CORE 8003 - Emergency Medicine

In addition to in person or virtual patient care encounters, the completion of a variety of learning assignments are required during the clerkship. These assignments reflect the unique practice of an Osteopathic Emergency Medicine physician.  They include the diagnosis and management of the most common clinical presentations encountered in an ambulatory and inpatient care setting of the adult patient.   The student is encouraged to apply concepts of diagnosis and management to the patient presenting to the Emergency Department. Following the American Osteopathic Association’s Core Competencies and Entrustable Professional Activities of the American Association of Medical Colleges, this course will provide students with a multifaceted view of Emergency Medicine through clinical reasoning, evidence-based medicine, as well as the incorporation of psychosocial factors, cultural diversity, and resource management.

Throughout the clerkship, osteopathic medical students should approach the care of the patient through a whole person perspective. With this multidimensional approach, the patient’s physical complaints are considered in the context of their mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing as well as contributing factors that include their family circle, community, environment, and social determinants of health. Students should always function in a professional manner, as a member of the interprofessional healthcare team, and continually strive to provide optimum quality patient care and services in a complex system.

Students are expected to interact with and provide appropriate care for all patients they encounter during this clerkship regardless of whether or not the patient’s condition is listed in the reading objectives. Students will receive exposure to patients in the Emergency Department as appropriate during this clerkship. Patients of all ages will assist the student in developing a core knowledge base and fundamental approach to caring for those with urgent or emergent conditions. Under direct supervision of emergency medicine faculty, the student will be required to identify the patient’s problem with a focused history and physical examination, suggest appropriate utilization of tests/studies, and provide a reasonable assessment and plan as appropriate to this level of training. 

During the Emergency Medicine clerkship, students are expected to develop their competencies in many basic clinical skills. While not every required skill can be performed during this brief rotation, the student should avail him/herself of as many of the following procedures as possible, and to seek out opportunities to perform these skills in other rotations as well.