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Emergency Medicine Clerkship

Course Description:

Welcome to Inspira Medical Center’s Emergency Medicine Program. We are excited to showcase our clerkship and we aim to provide you with the tools to succeed in your emergency medicine career. During the Emergency Medicine rotation, students will work closely with attending physicians as well as senior residents at Inspira’s Vineland Medical Center where our EM residency program is based. Our high acuity department will provide an excellent setting for students to learn the scope of emergency medicine and the principles of evaluation and stabilization of patients with critical illness. This will be a multi-faceted, immersive, and feedback-oriented experiences for students utilizing a variety of different teaching methods and practical application of knowledge. Our clerkship ED visiting students the opportunity to work clinically in a fast-paced, high acuity emergency department in an institution that is both a certified stroke and PCI capable chest pain center. Our ED is a large ~80 bed ED that sees roughly 80k patients yearly (our system sees ~140k annually) with an 8 bed pediatric ED and an 11 bed geriatric ED (1 of only 2 certified by the state of NJ and the only geriatric ED in South Jersey!) Additionally, in order to provide a wide-breath of experiences for our students, you will also work one on one with emergency medicine attendings at our smaller community-oriented sites in addition to shifts at the regional medical center. 

 

Clinical shifts are spread across a variety of practice settings (adult and pediatric) in addition to a single unique nursing shift and offer broad exposures to the different facets of emergency medicine. Students work closely with emergency medicine faculty and residents to identify sick patients and develop differential diagnoses and appropriate management plans. Students also have the opportunity to participate in procedures and resuscitations in addition to weekly didactic sessions. These weekly didactics are highly simulation based using our high-fidelity simulation lab as well as 1 week every month is specifically focused on point of care ultrasound and its utilization in the ED. 

 

Objectives:

We strive to build on your current knowledge base to accomplish the following objectives:

  • Perform focused histories and physicals to develop appropriate differential diagnoses for common complaints and guide the use of diagnostic tests.

  • Perform concise, clear patient presentations to faculty and consultant physicians. 

  • Develop an approach to commonly encountered undifferentiated patient complaints, including abdominal pain, altered mental status, chest pain, and shortness of breath. 

  • Build initial management strategies for common life-threatening emergencies, including a systematic approach to the priorities of management. 

  • Develop a practical skill set in advanced cardiac life support, basic airway management, basic life support, electrocardiogram interpretation, and critically ill/unstable patients.

  • Employ the use of evidence-based medicine, different diagnostic criteria, management guidelines, and point of care information resources to inform patient care.

  • Integrate into the emergency medicine team and employ flexible and professional communication strategies with patients, families, and all members of the Emergency Care Team (e.g. physicians, nurses, paramedics, technicians, and prehospital providers).

  • Exhibit professionalism in all aspects of the rotation, including timeliness, honest, integrity, accountability, and cultural sensitivity.

  • Be proactive in learning, with independent reading of material pertinent not only to patients in the emergency department but also for common EM chief complaints (e.g., chest pain, dyspnea, abdominal pain, fever, headache)

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Visiting Students:

We welcome all interested students and invite you to spend time with us and allow us to share our enthusiasm for emergency medicine and teaching with you. We start accepting applications for rotations starting in July of each year. If you are interested, please note that the following is required before approval of your rotation:

  1. Please email both the clerkship director, Dr Eric Blazar (blazare@ihn.org) as well as the residency coordinator, Brenda Mulford (mulfordb@ihn.org). It is vitally important that BOTH of these individuals are cc’d or emailed prior to acceptance of your rotation with us. 

  2. Please include in your email, a short letter of interest in emergency medicine at Inspira Medical Center (this should not be a personal statement) and your goals for the rotations as well as what your specialty of interest is at this time.

    • Why South Jersey? Why Inspira specifically? If it’s because you simply need a SLOE and plan to apply broadly, please let us know so we may more effectively tailor your SLOE.

  3. Please note that we are giving preference to students from institutions that do not have a medical school affiliated emergency medicine rotation (orphan students). If this applies to you, please include this in your application.

  4. Additionally, if you are interested in doing an audition rotation for emergency medicine, please include in your email, USMLE or COMLEX scores for the exams that you are taken thus far. 

  5. At this time, we do not use AAMC’s VSAS system, and prefer direct contact with interested applicants. 

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***DURING OUR CURRENT COVID-19 CRISIS, WE ARE STILL ACCEPTING STUDENTS! PREFERENCE IS BEING GIVEN TO STUDENTS COME FROM ORPHANED INSTITUTIONS (MEDICAL SCHOOLS WITH NO HOME EM PROGRAM). PLEASE INCLUDE THIS INFORMATION IN YOUR APPLICATION***

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