New summer courses provide clinical head-start
 

Students now prepare for third-year clinical rotations with intensive clinical training, from sterile technique to ACLS

By Colleen Kiphart

Photos by Josh Armstrong and John Sattler

This summer, OU-COM students arrived to their clinical rotations earlier and better prepared, thanks to an overhaul in the summer coursework following their second year, according to Peter Dane, D.O., associate dean of predoctoral education. Dane led the curriculum redesign and is instructor of record for the summer course.

The new summer curriculum, called the Osteopathic Clinical Rotation Orientation, lasts a month and echoes the month-long Osteopathic Clinical Anatomy Orientation incoming students experience upon arriving at the Athens campus their first year. As with the anatomy orientation, both of OU-COM’s distinct curricular tracks come together for these new summer courses.

“The main goal of the redesign is to prepare students to hit third-year rotations with skills that let them immediately contribute in the clinical setting: from performing IVs, suturing, advanced cardiac life support and sterile technique to proper documentation, interpreting radiographic studies and giving better case presentations,” says Nicole Wadsworth, D.O. (’97), assistant dean of preclinical education and assistant professor of family medicine, who helped plan and instruct the new curriculum.

Because the new curriculum ends earlier in the summer following their second year of medical school, students now can move sooner and with more confidence to the sites of their third- and fourth-year clinical clerkships.