Marbree, our Education Chair, defines terms commonly used in discussing "rotations".
- Rotation – clinic-based training shadowing/assisting an attending physician in their specialty (i.e. Family Medicine, OMM, or Radiology), typically in 2- or 4-week or 1-month increments, concentrated on that specific discipline for that time period. Clerkship, Internship, Residency, and Fellowship training are comprised of multiple “rotations” as compared to 1st & 2nd year, which were classroom based.
- Clerkship – the 3rd and 4th year of medical education at KCOM, before graduating with a D.O. degree. Also referred to as “clinical rotations” or “rotations.” Your student is officially a “3rd/4th-year Osteopathic Medical Student” or “OMS-III / -IV.”
- Internship – the first year of post-graduate training (PGY-I). The medical student is no longer “Student Doctor So-and-So” but has now received their D.O. degree and is an Osteopathic Graduate Medical Education Year One(OGME-I). Frequently, this is lumped into the term “residency” but is technically a separate entity.
- Residency – post-graduate training beyond internship (so, PGY-II and up).
- Fellowship – further training in a subspecialty, most commonly, post-residency.
- Training site – the “home base” location for a rotations program (i.e. hospital, med school, AHEC or OPTI office)
Read Marbree's article.
