Fourth Year Clerkships

Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) is an intensive course that presents a systematic approach to dealing with patients experiencing a cardiopulmonary emergency or sudden death. It emphasizes a rapid and coordinated strategy for resuscitation providers regardless of the size of the team. The methods presented rely on a uniform set of protocols and guidelines based on the newest scientific evidence in cardiovascular medicine and resuscitation from the American Heart Association in collaboration with the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation.

Current basic life support certification and familiarity with emergency pharmacology and basic ECG interpretation are firm prerequisites and essential for success in the course.

Successful completion of ACLS is a requirement for graduation. NOTE: 3rd Year Medicine Clerkship is a pre-requisite for taking ACLS.

The Selective in Critical Care is the culmination of the required experiences in both Surgery and Medicine/Pediatrics, providing the student with the opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in the third year and gain additional experience in the direct clinical management of acutely ill patients in a critical care environment. This Selective is focused on the assessment and management of acutely ill patients in the intensive care unit. The student will actively participate on a critical care team in a surgical or medical unit working with faculty and other care providers. The educational experience will include supervised clinical experiences, didactic lectures, case-based learning and self-study.

The RWJ New Brunswick and Somerset, as well as Monmouth Medical Center, medical ICUs are focused on adult medical critically ill patients.  The RWJUH PICU is a mixed medical and surgical critical care unit with critically ill pediatric patients.  The RWJ SICU is a surgical critical care unit managing critically injured trauma patients and postoperative patients with a variety of surgical diseases.  The RWJ New Brunswick Surgery unit will include 3 weeks in a combined trauma and surgical ICU, and 1 week in a cardiovascular ICU. 

Regardless of the specialty of your ultimate practice, learning to recognize critical illness and beginning the clinical management of acutely ill patients is essential to every physician.  Critical care concepts are universal, and the educational experience across all of the rotation sites is robust and rewarding.

Developing the skills to be an effective teacher is essential for every physician. The goals of the PCM IV course are to prepare senior medical students for their role as teachers and to reinforce the attitudes, skills and knowledge accumulated to date as they teach patient-centered care to others. 

A four week Sub-Internship is required of all fourth year students. Sub-internships that satisfy this requirement must be designated as a "sub-internship or acting internship" in one of the following disciplines: Family Medicine, Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry or Surgery. Acceptable sub-internships provide a broad base of experience that is primarily inpatient and where the pathophysiology of disease is emphasized in teaching by attending physicians and residents. Students serve as true acting interns with one-on-one reporting to a resident and attending physician.

Every fourth year student has a boot camp experience in the field that best prepares them for their internship year. This experience provides a great opportunity to learn practicalities and increase your comfort in transitioning from a fourth year student to a first year resident. The bootcamp curriculum focuses on preparing students for the tasks, procedures, and skills that their residency will expect them to perform. Boot camps are offered in block 9 and block 10.