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Clerkships

A clerkship is an educational exercise that brings the student into personal contact with patients, under the supervision of a faculty member. It is a total immersion experience that involves the student for a full working day for the duration of the clerkship and, when appropriate, for on-call duty during nights and weekends.

Core clerkships and the selective clerkships must be taken under the direct, personal supervision of Brown faculty; generally, no exceptions are permitted. Other courses should not be scheduled concurrently with a required core clerkship, except for approved ambulatory longitudinal clerkships.

The Longitudinal Ambulatory Clerkship (6-month minimum)

occurs in the last two years of medical school. The six months must be taken at one site. More months may be taken at the same or other sites. Students may elect to attain competence in the longitudinal ambulatory care of patients through a clinical elective in any discipline that is approved for this purpose by the MD Curriculum Committee. For every ten weeks of longitudinal experience (based on one half-day per week), credit of one week will be given.

When planning your longitudinal ambulatory clerkship, be sure to carefully consider the best time to do it. If you do plan to do it concurrently with a core clerkship, please review the template of that clerkship (available from the Clerkship Coordinator) when planning which afternoon to do the longitudinal and be sure to discuss it with the clerkship director at least 6 weeks in advance.
> View Planning for your Longitudinal Ambulatory Clerkship - Guideline

Surgery-related electives (4 weeks)

Click below for a list for a list of electives that have been identified as meeting the criteria to qualify as surgery-related electives.
> View Clerkships in Surgery

Away Electives

Are courses or clerkships taken at another institution. Certain clinical electives are offered at distant sites (e.g. Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, Maine; NIH, Maryland; Karolinska Institute, Stockholm) with which Brown has established formal association agreements. Alpert medical students are limited to 10 weeks of Away Electives. These electives are counted as Brown electives and may be used to fulfill the 12-week minimum requirement for Brown electives. If there is any question whether an elective counts toward the Brown elective requirement, the student should ask the clerkship coordinator.
> View the Association of American Universities' List of Away Electives in the U.S. and Canada

Students be encouraged to design/take electives that are imaginative and creative and based on advanced scholarship. These include independent study, research, the Eighth Semester Program, foreign study, NIH electives or other university courses outside of the medical curriculum.

Please note:

  1. Once scheduling is complete for core clerkship assignments, students may only change or swap a required core clerkship if the change results in each clerkship being filled as originally scheduled. Changes or swaps must be done no later than one month before the start date of the clerkship.
  2. Students may change elective schedules but no later than two weeks prior to the start of the elective except in the case of restricted electives (see page 9).
  3. Generally, the clerkships in Medicine and Surgery are completed during Year III.
  4. All required core clerkships must be completed by the end of Quarter 2B of Year IV.
  5. Brown medical students must take Step 1 and Step 2 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). They may be taken at any time prior to graduation, but generally students take Step I in June following the end of the second year of medical school. Brown medical students typically take Step 2 of the USMLE test in the fall of their senior year. It is best that the core clerkships be completed prior to the examination session.
  6. Students should not schedule a core clerkship during interviewing for residency training. If this becomes necessary, then it is the responsibility of the student to discuss this with the clerkship director and make the necessary arrangements. These arrangements may include additional time on the clerkship to compensate for absences.
  7. Students missing more than 5 days of a six week clerkship or 10 days of a 12 week clerkship will result in an automatic no credit for the clerkship and will be denied permission to enroll in any courses during the time allocated originally for the core clerkship, whether or not the courses are taken at Brown or at another institution.