What is Required

• Early in the clinical assignment, meet with your preceptor or your resident physician to clarify expectations, discuss call, and plan completion of assessments. Revisit frequently.
• Show up on time or early to all scheduled activities.
• Whenever possible, review your assigned clinical cases prior to your first session (see specific expectations for each care domain, below).
• Be prepared to learn through observation. Preceptors (or teams) commonly want you to observe the first session. Take notes and ask clarifying questions when appropriate so that you are ready to start caring for patients under supervision.
• Once your preceptor or care team feels comfortable, identify patients that are appropriate for you to see and examine. Patients must consent to being seen by a student.
• Form collection is your responsibility. Request and review WBAs, keeping track of requirements for each patient care domain. Plan with your preceptors for WBA observations.
• Participate in the Academic Half Day each Wednesday afternoon. This may require preparation of a clinical case or completion of prereading.
• Read about your patients, review anatomy before surgery, search appropriate resources to answer clinical questions, and let your patients and their health inspire your study habits. This is one of the best ways to build your science-clinical integrated knowledge base! Your Self-Directed Learning (SDL) time in your schedule is designed to support learning in this way.
• Take care of yourself, staying well and safe throughout the clerkship. Ask for help when you need it. We are all here to support your success.

Patient Care Overview

This summary serves as a quick reference guide to the expectations in each patient care domain of the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship. Early in the LIC experience, students will likely carry fewer patients with less complex needs and aim to increase both the number and complexity as they develop their skills. Each student’s developmental trajectory is individual and dependent upon the kinds of clinical learning experiences available to the student. Further details for each patient care domain are outlined below.

*Call is a requirement of hospital-based experiences

Overnight Call

• Clinical and education work is limited to a maximum of 80 hours per week to be consistent with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) policy standard. Clinical on call and work done from home must be counted toward the 80 hours. Students may voluntarily remain at work in unusual circumstances, if in their judgement, those circumstances benefit patient care or education. Such additional time will be counted toward the 80-hour limit.
• Clinical work periods must not exceed 24 hours of continuous scheduled clinical work.
• A 10-hour of off-duty time frame is required between work periods.
• Students may be on call no more than every 4th night. Students must be provided with one (1) day in seven (7) free of all educational and clinical responsibilities, averaged over a four (4) week period, inclusive of call.
• Fatigue education and fatigue management strategies are to be taught to students.

Students, what if you need support or help?

• The entire course team and the regionally located Associate Deans for Clinical Education (ADCE) are available to support and help you with any of your needs. The ADCEs are the primary point of contact for students and preceptors. If we do not have an answer, we will get you one.
• If you notice a student or colleague struggling, contact us. The value of a LIC is relationship development. We are in this learning and serving work together.

Policies

Work Hours Policy

The Work Hours Policy can be found here. To report an anticipated or experienced violation of work hours limits, contact your ADCE (Academic Dean for Clinical Education).

Attendance Policy

If students need an approved absence, they should submit their request in E.Flo (log into E.Flo →open Profile Menu→ select Absences→ follow prompts) and alert their Preceptors to the absence per the Attendance Policy.

To report an unplanned illness, students must contact Student Affairs at medicine.studentaffairs@wsu.edu.

Student engagement in direct patient care: COVID-19 update

Vaccinated students may manage COVID+ and symptomatic patients. Unvaccinated students may not, even if they have a valid reason for not getting vaccinated or a have a waiver. Please reach out to your Campus ADCE and/or the interim LIC co-directors, Drs. Bowen and Cooper, if you have any concerns about students’ patient care learning opportunities.