The Department of Emergency Medicine at Denver Health Medical Center (DHMC) offers two four-week rotations in Emergency Medicine for Senior Medical Students. The educational purpose of these rotations is to provide the student with an exposure to the discipline of Emergency Medicine.
I. Clinical Track Elective
This rotation is designed for the senior medical student who may be applying to primary care or other specialties who wants to gain exposure to emergency medicine. Students will gain familiarity with the unique approach to the emergency patient, the evaluation of the acutely ill and injured, and the concepts of resuscitation, which will be beneficial in any clinical setting. The objectives, clinical experience, responsibilities, and didactic opportunities of the rotation are outlined below.
II. Career Track Elective
This rotation is specially designed for the senior medical student who has decided on emergency medicine as a career and will be applying to emergency medicine residencies. In addition to the Clinical Track curriculum, the Career Track Elective also includes:
- Career Mentorship: Students will be assigned to a faculty mentor who will meet with the student twice during the rotation. These sessions will provide the student and faculty mentor an opportunity to discuss emergency medicine as a career and review the student's CV and personal statement. Other topics covered include the application process for emergency medicine residencies as well as strategies for optimizing the student's chances in the emergency medicine residency match.
- Clinical Mentorship: Each student will work multiple shifts with their faculty mentor to foster the development of a working relationship, ongoing clinical feedback and mentorship.
- Case Presentation: A capstone project for the rotation, each career track student will give a 10-15 minute case-based presentation to their peers and faculty on the last Monday of their rotation. The presentation will highlight an interesting patient or clinical scenario from the rotation.
Objectives for Knowledge and Skills:
- To improve history taking and physical diagnosis skills in the format of a problem oriented approach.
- To encourage the use of an ongoing problem list in thinking about the emergency patient.
- To hone abilities in test ordering to provide maximal useful information with minimal risk and expense.
- To foster the ability to identify acutely ill patients and respond quickly and appropriately to their needs.
- To understand that the emergency patient is best cared for by a coordinated team consisting of paramedics, nurses, technicians, emergency physicians, consultants, and ancillary staff.
- To gain further insight into the pathogenesis and clinical manifestations of various diseases.
- To improve technical and procedural skills, including (but not limited to) intravenous access, airway management, fracture and dislocation care, wound care, foreign body removal, diagnostic peritoneal lavage, gastric lavage, electrocardiography, physician performed laboratory tests (urinalysis, hematocrit, and microscopy), and lumbar puncture.
- To correctly interpret the results of diagnostic tests in light of the patient's condition.
- To make treatment plans (including medication and therapeutic prescribing) and arrange continuing health care.
- To sharpen documentation skills in order to write a clear, concise, internally consistent record.
- To see beyond the patient's clinical problems into the moral, ethical, legal, social, and economic issues of emergency care.
- To always enhance the humane qualities that affect the interactions between physicians, patients, and patients' families.
- To foster exemplary relations with both staff and patients.
- To help develop responsibility, maturity, and poise that will serve the student throughout his or her professional life.
Clinical Experience and Responsibilities:
The clinical experience takes place in the Emergency Department at Denver Health Medical Center (DHMC). This Department treats 55,000 patients a year. DHMC is a Level One Trauma Center (ACS) and is the base hospital for the Denver Department of Health and Hospitals Paramedic Division. The student, as the primary care giver, evaluates and treats patients who present to this Emergency Department that is staffed by Emergency Medicine Residents and Board Certified or eligible Emergency Medicine Attending Physicians. This Supervision is provided on-site, 24 hours a day, every day.
The student is expected to provide the necessary emergency care for assigned patients, including invasive procedures when appropriate. If the procedure requires a greater level of skill and experience, it is performed by the Emergency Medicine Resident, Emergency Attending Physician, or specialty consulting service. Effort is made, however, to always include the Medical Student. The type and scope of procedures, of course, varies with the needs of the individual patients. This precludes the development of a list of procedures that "will be accomplished by the medical student during the rotation."
Didactic Opportunities:
The student is invited to numerous conferences in Emergency Medicine during the rotation. The conferences include:
- A bi-weekly Mortality and Morbidity Conference at DHMC
- Lectures in Emergency Medicine (LIEM) each week
- A monthly splint and suture lab
- Three Medical Student and Intern Core Lectures every Monday morning
- A monthly Journal Club
- Daily Student/Intern Teaching Rounds at the start and end of every shift with the Attending Emergency Physician
Evaluation:
Following the end of the rotation, the Student receives a written evaluation. This is a composite evaluation based on the comments made by the Attending Staff and Emergency Medicine Residents. Opinions are solicited from the nursing staff when it is deemed helpful. The areas that are specifically evaluated include:
- Knowledge of medicine
- Clinical judgment
- Data collection
- History and Physical
- Relationship with patients and staff
- Responsibility/motivation
Copies of this evaluation are sent to the Student's Medical School, made available to the Student, and kept on file in the Emergency Medicine Offices.
Application for the Medical Student Elective
Applications for electives are accepted up to one year in advance of the anticipated rotation. If you have questions regarding the information presented here regarding our electives, please contact Linda Anderson, Student and Housestaff Coordinator. Below you will find the Medical Student Application & Medical Certification Forms. Please additionally complete and submit Background form.
1. Medical Student Application & Medical Certification Form
2. Background Form
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