Students
This is a great time to be a student in Emergency Medicine at the University of Calgary. Hope you enjoy the great opportunities offered by our department.
University of Calgary mandatory Emergency Medicine rotation (MDCN 522)
During this two-week rotation, students will experience a minimum of six shifts in an urban emergency room at any of our four teaching sites. During this rotation, students will experience the varied diagnostic and therapeutic challenges offered by emergency medicine, including the assessment and management of life threatening illness. Clerks will have access to all elements of health care delivery, including discharge planning, outpatient referrals, and direct interaction with consultants, ambulatory care and inpatient facilities, as well as diagnostic imaging. This type of integrated experience will provide the training physician with a unique and invaluable exposure to outpatient care not normally seen on the more typical inpatient rotations.
Pre-clerkship “electives” and physician shadowing
Students currently enrolled at the Cummings School of Medicine are eligible for pre-clerkship summer “electives” in the Calgary emergency departments, and they may also “shadow” our emergency physicians at other times during their pre-clerkship years. Students must arrange these opportunities on their own with the aid of the list of preceptors available on the http://cumming.ucalgary.ca/intranet">Osler intranet site. Students should contact individual preceptors by email to set up their own “shadowing” experiences. Further assistance in setting up these experiences can be obtained via the http://cmsa.ucalgary.ca/StudentGroups">Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG).
Please note that these shadowing experiences are available only to University of Calgary medical students. They are NOT open to U of C students in other health or science disciplines, nor to medical students at other Canadian medical schools, nor to currently or previously practicing physicians.
University of Calgary clerkship electives
University of Calgary clerks can request adult emergency medicine electives during the elective period reserved exclusively for them by contacting the DEM Director of Elective and Off-Service Education by e-mail at calgaryerelectives@gmail.com. These electives take place from mid-February to mid-April of each year, and can be of two, three, or four weeks duration.
Important Notes:
- The Department of Emergency Medicine only handles elective requests for Calgary’s four adult emergency departments, which are staffed by specialists in emergency medicine. Requests for pediatric emergency medicine electives should be directed to the Department of Pediatrics and requests for electives at our urban urgent care centers or smaller rural emergency departments should be directed to the Department of Family Medicine.
Visiting Student Clerkship Electives
The University of Calgary Department of Emergency Medicine welcomes visiting elective students from LCME accredited medical schools in Canada and the United States. Electives can be of two weeks of duration. All electives start on a Monday and end on a Sunday. While elective students usually work at both the Foothills Medical Centre and the Peter Lougheed Centre, students can also work at our other two adult emergency departments (Rockyview General Hospital and South Health Campus) by special request.
Note that we receive many more requests than we are able to accommodate, and interested applicants are advised to apply for an elective as early as possible after the applicant period opens in early February. All applications must be made through the AFMC student portal. Information on application procedures, deadlines, and blackout periods can be found on thewww.ucalgary.ca/mdprogram/visitingelectives">http://www.ucalgary.ca/mdprogram/visitingelectives">University of Calgary visiting student site.
Important Notes:
- The Department of Emergency Medicine only handles elective requests for Calgary’s four adult emergency departments, which are staffed by specialists in emergency medicine. Requests for pediatric emergency medicine electives should be directed to the Department of Pediatrics and requests for electives at our urban urgent care centers or smaller rural emergency departments should be directed to the Department of Family Medicine.
- Only applicants currently enrolled at LCME accredited medical schools in the U.S. and Canada are eligible to apply. No exceptions to this rule will be made, regardless of an applicants country of birth or citizenship.
MDCN 440 “electives”
At the Med440 information session held each year in April, students will receive information about available Med440 placements. After this information session, interested students can contact the DEM Office of Elective and Off-Service Education by email Judy Mackay in order to request pairing with an emergency medicine preceptor for either block 1 or block 2 of this course.