Surgical Clinical Clerkships in the United States

Abstract

In Japan, a clinical clerkship system has not been established for surgery as has been established for internal medicine. This report describes the present state of surgical clinical clerkships for third-year medical students in the United States. In the United States medical care has shifted from inpatient hospitalization to the outpatient clinic. Even when surgery is performed, preoperative examinations are done at the outpatient clinic and postoperative hospitalization is extremely short. For third-year students, surgical clinical clerkships last only 2 to 3 months. Because rotating through all surgical departments is extremely difficult, every student rotates through only 2 or 3 departments. Lectures for 2 hours every day play an important role in teaching fundamental surgical knowledge.