staten Island, NY	X	X	X	X
Tallahasee Memorial Hospital	Tallahassee, FL	Electives only
Union Memorial Hospital	Baltimore, MD	X	X
CLINICAL SITES IN UK	LOCATION	CORE ROTATIONS
		Med	Surg	Ped	Ob/G	Psych
Ealing Hospital	London, UK	X	X	X	X	X
Epsom General Hospital	Epsom, UK	X	X	X	X	X
Queen’s Hospital	Romford, UK	X	X	X	X
Royal Blackburn Hospital	Blackburn, UK	X	X	X	X	X
Wexham Park Hospital	Slough, UK	X	X	X	X	X
Worthing District Hospital	Worthing, UK	X	X	X	X