Rehabilitation Medicine for Adults

Catalog Description:  

The student-physician designs the four-week experience according to interests, needs, and desires.

In addition to weekly PM&R grand rounds, didactics and seminars, three principal types of opportunities are open to the student physician:

• Inpatient Work-Ups: The student-physician becomes a part of the rehabilitation team, serving as an intern, taking primary responsibility for inpatients with as much assistance and supervision as needed. Responsibilities include evaluation, management, and follow-up of patients (but without night or weekend call);
• Care of Outpatients in Clinics: Sees former inpatients in follow-ups to obtain a perspective on long-range continuing care; and
• Learning Experiences: These often occur on a one-to-one basis between the student-physician and a staff member. Topics are widely varied; some of the most popular ones have been cardiac rehabilitation, sprains, strains, supportive bandaging, prescribing and training for crutches, canes, and wheelchairs, evaluation of impaired gait, gait training, the painful shoulder, evaluation and management of completed stroke, therapeutic exercises, evaluation and treatment of disorders of the back, practical clinical management of rheumatoid arthritis and degenerative joint disease, amputees and prosthetics, cervical syndromes, and spinal cord injury.

Syllabus

Sites:  

View site addresses by clicking on the site name below or visiting the site codes table.

Required session attendance: Does not apply

Typical weekly schedule/Delivery Mode:  M-F, 8:00am-4:00pm, no weekends or call

Direct patient care:  Yes

Consent Requirement: Open to student scheduling

Course Objectives:  The student-physician will learn to evaluate a patient with chronic illness and/or a disability and then help plan a rehabilitation team's problem-oriented approach to total patient management including emotional, cognitive, sexual, communicative, social, vocational, and financial aspects as well as the medical aspects. Before completion of the clerkship, the student-physician will:

• demonstrate inpatient work-ups and new orders for P.T., O.T., speech therapy, counseling psychology, and social service a proficiency in evaluating patients' ability to perform activities of daily living including self-care, mobility, homemaking, vocation, and re-integration into the community;
• demonstrate inpatient write-ups and in team discussions the use of the problem-oriented approach to the patient's impaired abilities;
• gain experience in working in an interdisciplinary health-care team by reporting at team meetings on the medical aspects of the patients with whom he/she is involved;
• demonstrate to the tutor the ability to examine joints and detect early, subtle contractures; and
• demonstrate to the tutor the ability to assess strength and weakness of all major muscle groups of extremities, neck, and trunk.

Graded Components:

• Clinical assessment by attending
• 15-20 minute presentation during final week of rotation

Grading Scale:  H/E/S/N

Allow repetition of course: Repetition not allowed

Course equivalency:  Does not apply