UT San Antonio
Long School of Medicine
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Clinical Curriculum

Undergraduate Medical Education

Doctor of Medicine (M.D.)

OBGYN faculty with students

The clinical curriculum begins in March of the second academic year and allows flexibility in schedules for students to customize educational plans that suit their long-term career goals. A longitudinal educational experience, Exploring Clinical Medicine, delivers curricular themes that are common across all clerkships. Exploring Clinical Medicine includes topics such as quality improvement and patient safety, transitions of care, difficult patient encounters, professional communication, value-based care, climate change and effects on health, and more. Exploring Clinical Medicine is divided into three distinct, three-month courses, each culminating in a simulated clinical skills encounter that reflects the content covered during each course.

The clinical curriculum is comprised of 48 weeks of clerkships, eight weeks of “selectives” (four weeks of inpatient sub-internship and four weeks of ambulatory care which focuses on systems of practice), 20 weeks of “electives”, and four weeks of didactics which prepare students for their internships.

Core Clerkships

Students rotate in 4 to 8 week blocks of core clerkships, assuming increasing patient care responsibility commensurate with achievement of specific milestones and competencies. Clinical clerkships may be taken in any order beginning in March of the second academic year and must be completed by the end of the third academic year.

  • Medicine

    Clerkship duration length: 8 weeks

    The internal medicine clerkship provides opportunities for students to strengthen medical knowledge, develop patient care skills, and demonstrate professional behavior, all while caring for adults with complex medical conditions in the inpatient settings. Students spend eight weeks, divided into two four-week blocks, assigned to services that include inpatient acute medicine, cardiology, intensive care, and/or an inpatient service specializing in the care of patients with HIV and other infectious diseases. Students closely follow a subset of patients on their teams and are meaningfully involved with all aspects of their patients’ care. Students independently preround, give verbal presentations, write daily notes, and coordinate care with inter professional team members each day. In addition, students are expected to independently study to broaden their medical knowledge and positively impact the care of their patients. Weekly educational conferences further add to students’ development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to the practice of internal medicine. 

    Access and download the Medicine Clerkship Goals and Required Clinical Experiences

  • Surgery

    Clerkship duration length: 8 weeks

    The Surgery 8-week clerkship is divided into two 4-week rotations, one on general surgery and one on surgical specialties.  During the surgical clerkship, the student is afforded the opportunity to participate actively in the diagnosis and therapy of patients suffering from both acute and chronic surgical illness including both ambulatory and bedridden patients.  The clerkship is interwoven with teaching ward rounds, clinical conferences, symposia, and a reading program with weekly examination and reviews on all aspects of surgery and the surgical specialties.  The goals of the surgical clerkship are to provide students the opportunity to develop adequate knowledge, basic manual skills, and attitudes about surgical disease that should be encompassed by every practicing physician.

  • Family Medicine

    Clerkship duration length: 6 weeks

    The Family Medicine clerkship introduces students to the principles, philosophy, and practice of family medicine, including fundamental concepts of comprehensive, continuous, cost-effective, family-oriented medical care. Students participate in the care of patients in various outpatient and inpatient settings. Students will have the opportunity to practice clinical problem solving in the undifferentiated patient and to improve their basic clinical skills. Students are expected to gain basic knowledge in the diagnosis and management of common family medicine problems, health promotion/disease prevention, and geriatrics.

  • Obstetrics/Gynecology

    Clerkship duration length: 6 weeks

    The Obstetrics & Gynecology clerkship provides students with opportunities to prepare to function as a house officer capable of providing preventive care and treatment or competent to identify the patient’s need for direction into an appropriate care environment.  Supervised direct patient experience occurs in the obstetrical wards, operating room, labor and delivery suite, emergency room, and the obstetrical, gynecologic, family planning, and cancer detection clinics.

  • Pediatrics

    Clerkship duration length: 6 weeks

    The Pediatric clerkship addresses issues unique to childhood and adolescence by focusing on human developmental biology, and by emphasizing the impact of family, community, and society on child health and well-being.  Additionally, the clerkship focuses on the impact of disease and its treatment on the developing human, and emphasizes growth and development, principles of health supervision, and recognition of common health problems.  The role of the pediatrician in prevention of disease and injury and the importance of collaboration between the pediatrician and other health professionals in stressed. During this clerkship, students spend time working in outpatient and inpatient settings.

  • Psychiatry

    Clerkship duration length: 6 weeks

    The Psychiatric clinical clerkship is designed to familiarize the student with the personality traits, illnesses, and emotional disturbances that affect health and productivity.  It is an opportunity for the student to develop and strengthen clinical skills in interviewing patients, formulating treatment plans, and carrying out treatment with patients who have psychiatric illness.  The clerkship is arranged so the student may select the assignment area on the basis of particular interest, i.e., an inpatient/outpatient setting.  The student’s role in the clerkship is arranged to allow for considerable experience in the working relationship between patient and “physician” in the treatment process.  Seminars have been developed to allow the student an in-depth appreciation of the various psychiatric states and emotional problems that affect the general practice of medicine.  The student-staff ratio allows for small groups of students to meet with faculty, thereby enhancing learning.  The clerkship is an opportunity for the students to look at their personal feelings and values and understand how they influence patient care, to learn how to deal with psychiatric disease, and to become more comfortable in dealing with the personalities of patients with organic disease.

  • Emergency Medicine

    Clerkship duration length: 4 weeks

    The Emergency Medicine clerkship introduces third year students to the specialty of emergency medicine and reviews principles of emergency care that will benefit a graduate entering any specialty.   Medical students are entrusted with many responsibilities and duties throughout the rotation.

  • Neurology

    Clerkship duration length: 4 weeks

    The Neurology core clerkship is designed to give the student experience in evaluation of patients with neurologic disorders an opportunity to master the neurological exam in inpatient ward and consultation settings, as well as outpatient settings.  The student will be expected to participate in the complete care of assigned General Neurology Ward patients and patients on the Stroke Specialty Wards.  Students will also participate in Neurology consult rounds and have an opportunity to see consult patients.  Students will be assigned to either the University Hospital or VA Neurology wards/consult services for two weeks of the rotation. They will also spend one week of the rotation of the Stroke wards service and participate in stroke specialty clinics during that week.  One week of the rotation will be devoted to participating in a variety of general neurology and specialty clinics.  Students are required to perform appropriately focused history and physical exams, prepare written and verbal presentations, interpret laboratory data and develop a differential diagnosis and management plan on all assigned patients.  Students will also attend neurology morning report, the MS3 Neurology Lecture Series, selected Neurology Residency Lecture Series topics and Neurology Grand Rounds.

Electives/Selectives

The elective curriculum, available to students beginning in March of the second academic year, offers students a myriad of opportunities to explore different medical specializations and/or allows the student to return to a core specialty with advanced duties and responsibilities. There is ample time allotted for students to travel for residency interviews and prepare for USMLE Step 2 CK exam.

Elective/Selective requirements include:

  • 8 weeks of clinical selectives (4 weeks of inpatient sub-internship and 4 weeks ambulatory care)
  • 20 weeks of electives (2-4 week electives can be taken locally or anywhere in US)
  • 4 weeks of mandatory didactics