Third-Year Surgical Clerkship

Welcome to the Clinical Curriculum at UT Health San Antonio! Our Clerkships offer a variety of challenging and rewarding experiences that will engage and promote both your professional and personal development. You will be expected to gain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to care for patients across life’s continuum and in a variety of care settings. Each Clerkship has its own learning objectives that support the Long SOM’s competencies and objectives (https://oume.uthscsa.edu/curriculum/objectives-competencies).

Surgery Clerkship Goals:

  1.   Gather a focused history on a surgical patient.
  2.   Perform an appropriate physical examination on a surgical patient.
  3.   Gather pertinent information from a surgical patient encounter and propose a relevant differential              diagnosis and management plan.
  4.   Recommend and accurately interpret appropriate common diagnostic and screening tests.
  5.   Effectively document a clinical encounter in the patient record.
  6.   Provide an organized and appropriate oral presentation of a clinical encounter.
  7.   Actively participate in a patient handover to transition care responsibility.
  8.   Recognize a surgical patient requiring urgent or emergent care and initiate evaluation and                              management.
  9.   Demonstrate expected technical/procedure skills that are appropriate for the surgery clerkship                    student.
  10. Demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities and an adherence to                       expected ethical principles.

You should develop a regular plan to read extensively about the patients you care for and integrate that knowledge into patient care discussions.  You should exhibit professional behavior at all times and develop strong interpersonal relationships and communication skills with patients, their families and the health care team.  You should be well read, well prepared for operations and rounds and begin to develop good habits for self-directed, lifelong learning.  You should demonstrates an understanding of best practice standards that improve the health of surgical patients. Lastly, you should provide competent, compassionate care for patients in all surgical settings.