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Indiana University School of Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine
Medical Student Portal

Phase 2 Scheduling

In Phase 2 scheduling, a Clerkship Placement Optimization Program is used to ensure that multiple factors are considered across the clerkships and campuses, in order to allow students to have a wide range of experiences and exposure to different clinical environments and patient populations.

For more information about planning for Phase 2, please go to the Class of 2026 Advising RoadMap – Road to Phase 2 page.

Please don’t hesitate to contact Jennifer Schwartz, MD, FRCPC, assistant dean for medical student education, Phase 2, if you have any questions.

Quick Resources

Phase 2 curriculum

Phase 2 rotation schedules 2023-2024

Phase 2 rotation schedules 2024-2025

Scheduling Timeline and Overview

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.

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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Scheduling

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.

Yes.

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.

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

Not in Phase 2.

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

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

Yes

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.

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

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) 

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Family Medicine Scheduling

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

General Clerkship Questions

It is clerkship dependent.

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.

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

You keep the higher score.

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.

Vacation

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

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

Step 1 Resources

Everything is available in the RoadMAP under Step 1 Resources.