Repeated Rotations

Dear All,

In late 2011 the AMSS became aware of student dissatisfaction regarding allocation to rotations that they had already conducted.

It became apparent that Fifth Year students going into Sixth Year in 2012 were being allocated to rotations which they had already conducted in Fourth or Fifth Year. The repeated allocation of students to the same rotations raised questions regarding equity and also regarding providing a broad base of clinical experience during Medical School.

On the basis of this student discontent, the AMSS raised the matter with the Faculty. This took the form of a letter sent to Professor Faull (Dean and Director of the Medical Program). This letter is attached below for your reference.

In email discussions with Professor Faull, it was explained that it was administratively infeasible to develop a system to take Fourth and Fifth Year rotations into account when allocating students to rotations in Sixth Year.

The AMSS subsequently estimated that there are approximately 57 unallocated Sixth Year internships in 2012 (46 medical internships and 11 surgical internships). The AMSS suggested that allowing students to swap into these unallocated rotations would ameliorate the existing problem of repeat allocation to identical rotations. It was explained that this was not possible because of high clinical supervision requirements, but that the capacity to swap with other students (e.g: to allocated internships) would help minimise the problems.

This is a matter that has been flagged for follow-up in the future. If you have any questions or concerns then please do not hesitate to contact Tom Crowhurst or Karthik Venkataraman.

Kind regards,

Your AMSS