ACOE_Self-Study

First Year Clinical Experience First year students are present in clinic in multiple capacities. They observe patient care exams as part of the Integrative Seminar course, are taught to work up patients in the Primary Care Clinic where they take part in pretesting sessions and may participate in internal screenings. Second Year Clinical Experience Second year students take part in active scribing sessions in all clinics at the UEC throughout the year as part of the Integrative Seminar course, may work as "super techs" performing patient work ups (for faculty, residents and upperclassmen), take part in external screenings and see patients either individually or in pairs during the latter half of the year in the Primary Care Clinic. Third-Year Clinical Experience Following their initial experiences examining patients in the spring semester of the second year, interns begin their experience in clinic with a single day 10-week summer rotation in Primary Care Adult or Primary Care Pediatrics in the UEC. Interns are assigned to a “pod , ” which consists of a full day of patient-care including charting and discussion of patient care. Pods (Adult or Pediatric PC) composed of two faculty and six students are continued for 16 weeks each in the fall and spring semesters. Assigned times and supervising doctors are rotated every eight weeks in the fall and spring. The student to doctor ratio for third-year students in Pods is about 3 to 1. In addition to one day a week in Pods, the intern is assigned to approximately 20 sessions in an evening Primary Care Adult clinic with a student to doctor ratio of about 4:1. In addition, third-year interns are required to choose four 4-week single session specialty rotations (including a mandatory 4-week rotation in the Eyewear Center). These specialty rotations include opportunities in nearly all the specialty and sub-specialty clinics located within the UEC. Overall, third-year students spend about 363 hours in patient care, with the vast majority in Primary Care clinic. Fourth-Year Clinical Experience Fourth year consists of four 12-week clinical rotations and begins with a 12-week summer rotation following completion of the spring semester of third year. At least one of the rotations is in the UEC. For the UEC rotation, students rotate through each of the three clinical services: Primary Care, Advanced Care, and Vision Rehabilitation. Primary Care includes adult primary Care and pediatric optometry; Advanced Care includes glaucoma, retina, anterior segment, contact lenses; and Vision Rehabilitation includes vision therapy and low vision. The student to doctor ratio for the fourth-year students for on-campus rotations is typically 4:1. The three fourth-year external rotations are selected to assure that core competencies are met in the following areas: Refractive Error Evaluation and Management; Sensorimotor and Perceptual Dysfunction; Ocular Disease and Trauma; and Interprofessional Collaborative Practice. Certain of these rotations ( which we call “ internal externship rotations ” ) may occur on campus at SUNY specialty clinics (advanced care, contact lenses, pediatrics and visual rehabilitation and clinical research).

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