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Third-year medical students, including JaneMarie Freeman (center), learn how to tie surgical knots at last week's orientation.
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The University of South Alabama College of Medicine recently held clerkship orientation for third-year medical students. Orientation week served as the introduction to the students’ clinical years and included briefings on topics ranging from hospital security to mini board exams.
After two years of studying medicine through lectures and books, the students will make the transition from classroom to clinical to gain practical patient experience, a practice that changed with the introduction of a new curriculum in 2012.
Beginning with the class of 2016, students who enter the USA College of Medicine receive instruction in all competencies from the beginning of their educational experience. Milestones of achievement toward competency will be assessed and documented throughout the four-year continuum leading to graduation.
The class of 2015 is the last class to matriculate through the College of Medicine with training segmented into basic science and clinical years.
“Over these first two years of medical school, we have built a solid foundation of medical knowledge,” said third-year USA medical student JaneMarie Freeman, of Huntsville, Ala. “These next two years in the clinics will focus on honing the skills that we need to actually implement that knowledge.”
“While it is an exciting time, it also gives us a very real sense of responsibility and a whole new set of expectations,” said Freeman. “We are halfway to becoming doctors, and we have so much to learn.”
Despite the nerves associated with starting clinical patient care for the first time, the third-year medical students agree that this milestone is one they have anticipated for years.
USA medical student Frank Bumpus, who attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham for his undergraduate degree, earned a law degree from the University of Alabama before applying to medical school at USA.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I first started law school, but it didn’t take long to figure out that my passion was medicine,” said Bumpus. “I graduated from law school and practiced family law in Birmingham for a couple years before coming to medical school.”
Bumpus, whose first clinical rotation is in surgery, is looking forward to interacting with patients, which is the reason he chose to study medicine. “Over the past two years, we’ve learned a broad survey of the underlying theories of medicine, but I’m very happy about actually taking that knowledge into the clinics,” he said.
Audrey Paulzak, a third-year USA medical student also starting in surgery, says that even though she and her classmates are leaving the classroom environment, they realize they will be learning even more in the next two years.
“We are moving from a very rigid study environment to an environment where literally anyone in the building has a lesson from which we can learn,” she explained. “We will learn about surgery, physical exam techniques and medicine dosage from doctors, but we will also learn from our patients.”
Paulzak says that even with all of the “book knowledge” the students have accumulated over the past two years, the guidance of the doctors, nurses and medical support staff is crucial to their clinical experience.
“Third year is an amazing opportunity to foster my clinical skills and to learn from the titans in their field,” said Paulzak. “I can't believe the day has finally arrived.”
To view more photos from orientation, click here.