Admissions blog: a day in the life of a clinical clerk
Clerkship comprises the last two years of the four-year MD Program.
Clinical clerkship is an integrated learning experience that builds on the knowledge, skills and professional attitudes introduced in preclerkship or, as it will be known at U of T from fall 2016, the Foundations Curriculum. Through practical application in clinical settings as part of a health care team, students learn about caring for patients effectively, efficiently and humanely. Clinical clerks move through a series of rotations including Anesthesia, Emergency Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, Paediatrics and Surgery among others.
“In clerkship you’ll learn a lot about medicine, but more importantly you’ll learn a lot about life and even more about yourself,” notes David Scholl, a 3rd year medical student and clinical clerk.
A typical day in clerkship can vary considerably between different types of core rotations. An average day on Family Medicine, for example, is very different from an average day on Surgery.
Here, Scholl outlines his typical day as a clinical clerk based on a composite of his experiences to date:
5:30 a.m. My alarm goes off. I can’t believe its morning already! My body complains as I roll out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I brush my teeth while the shower warms up. I look at my reflection in the mirror and make a silent promise to be in bed by 10:00 p.m. tonight so tomorrow morning will be better. After a good steam and scrub, I pour myself a bowl of cereal and quickly review some notes before packing up my bag and heading out the door.
6:30 a.m. It’s still dark out when I arrive at work. The hospital is quiet and empty in stark contrast to what it will be like at mid-day. I make my way up to the call room to change into my scrubs. One great perk of being a med student is that it feels wonderful to wear pyjamas all day. I print the patient list for morning rounds and start reviewing my patients’ labs and vitals. The resident shows up shortly after and we proceed to conduct rounds of our patients.
8:00 a.m. Time for teaching! I make my way to the seminar room with a few of my classmates for a one-hour teaching session with a staff physician. This unfailingly reminds me how much material I have to learn this weekend. Seminars are interesting but tiring at this time of day.
9:00 a.m. Back to the wards. The hospital starts to spring to life as the normal work-day begins. Hunger starts to creep up on me as I bounce between the wards and emergency department to make a start on the first consults of the day.
11:00 a.m. I’ve been at work for five and a half hours already. I’ve seen and written notes on all of my patients and completed a consult or two. I can’t ignore my hunger anymore so I make my way down to the cafeteria for a quick bite to eat.
11:15 a.m. After barely pausing to swallow my food, I am back to work. The afternoon is spent on the wards and seeing further consults. My ‘free’ time is spent making a start on discharge summaries for our patients as this reduces the workload we might face later.
4:00 p.m. Today I am lucky to have some one-on-one time for informal teaching with the resident and I also manage to review my study book to learn around my current patients.
5:00 p.m. The resident and I show up promptly for handover with the on-call team. It is ideal to show up early and be the first to handover your patients so you can go home shortly after. We carefully review each patient and their management plan before I find myself changing back into my street clothes and speeding to the elevators.
6:00 p.m. I arrive home, barely getting through the door before kicking off my shoes and tossing my bag on the floor. I change into my gym clothes and head down to the gym for a run. Exercise can be hard to come by in clerkship unless you make a routine of it.
6:30 p.m. I open the fridge and pour myself a big glass of water. I inspect some leftover pasta from the night before and re-heat it in the microwave. ‘Netflix-and-Eat’ is a nice treat after a long day!
7:00 p.m. A classmate sends me a text that there will be board games or a movie at his place tonight. A few others, living in the same block, get together to take a crack at ‘Pandemic.’ After a few hours we part ways. As I walk home I remind myself that as we near the end of the rotation these gatherings will sadly transform into individual study time.
9:30 p.m. I open my bag and pull out my study book. I have a seminar tomorrow morning and need to do some prep-work tonight to make the most of the teaching tomorrow. I put my iTunes on shuffle and sit down at the table to sift through the chapter.
10:30 p.m. I have a quick shower and brush my teeth before bed. I do one last check of my computer to answer any e-mails I had neglected earlier in the day and inevitably skim through Facebook.
11:00 p.m. Lights out and in bed. I need a good sleep tonight knowing that tomorrow I have a 26-hour call shift.
David Scholl is a 3rd year medical student at the University of Toronto (1T7). As a member of the Trinity College Class of 1T3 he completed a double major in Biochemistry and Human Biology at the University of Toronto.