Phase 2 Scheduling

Scheduling Timeline and Overview

• Step 1: Student selection of home campus (September/October)

  Students can select to do all clerkship rotations at their home campus, but keep in mind that Indianapolis students will rotate away from your home campus for up to four months, not including Family Medicine Clerkship.

  Students can select to take one or more rotations outside their home campus.

• Step 2: Submit a Phase 2 clerkship travel exemption request if needed (October)

  If there is a valid reason to be exempted from travel to another campus, students must fill out the Phase 2 Clerkship Travel Exemption form, and the request will be reviewed.

• Step 3: Submit your scheduling selections (November/December)

  • Place your scheduling selections in order of importance.

  • Scheduling selections include the timing of vacations and order/location of clerkships.

  • Students can request rotations at any campus, based on available options at each campus for each clerkship and rotation.

• Step 4: Schedules released (End of February)

  • If your schedule indicates that you are doing an eight week clerkship at a regional campus, in some instances you may be there for only four weeks of your rotation with the remaining four weeks in Indianapolis. Expect final details within one month of schedule release.

  • Students assigned to Indianapolis for their pediatrics rotation may be placed outside of Indianapolis for your outpatient experience. You will be notified of your placement in advance of your rotation.

• Step 5: Fill out Family Medicine Clerkship survey (April)

  • The schedule location for Family Medicine Clerkship will indicate either a regional campus or may indicate "Family Medicine Statewide Placement."

  • Since all students are sent into communities statewide working one-on-one with a preceptor for family medicine, it is required for all students to fill out the “Family Medicine Clerkship Survey” so the clerkship can place you in a location that aligns with your survey wherever possible.

  • The Family Medicine Clerkship will do its best to schedule you in accordance with the information you put into the survey. You will receive the survey from the Family Medicine Clerkship prior to starting the clerkship.

• Can those who are already placed in Indianapolis be shipped to a regional campus for four months as well?

  Students who spend their Phase 2 year in Indianapolis may be placed at regional campuses for multiple clerkships, as many as four months of time, not including Family Medicine.
  

• If we are at the Indy campus and request to do certain rotations away does that count towards the potential assigned up to four months away from Indy?

  Yes.

• Are we required to do a rotation at a campus other than our home campus?

  You are not required to, but the majority of our students will do one or more Phase 2 rotations outside of their home campus, which will allow them to take advantage of unique experiences in the different communities and facilities that make up our statewide system.

• If you are staying on your regional campus, can you go to Indy for one specific rotation only?

  Most likely, you would need to coordinate this with your regional campus.

• Are you able to do a rotation outside of Indiana?

  Not in Phase 2.

• If you do phase 1 at a regional campus, can you do phase 2 and 3 at another regional campus (not Indy) and stay there the entire time without having to do some rotations outside of that campus?

  Yes, great question! It just depends on the availability of clerkship slots at that campus.

• Don’t regional campus people have to go to Indy for their peds and other rotations? What other rotations? Has this changed?

  It depends on availability of an appropriate experience on your campus.

• It was mentioned that care of dependent minors would be considered for placement in family medicine clerkships. Is that the case for other clerkships as well?

  Yes

• Do regional campus students use the same optimization ranking tool or is it just Indy students?

  If you are doing your entire third year at a campus outside of Indianapolis, you DO NOT need to submit anything into EValue. If this is the case, your schedule will be created by your regional coordinator and then forwarded to the registrar. If you are at a campus outside of Indianapolis but you plan to do some rotations in Indianapolis, you must enter those schedule requests in EValue.

• If our lead advisor is no longer here, who can we talk to about scheduling?

  Please reach out to Abby Klemsz, MD, PhD (aklemsz@iu.edu).

• We have too many people that want to stay at our campus and many early decision people that want to leave. It would be mutually beneficial to have an opportunity to swap the students that want to stay with the students that want to leave. People keep saying this simple solution isn’t possible but that seems strange to me. Can you comment on this?

  For the involved students, please reach out to Dr. Bradley Allen and your regional campus dean to have a discussion with them. Dr. Allen is our Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education (bradalle@iu.edu) 

• Are there any variables (other than a student’s stated preferences) that improve or reduce the chances of a student getting their preferred rotation schedule (such as home campus, class rank, preferred specialty, research connections, etc.)?

  No. Students think that there are ways to “game the system” but there are not. It is a computer program.
  

• How does the rotation optimization ranking tool actually work? Is there any randomness involved?

  The tool is built to optimize the choices of all those using the system – but that doesn’t mean that it can meet every top request.

• How is the order determined? Do we need to submit earlier to get a better spot in the order?

  The schedules are created by an optimization algorithm that takes all student selections and the available spots into account. The time that you enter your scheduling selections has no influence on the outcome of your schedule.

• What are special considerations that would allow for students to stay at a particular campus? If I am a primary caretaker for a parent, will I be allowed to stay in my home city?

  You may leave comments explaining any or all of your schedule considerations, but there is no guarantee that your considerations can be honored based on those comments.

• Would a student submitting their requests later in the window be less likely to get their schedule selections?

  No. The timing of your schedule selections has no bearing whatsoever on your final schedule.

• Are location selections given first-come first-serve (as opposed to random)?

  No, the timing of your location selections has no bearing whatsoever on your final schedule.
  

• With the anesthesia/OBGYN block, is the two weeks of Anesthesia at the beginning of the rotation block or at the end the rotation block?

  That is based on when your Anesthesia clerkship is placed within the eight week timeframe. Anesthesia could be a two week block at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the eight week block. Once you are placed within a Anesthesia/OBGYN block, the clerkships work together to assign the students their schedules within the block.

• Can I request doing (for example) my family medicine rotation at a specific location?

  You will be able to preference the available sites for your Family Medicine clerkship rotation with the Family Medicine clerkship prior to the beginning of the year. Some clerkships do their site assignments closer to the start of each rotation, but they will all handle your specific site and specialty (if applicable) assignments within the clerkship.

• How do we find the family medicine form and when do we need to submit it?

  Family Medicine will send you the Family Medicine Survey by April.

• So family medicine doesn’t count as a regional campus rotation even if you’re doing a partial year at a regional campus?

  That is correct. Nearly all of our fantastic Family Medicine clerkship spots are located around the state, especially in smaller communities.

• What is the purpose or value of the electives?

  Students are required to complete 20 weeks of electives for graduation. Electives can be taken during your third year to fulfill some of those requirements. Electives provide an opportunity for you to learn more about various specialties that may be of interest to you as you hone your career interests. Additionally, electives permit time to pursue other interests, such as research. We have over 500 elective courses in our catalog so there are many different opportunities available based on student interests.

• Do the 20 weeks of electives need to be completed during third year or over both third year and fourth year?

  Over third and fourth year. You are not required to complete any elective requirements during third year, as there is ample time to fulfill the requirements during your fourth year. However, if you fulfill some of your elective requirements during your third year that will provide more scheduling flexibility and available vacation time during your fourth year.

• Can the MSTP elective count towards the elective requirement?

  Since the MD/PhD Thesis Elective is in the electives catalog, it does count towards the 20 weeks.

• Can early decision program students take electives at other campuses?

  Students can take elective at any campus. There is a housing request form that is reviewed by the MSE team.

• How should we use electives in pursuing career planning? Are electives evaluated or considered by residency admissions committees?

  Electives are just P/F (graded as Satisfactory/ Unsatisfactory) so you definitely try some to see how you like it! If you really do well and enjoy it, you can get a Letter of Recommendation for your residency application. In third year, the two week Career Exploration electives are good, but you really don’t need to do any electives until fourth year. You can use your vacation month as a true vacation or two weeks vacation and a two week elective.

• If we are choosing to use our vacation month to take an elective, do we select that elective when we preference our rotations?

  No, but you should preference your vacation month during the timeframe you would like to do an elective. Elective scheduling will take place later (in the spring) after you receive your final clerkship schedules and know for sure when your vacation month is.

  • Phase 2 students will not schedule their electives until Phase 3 electives scheduling has concluded in the spring to ensure that rising Phase 3 students are granted first-priority into electives.

  • Doing an elective in Phase 2 in lieu of your vacation month is not required and should be discussed with your lead advisor and/or career mentor to make sure the decision is right for you.

• Do we register for electives at this time?

  Elective scheduling will take place later after you receive your final clerkship schedules and after Phase 3 students have scheduled their electives. Phase 2 students will not schedule their electives until Phase 3 electives scheduling has concluded in the spring to ensure that rising Phase 3 students are granted first-priority into electives.

• For non-family medicine clerkships, do we work with the same team during a rotation or do we bounce around with different teams within a department?

  It is clerkship dependent.

• Can students request a specific preceptor for a rotation, such as a specific physician for an internal medicine rotation?

  As long as there is no conflict of interest. At the regional campuses, you can often do this. There is never a problem asking about the ability to rotate with a certain physician, but it cannot be assured that the clerkship will be able to do so.
  

• Are there review materials and books that are recommended for each clerkship?

  Yes, they are included in each clerkships’ syllabus as well as on the RoadMAP.

• What if I choose to retake a clerkship exam, but get a lower score on the retake?

  You keep the higher score.

• Are we able to preference certain hospitals in the registration process?

  The scheduling of hospital sites happens with each individual clerkship and usually about one month before the start of each rotation. The clerkship coordinator will contact you to collect your preferences for site, specialty, etc.

• Does Phase 3 have vacation time too? or is it we have 4 weeks of vacation across Phases 2/3?

  Phase 3 students get 10 weeks of unscheduled time. This is separate from the four weeks that students get during Phase 2.

• If an elective is done during the vacation month, is it true that the vacation month is added to fourth year, giving you an extra month of vacation during fourth year?

  Yes, if you do an elective in your third year, you have an extra month of vacation to use in your fourth year.

• Where can we find the URLs or QR codes?

  Everything is available in the RoadMAP under Step 1 Resources.